Alone

“Why did we come to Omeyocan?”

  He slowly turns his head to look at me.

  “The prophecy,” he says. “The Founder said the scourge is coming. We’re going where Tlaloc wants us to be. I’m not like you, Matilda—I was born into the church. When the ship leaves, my father says I have to be on it. I don’t have a choice.”

  Now he thinks the Xolotl hasn’t even started its original journey? Maybe looking at my face, the young face of Matilda Savage, is confusing him further.

  And…he said he didn’t have a choice? I’d assumed the Grownups were the cause of everything, that it was their decision to make this journey. Could it be they had no more control over their destiny than we did?

  Aramovsky steps to the wheelchair, squats down on the side opposite me. He stares at Brewer like Brewer is the only thing that exists.

  “You said you were born into the church. What church?”

  Aramovsky doesn’t sound calm anymore. He’s agitated, as if he’s on the verge of remembering something very important.

  Brewer looks at Aramovsky. The bulbous red eyes narrow.

  “You’re playing with me, Boris.”

  B. Aramovsky…the B is for Boris.

  Aramovsky grips the chair’s wheel, squeezes hard.

  “Tell me, Brewer. Right now. What church?”

  “The church, of course,” Brewer says. “The Church of Mictlan.”

  The moment those words leave his mouth, my memories flashfire, make connections that have been right in front of me all along. The Church of Mictlan. The symbol on our red ties, stitched into our black coveralls. The squashed-face symbol on the Xolotl’s round, flat front.

  “Our clothes were school uniforms,” I say. “Our classes, our training…all of us were in the Church of Mictlan.”

  I’ve mocked Aramovsky for his religion, called him a fool, but it turns out religion is what brought us here in the first place. Is he the fool, or am I?

  “How many people were in the church?” Aramovsky asks, both eager and astonished.

  Brewer squints one red eye, thinking.

  “The Founder claims a million at the cotillion in dresses of vermilion,” he says. “But there’s a reason the ship will only take forty thousand, because that’s all there is. Don’t argue with me, Boris—you take the religious history courses far too seriously. Sometimes you don’t use your own brain.”

  Forty thousand? The Birthday Children are not even three hundred strong—forty thousand on the Xolotl seems like an unimaginable amount.

  “You mentioned the scourge,” Bishop says. “I can…I can almost remember that. What is it?”

  “The Abernessia,” Brewer says. “They are coming. The Founder told us so. They bring hellfire and damnation, a pestilence to punish humanity. But when they reach Solomon, we’ll be long gone.”

  Solomon…

  Another flashfire rips through me, through all of us.

  We were little kids, eight years old, taking a shuttle from a planet—from Solomon, our home—up to the Xolotl. Solomon, burning behind us, alien warships raining fire down upon it. Cities wiped out. Millions of people dying.

  And I…I was crying. Screaming. I look at Gaston. He was there with me. So was Aramovsky. And Spingate and O’Malley…Okadigbo and Yong and…and Brewer.

  B. Brewer’s coffin. The emaciated little boy inside, skin dried taut to the skull. Repressed memories flesh out that face, bring hair back to life, reincarnate a mischievous smile, an infectious laugh. I look at the wrinkled, ancient thing sitting in the wheelchair.

  “We were friends,” I say, breathless. “We all took classes together. We played together.”

  Brewer nods, and when he does I see the Grownup and the child in the same body.

  “We are a lacha,” he says. “Twelve that will have immortality together, as the Founder foretells, as Tlaloc promises. I am sorry, Matilda—to be Okadigbo’s attendant forever and ever? How horrible. Bello has it rough with Theresa, but you have to admit nobody is as awful as Okadigbo.”

  He laughs. He coughs. He settles into his chair.

  The wind sends yellow waves across the jungle canopy.

  What is Tlaloc? I still don’t know, but one word Brewer said resonates—lacha. It means “twelve.” Twelve coffins in our room. Twelve people who were together since childhood.

  It never occurred to me there was a specific reason we woke up in the same room. I don’t remember the details, but my progenitor’s connection to Brewer is far deeper than I knew.

  Brewer pats my hand.

  “But honestly, Matilda, you need to stop making goo-goo eyes at Kevey-Wehvey. It’s silly for you to think you can be with him.”

  Kevey-Wehvey…Kevin.

  O’Malley was in our lacha. Could I have been in love with Kevin O’Malley since I was just a little girl?

  “Why is it silly?” I ask.

  Bishop puts his hand on my shoulder. “Em, we need to focus on the important things right now.”

  I slap his hand away, glare up at him. “Stay out of this, Bishop.”

  I shouldn’t care about some schoolgirl crush a thousand years gone, but I can’t help it. I do everything for everyone else, all the time. This is for me. I’m a woman without a past—I want my history back.

  I squeeze Brewer’s hand. “Why is it silly? Tell me.”

  He sighs. “Silly nilly billy willy. Kevin is above your station! Are you looking for yet another reason for Okadigbo to be mean to you? You’re my best friend in all the ship, Matilda, but your father and I agree on this.”

  His words wash over me like a wave of ice-cold water, shatter me, break free new flashfires in an assault of emotions; when I first woke up in my coffin, when I thought it was my twelfth birthday, I was afraid I’d be late for school, that my mother would punish me for that.

