Alight

  “Bishop,” she says. “Oh my gods, it’s good to see you!”

  Bawden sprints in from the right, but she doesn’t run to Bello. Musket butt tight against her shoulder, she scans the intersection, looking everywhere, ready to bring the barrel up on a moment’s notice. Seeing nothing, she steps into the ship’s open hatch.

  Bishop has forgotten the danger—Bawden has not. Bishop is still hugging Bello, still laughing.

  But is that Bello? Or is it Bello’s creator, wearing my friend’s body like a new suit?

  Bishop sets her down. I haven’t seen him smile like that since we landed.

  “You’re safe,” he says. “Was anyone with you?”

  She shakes her head. “Only me.”

  Bawden steps out of the ship. “It’s empty.”

  Coyotl hops over the spider’s protective ridge, lands without a sound. He hugs Bello.

  Bawden takes her eyes off the surrounding buildings long enough to squeeze Bello’s arm and smile, then the circle-star with the shaved head is once again looking for threats.

  Everyone is happy to see Bello—except me. Am I the only one who understands the danger?

  “You escaped,” I say. “How did you escape?”

  She smiles up at me until she realizes I’m not smiling back. Her smile fades.

  The others glance at me with odd expressions, like I should be down on the street with them, celebrating.

  My mind is shouting at me to believe: It’s her! It’s her! You left her and that was awful but she got away and now it’s okay! If I go down there, if I touch her, smell her, I know I will lose the ability to think about this logically. I’ll stay on the spider until this is finished.

  “It’s me,” she says, softly, “It’s me.”

  It is Bello, I can see her, she’s right in front of me.

  It isn’t Bello, can’t be, she’s been overwritten.

  I reach out my good hand, take the musket from Muller. He’s so surprised he doesn’t even struggle to keep hold.

  “Get out,” I say to him.

  There must be something in my voice, because the twelve-year-old kicks a leg over the protective ridge, scrambles down the rails and drops down to the vine-covered street.

  I put the musket butt to my shoulder. My splinted fingers make it hard to hold the weapon, so I rest the barrel on the spider’s protective ridge. I’ve never fired one of these, but I’ve seen it done, and it’s not like it takes a Spingate or a Gaston to figure out how to pull a trigger.

  I aim at Bello’s chest.

  Bishop looks at me, confused.

  “Em, what are you doing?”

  Everyone stands there like they don’t know what to do. I certainly don’t. I have no idea if this is my friend or an evil thing that is a thousand years old. I have to find out.

  “Answer my question,” I say to Bello. “How did you escape?”

  I see tears in her wide hazel eyes—quick to cry, just like the Bello I knew.

  Bishop shakes his head slightly. He can’t process this. He and I were gutted that we had to leave her behind. The guilt has been with us every moment since, shaping us like strong hands forming wet clay. Now he is free of that guilt and the relief blinds him.

  Bawden continues to scan the surrounding buildings, as if none of this matters to her.

  Coyotl shifts from foot to foot, looking at Bello, looking at me.

  Muller has no idea what to do. He looks from me, to Bello, to Bishop and back again.

  I remember the black hand grabbing Bello’s mouth, the black arm wrapping around her waist, yanking her backward into the greenery. I remember that look of terror in her eyes. I remember not being able to save her.

  I remember abandoning her.

  “How did you escape?”

  “Brewer helped me,” she says. The tears are coming fast now, wet trails glistening in the light of two moons. “The Grownups who grabbed me put me in a cell. There was a fight between the Grownups.”

  “About what?” I say. “What were they fighting about?

  She slowly shakes her head.

  “I don’t know. I heard some explosions, some screams, then this Grownup opened my cell, said his name was Brewer. He took me to this ship.”

  It can’t be that simple. It can’t.

  “They had you for days,” I say. “Your brain would have been overwritten.”

  Her hands go to her shoulders…she’s hugging herself, just like she did back on the Xolotl when she got upset.

