Alight

  “O’Malley, can you draw?”

  “Of course I can.”

  I point to the cloth I marked up with lines. “Draw the purple fruit I brought back to the shuttle. Quickly.”

  O’Malley starts right in. His lines are soft, delicate and perfect. The shape of the fruit is exactly right. He adds shading—it looks so real I could almost pick it up.

  Barkah starts stamping his left foot. Hard to tell for sure, but I think he’s delighted.

  I tap my fingertip on the drawing, look at the Springer prince.

  “This,” I say. “Where do we find this?”

  He gives me an odd look, and I’m pretty sure I understand what it means—he thinks I’m kidding.

  I thump the drawing hard.

  “Please. Where do we find this? Show us!”

  Barkah glances at Lahfah. Lahfah hobbles to the double doors, motions for us to follow.

  Outside, the rain has stopped. Twin moons shine down, lighting up the jungle with a spooky glow.

  Lahfah hobbles to a tree, taps it. I look up, searching for the purple fruits. I don’t see any.

  “Where are they?” O’Malley asks. “Oh no, what if they aren’t in season?”

  Rekis and Tohdohbak both make that broken-glass noise: they are laughing at us.

  The two Springers hop to the tree. Their hands grip a vine that clings tightly to the trunk. Together, they pull once, twice—on the third yank, the vine rips away from the trunk, chunks of bark coming with it. Rekis pulls a knife, slices the vine at eye-level. The severed end dangles there, held aloft by the rest of the vine that snakes through the branches above.

  “Maybe they thought we meant something else,” O’Malley says. “Should I go get the drawing?”

  I would answer, but I’m holding my breath.

  Rekis and Tohdohbak grip the part of the vine that’s growing up from the ground. Together, they count—“Kayat, jeg, nar”—and they pull. The wet ground at the base of the vine breaks, lifts up a little.

  “It can’t be,” I say. “All this time, it was that easy?”

  O’Malley looks at me. “I don’t understand.”

  “Kayat, jeg, nar,” and they pull again. The ground gives way. They stumble back, holding the vine. From the end dangles the purple fruit, thin strands of white fiber sticking off it, clods of dirt clinging to the purple surface and strands alike.

  “We were looking in the wrong place,” O’Malley says, astonished. “It’s not fruit at all—it’s a root.”

  The root of the vines that cover city streets, jungle trees, buildings, ruins…the secret to our survival has been all around us, all this time.

  “Vines are everywhere,” O’Malley says. “Aramovsky is taking us to war for something that’s everywhere we look.”

  War.

  I look at the night sky. Off to the east, the first hints of glowing red—maybe an hour until dawn.

  “Barkah, we need to leave,” I say. I reach out, tap his fist, the one holding the coin and the piece of glass. “We have to stop the battle.”

  He barks out orders. Rekis fast-hops into the building, comes out with the map and O’Malley’s drawing of the fruit. Rekis keeps the map—Barkah takes the fruit drawing, rolls it up and carefully puts it in his bag.

  The Springer prince pauses. He looks at the knife in his belt, traces the handle with his fingertips, admiring the weapon by both sight and touch.

  Then he barks more orders.

  Rekis and Tohdohbak plunge into the jungle, headed for the trail. Barkah follows, gesturing for us to walk with him. Lahfah unslings his musket and lumbers along behind, a hobbling rear guard.

  Together, we’re heading off to stop a war.

  And, hopefully, not get killed in the process.

  —

  We move through the jungle. It’s still dark, yet it’s already getting hot. A thick mist glows with the light of two moons, blankets the endless, overgrown ruins.

  Rekis and Tohdohbak are out front, making sure the trail is safe. O’Malley and I stay with Barkah. Lahfah is in the rear, struggling to keep up.

  Our feet squish in thin mud. As we walk, I rub that mud on my face, tie new vines around me, smear juice in my hair and skin. If something goes wrong, I want to be able to fade away into the jungle.

  O’Malley smiles at me.

  “We’re going to save everyone,” he says. “I can feel it.”

