The Always War

  Tessa glared at him.

  “Let me get this straight,” she said. “Had you ever actually even flown a plane before last night? A plane you were sitting in for real?”

  Gideon bit his lip and shook his head.

  “No,” he admitted.

  “Then the only brave thing you ever did in your entire life was the way you were trying to commit suicide?” Tessa asked.

  Gideon gaped at her.

  “Not suicide,” he protested. “Not that. I was trying to … make amends. Atone. There was no other way. I couldn’t undo what I did. I couldn’t bring anybody back to life. So I thought the closest thing I could do to making everything right was just to … apologize.”

  “And then you expected the enemy to kill you,” Tessa said. “I heard what you said! You were asking to be punished!”

  Her head spun. Her stomach churned. This was a nightmare. She’d believed in him. In that moment that she’d dived for him and shut the door, she’d believed completely that he was still noble and true and heroic. That even if she took a bullet intended for him, it would be worth it. She wouldn’t have minded sacrificing her own life for his.

  But now … she didn’t know what to make of the bombing raid that the computer insisted had just happened. She didn’t know what would happen next. But she had definitely put herself in danger for Gideon. She’d risked her life for him.

  And he’d never been anything but a fake.

  “Tessa,” Gideon said pleadingly, and it was like he was asking her to look at him the way she’d looked at him before, when she’d idolized him.

  “I’m going to die because of you,” Tessa said. “For no reason. For nothing.”

  Something rattled behind them, and Tessa realized how foolish they’d been, talking about bombs that hadn’t actually fallen, about a massacre that had happened ages ago—when both of them were in danger now. It probably hadn’t been more than ten or fifteen minutes since Gideon had stood in the door of the airplane asking someone to kill him. He’d just gotten a ten-minute reprieve, while the enemy gathered their forces, plotted their strategies …

  Tessa whirled around, her eyes quickly scanning the door and both windows. Maybe there was still some hope. If the enemy was trying to get in through the window on the left, maybe she and Gideon could escape through the door to the right.

  But as far as Tessa could tell, there wasn’t anyone trying to get in through the door or either of the windows. Instead the handle of the closet door was jerking up and down, on its own, as if by magic.

  That was the source of the rattling noise.

  “Where does that lead to?” Tessa hissed at Gideon. “Outside?”

  He didn’t answer. He was already jumping from his seat and scrambling toward the closet, his hand stretched out toward the handle. He clearly planned to hold it shut, his brute strength keeping out whoever was on the other side.

  He was too late. The door sprang open, swinging outward.

  And then someone rolled out from behind the door: a kid. A kid who was all big eyes in a too-thin face, mostly hidden behind spikily cut dark hair and ragged clothes. The kid blinked, the outsized eyes taking in the sight of Gideon standing over her and Tessa looming nearby.

  “Oh, crud,” the kid said. “You were supposed to be gone by now.”

  CHAPTER

  16

  “Who are you?” Tessa asked.

  “Whose side are you on?” Gideon asked.

  “Where did you come from?” Tessa asked.

  “What were you doing in that closet?” Gideon asked.

  “What do you mean we were supposed to be gone by now?” Tessa asked.

  The kid didn’t answer either of them. Tessa saw the kid’s gaze flicker from Gideon to Tessa to the door to the windows … to the pilot’s seat.

  Gideon must have noticed this too.

  “Do you know how to reset the plane for flying, when it’s been disabled?” he asked. He glared at her. “Were you the one who disabled it?”

  The kid’s eyes kept darting about.

  “Why aren’t you outside checking out the engine, to see why it isn’t working?” the kid said. “People always go out to check the engine.”

  “Not in enemy territory,” Tessa said drily.

  Tessa wouldn’t have thought it possible, but the kid’s eyes got even bigger.

  “What?” the kid asked. “Where are we?”

  She sprang up and dashed toward the pilot’s seat.

  “Keep down!” Gideon commanded. “You don’t want anyone to see you through the windows!”