  “They tried,” she says. “They put me in a coffin, put this thing on my head, but their machine didn’t work.” She closes her eyes, rubs hard at her temples. “I thought I was going to die. It hurt so bad, and it messed up my brain a little. I still recognize faces, but a lot of the stuff that happened since we came out of the coffins is gone. It’s okay, though, because when the pain stopped, I was still myself. Did you hear what I said, Em? Their overwriting machine failed.”

  “That doesn’t explain how you escaped,” I say. “You don’t know how to fly, Bello. You’re just a circle.”

  “I didn’t fly the ship. Brewer told me to get in, that he’d handle the rest.”

  Brewer controlled so many things on the Xolotl. Is it possible he could have sent the ship down, guided it to this crash landing?

  “Brewer told me there was only one shuttle left,” I say. “How do you explain that?”

  “Look at it.” She gestures to the lumpy ship. “It’s not a shuttle. It was used to repair the outside of the Xolotl. Something like that, I think…I don’t remember his exact words, I was so scared.”

  Wouldn’t Brewer have told me there was a second ship capable of reaching Omeyocan? But if he held back that bit of information, then Bello’s story is believable. At the same time, if she really is a Grownup, I imagine she can lie without the slightest effort. I need Spingate and Gaston to take a look at her. And Smith—maybe there’s a physical way to tell the difference between our Bello and whatever happens when we’re overwritten.

  Or…maybe I can remember something Bello and I talked about, something the Grownup Bello wouldn’t know. We weren’t together long, we didn’t really talk about that much. Except for one thing…

  “On the Xolotl, before we met Bishop’s group,” I say. “We all talked about our favorite desserts. What was Aramovsky’s?”

  Please say cupcakes, please say cupcakes…

  Bello licks her lips. She’s not looking at me, she’s staring down the barrel of the gun.

  “I…I told you, my memories are scrambled. Em, please…it’s me.”

  She doesn’t know. Did the overwrite process damage her memories? Or is that the perfect lie—if she can’t remember anything, there’s nothing we can do to prove she is not who she says she is.

  Bello clasps her hands together in front of her chest.

  “Please,” she says. “Please don’t kill me.”

  Bishop steps in front of her.

  “That’s enough,” he says. “Put down the weapon.”

  I stand there for a second, confused, until I realize my shaking hands could accidentally pull the trigger and shoot Bishop.

  I lower the musket.

  Dammit, Bishop…

  Maybe I had the will to pull the trigger, but now I’ll never know. That moment has passed—I can’t bring myself to do it again.

  “Let’s get back to the shuttle,” I say. “Bello, you come up here with Coyotl and me. The rest of you, run back on foot.”

  Coyotl guides her to the spider, helps her up. She finds a place to stand that is as far away from me as she can get.

  Bawden finally slings her musket.

  “Should someone stay with this ship?” she asks. “Muller and I can watch it.”

  Leave someone behind? Looking at Bello, that’s the last thing I want to do now. Besides, we know Springers can get into the city. At least Barkah can. Spingate and I were making progress with him, but we didn’t exactly part on good terms. He is an alien; as much as I
’d like to think we could be friends, I realize I have no idea what he is really thinking, or what his kind is capable of doing.

  “We’re not splitting up,” I say. “Everyone move out.”

  Bello stares up at me, crying silently.

  “Close it,” I say.

  The medical coffin’s lids rise up and shut tight.

  I turn to face Smith, who is looking at some images floating above her white pedestal.

  “I’ll try,” she says. “But even if the overwriting process changed her brain somehow, I’m not sure there’s any physical way to tell. I’ve never examined Bello before, so there’s nothing to compare her current state against. But I’ll try, I really will.”

  Smith seems eager to help. She wants to get back into my good graces, perhaps—she knows I’m furious at her for betraying Spingate’s confidence.

  “Do your best,” I say, wondering if she actually will without Aramovsky telling her to do so.

  Outside the medical room, Bishop is waiting for me. He’s anxious. The emotion doesn’t suit him well.

  “It’s Bello,” he says quietly. “Don’t you think we’d be able to tell if it wasn’t our friend?”