  The moonlight seems to settle in his blue eyes, makes them sparkle. In all that’s happened over the past few days, I’d forgotten how beautiful he is. He’s not a warrior, yet he faced grave danger to be at my side. In a way, that’s even braver than anything Bishop has done.

  O’Malley—Kevin—sees me looking at him. He makes an awkward smile, then shakes his head and faces down the path.

  “What?” I say. “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing.”

  “No, come on, tell me.”

  When he looks at me again, the smile is gone.

  “I told you I loved you,” he says. “You didn’t say how you feel about me.”

  I look down, watch my booted feet splashing along the trail. Why didn’t I tell him how I feel? Because I didn’t know for sure. I still don’t. And besides, we have a war to stop.

  “This isn’t the right time to discuss it,” I tell him.

  A little bit of the light drains from his eyes. He’s still smiling, but it’s not quite as divine as before.

  “I guess it’s never the right time,” he says. “After we stop this battle, what then? We have to gather food, learn to use the purple root, fix what machines we can, deal with Bello…there’s always something, Em.”

  “A war isn’t just a something. Can we focus on that for now?”

  O’Malley’s hands fidget with the hatchet Barkah gave him.

  “It’s all right,” he says. “I get it. You want to be with Bishop.”

  Oh my gods—boys are exasperating.

  “That’s not what I want.”

  He raises an eyebrow. “It’s not? You could have fooled me.”

  He speeds up, pulling ahead of me to walk side by side with Rekis.

  “Hey there,” O’Malley says with forced joviality. “And how is my favorite nonhuman today?”

  Rekis laughs a broken-glass laugh, clearly delighted to be spoken to by an “alien.”

  O’Malley told me he loves me. Bishop didn’t. Is that because Bishop can’t…or because he doesn’t?

  “Hem?”

  Barkah leans closer, blinking. I know, instantly, that the alien is asking if I’m okay. Our two races are drastically different, yet we can read each other somewhat, understand each other’s intent. If we can do that, we can overcome any language barrier.

  “I’m fine,” I say. “Thank you.”

  Barkah points down the path. “Kevin?”

  Is Barkah asking if O’Malley is all right, or if I’m upset because of him? Either way, the only answer I have is to shrug. I doubt Barkah knows what that gesture means, but if he’s going to spend time with teenage humans, he’ll figure it out soon enough.

  When Matilda created me, why couldn’t she have just programmed away these stupid emotions? Life is hard enough without having to worry about who likes who.

  Maybe I should go talk to O’Malley. When I said, That’s not what I want, maybe what I meant was, I don’t know what I want. O’Malley has his faults, sure, but he’s been behind me every step of the way, almost from the moment he woke up. He supports me. He believes in me. And, unlike Bishop, O’Malley comes right out and says how he feels about me.

  Things have been so desperate, so crazy, maybe I don’t know what I want because I haven’t had a moment to actually think about what I want. Now that I do…maybe I want the same thing O’Malley does.

  And that scares me.

  I see him up ahead, walking with Rekis and Tohdohbak. The hanging fog is a haze around them, blocking my view of anything farther down the path.

  Rekis’s long tail rises st
raight up, goes stiff. Barkah grabs me, stops me even as Rekis does the same thing with O’Malley. It’s just like when Visca or Bishop put a fist in the air—a noiseless symbol for everyone to freeze.

  Far up ahead in the mist, I see two figures approaching. Humans. I can’t make them out.

  O’Malley is farther ahead than I am. He must be able to see them better, because he calls out: “Coyotl, is that you?”

  “Hey, O’Malley.”

  Coyotl’s voice—he’s alive!

  O’Malley lets out a whoop of joy. I start to make the same noise, but Barkah squeezes my arm tighter, telling me to stay quiet.

  “Hey,” O’Malley says, his excitement audible, “is that Beckett with you?”

  From the fog, another voice answers. “It is.”

  Beckett? They’re both alive? Maybe Muller is as well. If I can take them to the battlefield with me, and with Barkah, and with the secret of the purple root—Aramovsky’s power will evaporate like so much jungle mist.

  I want to run to them, but Barkah won’t let me go.

  “We didn’t expect you, O’Malley,” Beckett calls. “You’re not supposed to be here. Where’s Em?”