  The kid had already dropped into a rolling position to get past the windows.

  I think she knows more than Gideon and I do about staying out of sight, Tessa thought.

  There was something familiar about the kid’s nervous, jerky movements. Suddenly Tessa knew why.

  “It was you!” she burst out. “You were the one following Gideon last night!”

  “What?” Gideon asked.

  “Someone was following you, all the way from the apartment building to that dark alley where you got the plane,” Tessa said. “That’s why I started following you, because I was going to warn you—”

  “When were you planning to tell me that?” Gideon asked.

  “Well, we’ve been a little bit busy,” Tessa said sarcastically. “Anyhow, once you started talking to that man in the alley, I thought it was just him who’d been following you. Obviously, you knew he was there.”

  “You mean Rondo?” the kid asked, as she eased into the pilot’s seat. “You think Rondo would do his own surveillance? Never! He might actually have to break a sweat!”

  Gideon looked at Tessa as soon as the kid’s back was turned. If Tessa hadn’t just decided she was completely disillusioned with Gideon, she would have been thrilled by that look, because it was so conspiratorial. It clearly said, I trust you. I don’t trust this kid. We’re partners against her, all right?

  Tessa flashed a look back at Gideon. She hoped he could read her thoughts in her face: Look, that kid weighs maybe seventy pounds. I think either one of us could overpower her if we had to. Why don’t we pretend to go along with whatever she says, and see if she can actually get the plane working again?

  Aloud, Tessa said, “Then … if you’ve been on this plane since back in Waterford City, you’re probably not one of the enemy. Are you?”

  “Doesn’t seem logical, does it?” the kid agreed. “If I were the enemy, why would I bother infiltrating Eastam, just to secretly fly back with you to … oh, crap! We really are in the war zone!” She’d refreshed the computer screen and was staring at the same geographical coordinates Gideon had called up before. “I was hoping you were just too stupid to read the navigational data, but it turns out you’re even bigger fools than I thought. Why in the world would you have …” She was turning around in her seat to face them, and suddenly shouted, “Get down!”

  Automatically, Tessa and Gideon dropped to the floor.

  “Where are they coming from?” Gideon asked in a tense whisper. “Where’s the attack?”

  The kid rolled her eyes side to side, glancing toward each window.

  “There’s no attack yet, that I can see,” she said, and now her voice was hushed and urgent too. “That was mostly just a precaution. Testing your reflexes. You don’t know the angle anyone could be looking from, through those windows. We’ve got to go into desperado mode. I want to get out of here alive, so it’s probably a package deal. I’ll have to keep the two of you alive too.”

  “That would be … nice,” Tessa said faintly. She had rug burn on her cheek now, along with the bruises from falling last night.

  Gideon had begun crawling on his elbows toward the front of the plane, so Tessa decided to do the same.

  “Look,” Gideon said. “I’m a military pilot. I know how to—”

  The kid cut him off with a snort.

  “The fact you ended up here, that’s pretty much proof you don’t know squat,” she
said. She snorted again. “Military pilots! Bunch of pampered, overfed desk jockeys, think they know how to fly …”

  “He flew here on purpose,” Tessa said, because even though she was disillusioned with Gideon, she didn’t think he deserved quite that much scorn.

  “Why?” the kid asked.

  “To apologize,” Gideon said. “I … killed a lot of people here last year.”

  “What—you wanted to visit their graves? You thought they were going to be able to hear you?” the kid asked. She had her head tilted to the side, sneaking glances toward the windows.

  “No—I was going to apologize to the survivors,” Gideon said.

  “You did apologize,” Tessa said. Once again she felt like she needed to defend him. She looked back at the kid. “He stood right in the doorway, and announced everything he’d done, and asked for punishment….”

  “You had the door open?” the kid asked, snapping her attention back from the windows and leaning closer to Tessa and Gideon. “What did you see outside?”

  Tessa was annoyed with herself that she hadn’t thought to ask that question a long time ago.