  I say nothing. We head for the pilothouse.

  He wants to believe so badly when he should doubt her every word. I’m disappointed in him. When I thought I would do anything to keep him from thinking poorly of me, it never crossed my mind that the situation might someday be reversed.

  In the pilothouse, Gaston, Spingate and O’Malley are waiting for us. The walls show images of people talking in the coffin room, the dark landing pad outside with three spiders standing watch, and Bello’s closed coffin in the medical room.

  “Smith doesn’t know if she can detect overwriting,” I say. “Spin, anything in your lab that would help us?”

  She won’t make eye contact. Right away, I’m sure she’s holding something back. I’m so hungry, my fingers hurt, my shoulders ache and my head is pounding—I don’t have patience for more secrets.

  “Speak up,” I snap. “Not telling me the truth is the same as lying to me.”

  She flinches. That hurt—I wanted it to hurt. I’m done with this girl hiding things from me.

  Bishop crosses his arms. “Now you’re starting in on Spingate? Who will you doubt next? Me?”

  “If you keep acting like a gullible kid, yes. Bello could be playing you for a fool, so stop thinking we don’t have to pay a price for leaving her behind, and start thinking about the safety of this shuttle and our people.”

  Bishop’s lip curls. He’s not used to anyone speaking to him that way.

  Gaston puts his hand on Spingate’s back, rubs a small circle.

  “Just tell her,” he says.

  She brushes back her thick red curls, struggles to force out the words.

  “One of the things my progenitor studied was the overwriting process,” she says. “I can only recall a little bit. Just snippets, really. I’ll try to remember if there’s a way to test Bello, but…Em, I…my progenitor…she wanted to learn how to erase people. She liked it.”

  Gaston glares at me like it’s my fault I dragged that out of her, like all of a sudden Spingate is this fragile thing that needs protecting. Why, because she’s pregnant? Spingate can take care of herself.

  “I know how you feel,” I say to her. “But we can’t control the evil things our creators did. We can only control the choices we make. Do your best.”

  She nods. “I will. But I should be focusing on the red mold instead.”

  “Zubiri will do that,” I say. “You focus on Bello.”

  O’Malley shakes his head. “So this is more important than food? The Grownups made receptacles so they could live on Omeyocan. If this Bello is a Grownup, then she got what she wanted. Anything she does to harm us also harms her. If our Bello is gone, I’m sorry about that, but we shouldn’t be wasting our time with this. Besides, she’s too small to be a threat.”

  What is he thinking? I’m small, and I’ve killed twice. But does he have a point? Bello is alone. What can she do—trick people to go back to her lumpy ship and return to the Xolotl? Only six of us would fit in there, seven at most.

  No…there is a way for her to take all of us.

  “Bello said she didn’t fly the lumpy ship,” I say. I look at Gaston. “If she’s lying, if she did fly it here, does that mean she’d have the skills needed to fly the shuttle back to the Xolotl?”

  I see realization hit home on my friends’ faces. Bishop’s arms uncross. O’Malley glances at the wall showing Bello’s coffin. Maybe now he understands that you don’t have to be big to be dangerous.

  “Maybe she could,” Gaston says. “Different ships usually have different controls, though. I’d have to see that lumpy ship to know if she could fly the shuttle.”

  “Then go look,” I say. “Right now.”

  “Coyotl will take you on his spider,” Bishop says. “I’ll send Muller as well, with a musket.”

  Bishop isn’t volunteering to go, because he wants to stay in the shuttle—he finally understands the real threat might be here, with us, not somewhere out there.

  “I won’t go,” Gaston says. “Bello could be one of them. I’m not leaving Spingate here alone.”

  “There’s hundreds of us here,” Spingate says. “I won’t be alone.”

  “I’ll watch out for her,” I say. “I’ll make sure Bishop watches her, too. Gaston, we need to know.”

  He shakes his head, squares his shoulders. “Send Beckett. He’s studied hard, he knows how to fly.”

  Spingate rolls her eyes. “Gaston, I’ll be fine. Go!”