  Why would Beckett say You’re not supposed to be here? Have they already been back to the shuttle? But if they have, why would Aramovsky send Beckett back out looking for me? Beckett is a gear…he’s not suited for stumbling through a hostile jungle in the middle of the night.

  “I have to be honest with you, O’Malley,” Coyotl says. “I think your new friend is really, really ugly.”

  For an instant, the surrounding fog flashes like we’re inside a cloud filled with lightning. Tohdohbak screams—his body is ripped apart, pieces of him scattering through the jungle.

  Tohdohbak’s death cry echoes through the trees. The blazing light blinks out as fast as it flared up, leaving me seeing spots.

  I think of El-Saffani.

  Barkah slams into me, knocking me off the path to the right. We crash hard in the wet underbrush.

  I scramble to my feet, crouching, hands tight on the shovel. We’re under attack. Tohdohbak is dead. Coyotl or Beckett must have killed him. Back at the shuttle, Borjigin was working on the spider cannon. Did he fix it? Is that cannon like the Grownups’ bracelets—the weapons that killed El-Saffani?

  I can’t see through this fog.

  O’Malley, shouting for help, terrified.

  I stay low, in the cover of the underbrush, and move toward the trail’s edge. Barkah is on my right, doing the same thing, musket clutched in his odd hands.

  A burst of red light blinds me as a whump rattles my ears, knocks me flat to my back. The world spins. I hear a Springer screaming in agony.

  I roll to my hands and knees, ignore the pain as I slowly push myself up. My legs feel weak. I grab my shovel.

  I see Barkah, his musket barrel leveled over a fallen log made fuzzy by blue moss that gleams with tiny spots of wetness. The hammer of his weapon is cocked back. He’s trying to find a target through the fog. I run to him, kneel down.

  I look over the log—something fist-sized and black, spinning through the air toward us. It hits the jungle floor, bounces once, then bursts with a whump and a flash of red light—an invisible punch slams me backward through the underbrush. I hit the ground hard, skid, roll into a thick bush.

  Every part of me hurts. My ears ring. The ground seems to lurch and buck beneath me, even though I’m lying flat. What is happening? Where is O’Malley?

  A groan: Barkah, maybe twenty steps away, crumpled and unmoving, on his side at the base of a tree, his musket next to him. He’s hurt. Together, he and I can stop a war—I have to help him, protect him.

  Somehow, I held on to my shovel. I lean on it, fight to regain my balance as I struggle to stand.

  I hear footsteps. I drop down, let the underbrush cover me.

  Through the thick fog, someone is approaching Barkah. Black coveralls. Coyotl? Beckett? Moonlight gleams blue and maroon off the person’s arms and legs. No…those reflections are from a metallic frame worn on his body…

  …a pitch-black, gnarled body…

  The bottom falls out of my world…those aren’t coveralls.

  I’m looking at a Grownup.

  It’s big, not quite Bishop’s size, and wears some kind of suit. A mask covers its face, clear bubbles of glass showing the red eyes beneath. Lines of reflective metal run down its thick arms and legs. On its right arm, just below the elbow, is a silver bracelet, white stone glowing softly, long point ending behind the wrist.

  A spider cannon didn’t kill Tohdohbak—a bracelet did. Just like the bracelets that killed El-Saffani.

  In that horrid instant, everything becomes clear. That thing I couldn’t place, that feeling that I had missed something: Bello wasn’t the only one in the lumpy ship.

  Brewer said the Grownups couldn’t survive on Omeyocan, couldn’t breathe the planet’s air—it never occurred to me that they could bring their own air with them.

  Overwritten Bello was nothing more than a decoy. We focused on her when the real threat had left the lumpy ship before we even arrived. When I sent Coyotl, Beckett and Muller out, the Grownups must have grabbed them.

  Someone joins the Grownup—it’s Beckett, dressed in black coveralls, wearing a bracelet on his right arm.

  Beckett has been overwritten.

  Coyotl, too. He must be. And, if he’s still alive, Muller.

  Beckett and the Grownup cautiously move toward Barkah. They don’t see me. I am a camouflaged black blob crouching in the black shadows, hidden by leaves and vines.