  Believing you’re about to die … it kind of makes it hard to think straight, she told herself.

  Gideon winced.

  “I didn’t actually see anything,” he admitted. “I kind of … had my eyes shut. I just thought a military plane with the enemy’s insignia on the outside … it was bound to attract attention….”

  “So we don’t know what’s going on outside,” the kid said. “You disabled the exterior cameras last night, and it’s going to take another minute or two for them to cycle back on. So we don’t know if it’s going to be safer to restart the engines right now, or if it’s safer to wait until dark. Do we have enough fuel to get back home?”

  “I didn’t think I’d need—,” Gideon began.

  “Never mind,” the kid said. “I don’t want to slow the computer down by checking data like that in the overall system right now. But there’s a manual fuel gauge in that closet. Works even when the engine’s been disabled.” A mischievous look danced over her face, almost as if she were enjoying herself. “Could one of you go see what it says?”

  Gideon and Tessa looked at each other.

  “I will,” Gideon said, and began crawling back toward the closet.

  The kid motioned for Tessa to crawl closer to the pilot’s seat.

  Is this a trap? Tessa wondered. Would I be a fool to trust her?

  She reminded herself that the kid was scrawny and undersized, and that Gideon was nearby. What did she expect the kid to do?

  She lurched forward.

  “What you have to ask yourself,” the kid said in a low voice that Gideon probably wouldn’t be able to hear from back at the closet, “is why he made that choice. Is he protecting you? Or did he pick what he thought was the safer job for himself?”

  “Or,” Tessa said, “was he just not sure I’d be able to read a manual fuel gauge?”

  The kid raised an eyebrow in surprise.

  “Ah,” she said. “You’re someone who tries to consider all the possibilities. I like that. Might come in handy getting us out of here.” She stuck out her hand. “I’m Dek.”

  Tessa shook it.

  “Tessa,” she said. She tilted her head backward. “And he’s Gideon Thrall.”

  Tessa had kind of expected the name to make an impact on Dek, but Dek’s expression didn’t change.

  “He your boyfriend?” she asked.

  Tessa hesitated.

  “No,” she said.

  “Good,” Dek said. “Never fall in love with one of those ex-military types. Sometimes their brains are a little scrambled. And I’d say he’s showing all the signs.” She pointed over her shoulder, back toward Gideon.

  It annoyed Tessa that Dek could sound so world-weary and wise when she didn’t even look like she’d passed her tenth birthday. Tessa wanted to defend Gideon again, but she couldn’t exactly say he’d been acting normal.

  “How do you know he’s ex-military?” Tessa challenged instead.

  “One, he just bought a stolen military plane on the black market,” Dek said. “And, two, he flew it into enemy territory. If he wasn’t ex-military before, he’s ex-military now.”

  Tessa opened her mouth to respond to that. She wanted to change the subject. What could she say to tease out more information about Dek and Dek’s reasons for stowing away on the plane?

  How does she know this is a stolen, black-market airplane? Tessa wondered. Is she pretty much admitting that she works for the black marketers?

  Just then the entire plane shuddered. Something had rammed into it. Tessa jerked her head to the right, half expecting to see a gaping hole in the side. The wall still looked the same, but a moment later the plane shuddered again.

  “Change of plans!” Dek screamed. She was simultaneously fastening a seat belt across her lap and stabbing frantically at the computer screen. “We’re not waiting for the external cameras to come on! We are taking off now! Let’s get out of here!”

  CHAPTER

  17

  The entire plane lurched to the side once more, almost rolling over. But then the engine zoomed to life. Dek had known how to revive it. She did something to rev it up, the almost inaudible hum of the night before replaced by a fearsome growl.

  Gideon jumped back from the closet.

  “No!” he shouted. “They’ll hear us!”

  “What—don’t you think they already know we’re here?” Dek screamed back at him. “We need as much power as we can get!”

  “You’ll have the whole country out here shooting at us!” Gideon yelled.