  He turns on her. “I said no. That baby is ours—you don’t get to make all the decisions just because you’re the one carrying it. I’m not going, you’re not going, and if you had told me you were pregnant before you went out looking for the Springers, I would have said the same godsdamn thing then!”

  Spingate’s wide green eyes blink. She’s shocked. So am I, so are all of us. We’ve never seen Gaston this angry.

  She knew about the baby before she and I set out to find the Springers—but she hadn’t told him. Maybe she didn’t because she knows him better than I do, because she knew he would have fought against her going.

  “We’ll send Beckett,” I say.

  Gaston lets out a long breath. “Thank you for understanding. I…it’s not that I don’t want to do what you ask, it’s just that…well, I have to keep Spingate safe.”

  That word, yet again. Safe—how can anyone still believe it exists?

  I spent the rest of the night, the morning and most of the afternoon in a med-chamber, getting my broken fingers fixed. They still hurt, but nowhere near as bad. I can grip the spear properly again.

  Bello got out of her med-chamber before I did, but I planned for that, telling Farrar to watch her closely.

  I’d hoped to come out of medical to answers, but that didn’t happen. Spingate found nothing to prove that Bello is a Grownup. Neither did Smith. Science and medicine have failed me, so I’m trying the only thing I can think of—having my friends see if they can spot anything weird.

  Almost everyone is in the coffin room, listening to Bello tell of her escape. People want her story to be true. Of course they do—they want a future that is nice and neat. They want to believe that the Grownups’ overwriting machine is a failure, and that we don’t have to worry about evil creatures in orbit preparing to erase us.

  The kids, especially, hang on Bello’s every word. Not counting her, there are eighteen teenagers left in our group, people who were with Bello on the Xolotl. Beckett and Coyotl are at Bello’s ship, leaving sixteen of us. At my subtle instruction, the teenagers don’t just listen to Bello, they watch her, looking for any indication she is not who she says she is.

  And besides—a good story is a welcome distraction from our growing hunger.

  At least I know Bello won’t try anything with all these people watching. Farrar will make sure she doesn’t
go farther into the ship, or go off by herself outside.

  When Beckett, Coyotl and Muller return, I’ll have more information. If Bello’s ship could be flown by autopilot—that’s what Gaston calls it when a ship flies itself—or if Brewer could have guided it down remotely, that means Bello might be telling the truth. I’ll let her join us, but I’ll make sure she’s never alone.

  If it turns out her ship can’t be flown without a pilot? Then she’s lying; she’s a Grownup. I will lock her in one of the shuttle’s storage rooms until we figure out what to do with her. We’ll have to treat her like a prisoner. We’ll have to question her.

  A nagging voice in my head tells me, Just lock her up now…or have her killed, immediately…it’s the only way to be sure.

  It’s not my father’s voice this time, it’s Matilda’s. And to some degree, it’s mine, too.

  The only way to be sure…

  I force myself to look away from Bello. If Matilda were in my shoes, she’d kill Bello, but I am not Matilda—I will find another solution.

  Like the rest of us, I want Bello’s story to be true. I want that desperately. Not just because I love her—the old her, anyway—but because if she’s telling the truth, I can go look for Barkah. My people are hungry. If that continues, I know Aramovsky will make a move. I think I have one day left before he does, maybe two.

  I remember Barkah’s anger at seeing Bello’s ship. Did he react like that when our shuttle came down? Probably. His grandparents, or great-grandparents or even farther back than that, must have seen the first ships from the Xolotl release the war machines. To the Springers, perhaps ships mean death.

  But Barkah had never seen actual humans before. None of his kind had. They’d only seen machines. Not that encountering people has been that much better for the Springers—my kind leaves a trail of death wherever we go.

  Bello finishes her story by describing a daring run down a dark corridor, chased by horrifying Grownups. She reaches her lumpy ship just in time, is shot out of the Xolotl to safety. It’s like something out of a storybook—it would be unbelievable if the same thing hadn’t happened to us when we took the shuttle.