  I could slink away into the jungle. If they catch me, I will be overwritten. Everything that I am will be erased.

  Barkah moves weakly, one of his three eyes a wet, ruined wreck.

  The Grownup takes a step closer to him.

  That tingling feeling, spreading down my scalp. Rage detonates inside me like a crater-making bomb. Our creators…they bring death everywhere they go.

  Yes, I could run, but the time for running is over.

  I am the wind…

  My pain forgotten, I lean forward in a careful jog that grows to a silent sprint.

  Barkah struggles to rise, looks up, sees the Grownup.

  “Ugly bastards,” the Grownup says, and points his bracelet right at Barkah’s face.

  …I am death.

  My foot cracks a branch. The Grownup turns, sees me coming, swings the bracelet-arm in my direction, but the wrinkled abomination is too old and too slow.

  I thrust the shovel forward, putting all my strength, weight and speed behind the blow. The point punches into the black throat, through it. I feel metal on bone, the impact shuddering down the wooden handle, and then no resistance at all.

  A head tumbles through the air, trailing a curving arc of red-gray blood. The mask flies away. The body, lifeless and limp, sags to the ground. The head lands, rolls, stops.

  Beckett stares at the severed head, his face contorted with horror. I start toward him, but stop instantly when his arm snaps up, bracelet point aimed at my chest.

  He’s five steps away. Too far—I’m as good as dead.

  Beckett lowers his arm slightly, seems confused. Why doesn’t he shoot me?

  “Matilda? Is that you under all that gunk?”

  Red-gray drips from my shovel blade.

  I take one step closer—his arm snaps up again. I freeze.

  “Ah, of course, you’re Em,” he says. “So strange. I haven’t seen your face in a thousand years. You look so young. But then again, I guess I look young, too.”

  It’s him, and it’s not. There’s just enough moonlight for me to make out his red hair, his tan skin, the gear symbol on his forehead. This is the shell of a boy I knew, yet his familiar eyes burn with a hate far beyond the years of his body.

  “Go away,” I say. “Leave us. Get in that ship and return to the Xolotl. No one else has to die.”

  He shakes his head. “I’m supposed to take you to her. But you k
now what? If her shell dies, then the old hag has no future. No one will listen to someone who is just going to wither and crumble.” He grins. “If I kill you, that creates a power vacuum. And nature abhors a vacuum.”

  His bracelet’s white stone glows brighter.

  A thunderous bang from right behind me.

  Beckett blinks, confused.

  Blood spurts from a neat hole in his throat. Red and rich, not grayish and sickly, it sprays onto the jungle floor. He tries to say something, but no sound comes out. He takes a single, weak step forward, then falls flat on his face.

  He doesn’t move.

  Barkah’s musket is across his lap, smoke still curling from the barrel. He’s trying to reload it, his every movement clearly an exercise in agony.

  I pull the bracelet off Beckett’s limp arm, slide my own hand through the opening. When the ring is almost to my elbow, something contracts, squeezes. The bracelet clings firmly on my arm. Its lethal point is just behind my wrist.

  If only I knew how to make the damn thing fire.

  I kneel by Barkah’s side. “Can you move?”

  His middle eye is a mangled, horrible sight. The other two green eyes blink, look at me, show recognition.

  He tries to put the rod into the barrel, winces. I set my shovel down, take the musket and do it for him. He hands me a bullet. I pack that down as well, slide the rod into its holding slot, then hand the musket back.

  I hold my left hand in front of him, palm up. I point to him, then place my right pointer and middle finger on the upturned palm. I bounce them, doing my best impression of a Springer’s hop.

  “Move,” I say. “Can you move?”

  “Move,” he answers. He understands. “Hem, move.”

  Shovel in one hand, I reach under Barkah with the other and struggle to lift his weight. The alien makes sharp grunts of pain. The blast threw him hard into that tree, maybe broke things inside him.

  I have to get the prince to safety—but I also have to find O’Malley.

  From behind us, another flash of white lights up the fog. How many Grownups are out here? The enemy seems to be everywhere; the jungle is made of them.