  “You don’t think that’s going to happen anyway?” Dek yelled back.

  The plane jerked forward. Tessa almost fell over backward, but caught the column at the last minute. Gideon slammed against the closet door.

  “You don’t have the external cameras working yet!” he screamed, squinting toward the computer screen in front of Dek. “You’re flying blind!”

  “Then look out the freaking window!” Dek screamed.

  Objections flooded Tessa’s mind: What? You want to give the enemy something to shoot at instead of you? And If the whole country’s going to be shooting at us, why even try? And Is this another of your tests? This is no time to check out how good our reflexes are, or whether Gideon is going to protect himself or me!

  Tessa stepped toward the window anyhow. It was a relief, finally, to look out, to stop imagining the horrendous enemies swarming toward her and just stare them down.

  Tessa saw … trees.

  She blinked, thinking, How can the enemy be so good at hiding when they’re attacking us? She tilted her head this way and that. There. Off to the side, practically out of sight, a huge dark shape slammed against the tail end of the plane.

  The whole plane shuddered again.

  “It’s a … buffalo? A moose?” Tessa guessed. She tried to remember pictures she’d seen in books. “Bison?”

  The plane lurched forward, the engine grinding louder.

  “Prepare for takeoff!” Dek screamed from the front.

  Tessa grabbed the rim of the window, holding on as well as she could. The plane zigzagged, and Tessa got a better glimpse of the creature behind them.

  “Definitely a moose!” she cried. “I see antlers!”

  Gideon dived toward her, pressing his face against the glass too.

  “So the enemy is using animatronic robots, disguised as ordinary wildlife,” he muttered. “Could their robotics program be that far ahead of ours? I have to get back to HQ to tell them this!”

  “I don’t know,” Tessa said doubtfully. “It looks real.”

  “Exactly,” Gideon said.

  “I mean …,” Tessa began, then gave up.

  The plane lifted as it lurched forward, and the creature raised its head to watch. Tessa would have liked to just stand there and stare. The moose, if that’s what it was, was so majestic, so … extravagant
… the immense antlers unfurling so gracefully on either side of his head. This was a creature that wasn’t afraid to take up a lot of space—in fact, it didn’t seem to be afraid of anything.

  Gideon shoved Tessa down, away from the window.

  “They’ll be shooting at us soon,” he muttered. He turned his head toward Dek at the front of the plane. “Please tell me you’ve got the antiaircraft defense shields up!”

  “Of course!” Dek snarled back at him. “I never disabled anything but the engine, and as you can hear, it’s working now. You disabled, what? Forty separate systems? Fifty?”

  “Only the ones that had your bosses’ tracking codes embedded in them,” Gideon muttered. “They must not trust you much, to have that much backup. What’s the system—every time they sell a plane, you stow away, make it look like it’s broken, and then steal it back?”

  Tessa expected Dek to deny this, but she only shrugged.

  “Usually the buyers are so rich and so drunk, it’s kind of a safety precaution, getting the plane away from them,” she said. “It’s my way of making sure all the rich drunk guys stay alive so they can keep buying things from my bosses.”

  She sounded distracted, huddled over the instrument panel. She slammed her hand against her seat.

  “Come on, cameras—now! We need you!”

  The plane lurched to the side—automatically dodging antiaircraft fire? Automatically dodging something else? Or just … by mistake? Tessa didn’t know enough about flying to be able to tell.

  “You should let me take the controls,” Gideon said, inching along the floor toward the pilot’s seat. “To keep us all alive.”

  Dek didn’t even look at him.

  “In an emergency the rule is you let the most experienced pilot fly,” she said. “And in this plane that’s me. I’ve got hundreds of flying hours. Real flying hours.”

  Tessa expected Gideon to argue, but he didn’t.

  “You went to the military academy too,” he said, watching Dek’s scrawny hands dance over the instrument panel.

  “Wrong,” Dek corrected him. “I was selected for the military academy. Didn’t go. There’s a difference.”