  Because when I was twelve, I lived with her.

  But our ship fled Solomon when I was eight.

  “My parents…they were on the Xolotl?”

  Brewer nods.

  My breath catches. The universe condenses to a single point the size and shape of Brewer’s ancient face.

  “Are my parents still alive?”

  He blinks, confused.

  “Of course not,” he says. “Don’t be stupid, Matilda.”

  I move to the front of his chair, lean in close, my hands gripping the handrails.

  “Brewer, listen to me. I am not Matilda. I’m Em. I need you in the here and now. You flew a ship from the Xolotl down to Omeyocan. Don’t you remember? Please.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Kenzie shaking her head.

  “You can’t just will him out of it,” she says. “That’s not how senility works.”

  But this time, it does work. Brewer blinks. His eyes focus on me.

  “Oh dear,” he says. “It happened again.”

  The disgusting folds of flesh where his mouth should be…they’re trembling. He’s upset. He’s scared.

  “My intellect is all I have left,” he says. “And it’s fading. Slipping away, just like my life did. Do you know what that’s like?”

  Does he want sympathy from me? From me, who never had a life at all, let alone one that could slip away?

  I feel sorry for him. I hate him. I want to help him. I want to kill him.

  Brewer tries to lean away from me, but he can’t; he’s trapped in this chair. I hover over him, a cat poised above a helpless mouse.

  I grip his left forearm. Harder than I intend, I think, because he flinches.

  “You lived this long,” I say, my words simmering with anger. “As did Matilda. So why couldn’t my parents?”

  Brewer relaxes slightly. “Ah, I see said the blind man. Little Savage, your mother and father were vassals. Only the Cherished were chosen for rebirth.”

  Deep down, I knew my parents were gone, and yet I can’t stop sadness from crushing me. I should have been smarter—I shouldn’t have hoped. They’ve been dead for a millennium and more. The only way I will ever know th
em is through Matilda’s memories.

  And I have so few of those.

  “You said you and my father agreed about Kevin. You talked to my dad?”

  “Of course,” Brewer says. “After we departed, he took you, me and Bello to services in the Flatland every Sunday.”

  My life already seemed so cruel. Now I learn that this madman knew my father, yet I never will.

  “I remember sitting on my father’s lap,” I say. “He didn’t have a circle on his head.” Another bit of that memory flutters to the surface. “Come to think of it, I didn’t have one, either.”

  Brewer raises a trembling hand to wipe his wet mouth-folds, but his visor blocks it.

  “That recollection must be from when you were very young,” he says. “The church assigns our stations on our sixth birthday.”

  Aramovsky’s fingertips drift to his forehead, trace the symbol there. Gaston and Bishop do the same with theirs, an automatic reaction.

  I was assigned my “station”—my circle, my empty—at the age of six? I was marked as a slave before I had any understanding of how life works.

  “So my father wasn’t in the church, then?”

  “He was,” Brewer says. “Vassals are the lowest level. They don’t get stations. I suppose we might think of them as regular people.”

  Aramovsky drops to his butt. He’s staring off, shaking his head. It’s all too much for him. I understand, because it’s all too much for me.

  “The vassals were slaves,” he says. “Like the circles?”

  Brewer tries to wipe his mouth again, hits his visor again.

  “So long ago,” he says. “Hard to remember. Empties were slaves, yes, but far above vassals. Empties are the Cherished just as much as I am.”

  He raises his arm, looks at it.

  “We Cherished did this to ourselves. We cheated death, kept it at bay so we could survive the journey and be rewarded in paradise with our new bodies.”

  The centuries have not been kind to the Cherished, Brewer once said. He was talking about his withered body. The Cherished created us—their receptacles—to house their consciousnesses so they could be young again.

  Gaston has been quiet so long I forgot he was here. Finally, he speaks.

  “The trip from Solomon to Omeyocan took centuries, as you’re so damn fond of repeating. If the Grownups were modified to survive the trip, how did the vassals survive?”

  Brewer laughs, and this time, at least, he avoids that awful cough.

  “Xander-dander, smart in the air and dumb on the ground, as always. The vassals didn’t survive. They grew old. They died.”

  The horrifying images of the Xolotl flash through my thoughts. Severed arms, piles of skulls, stacks of bodies, and…babies.

  Babies.

  “Families,” I say. “The vassals had families?”

  Brewer nods. “The birds and the bees if you please. Many people had children. Even some of the Cherished did. Don’t you remember your own daughter?”

  I take a step back, shake my head. He thinks I’m Matilda again. And Matilda had a child? I had a child?

  I feel Bishop’s stare. He’s smiling. A warm smile, one of love—one of hope.

  “Children,” Brewer says. “That’s why most vassals joined the church, really. On Solomon, those people had no future. Their children would have lived short, brutish lives, just like they did. The Founder promised safety, education—hope for a better tomorrow. And when her prediction about the scourge started to come true, believers flooded in. People came from all over human space. New Rodina, Capizzi Seven, Tower, Madhava, the Quyth Orbital Stations…even Earth. So many cultures came to join.”

  Aramovsky lies flat on his back. He stares straight up at the sky.

  “But the trip here took centuries,” he says. “The vassals had to know their children wouldn’t even see Omeyocan. Neither would their grandchildren, and so on.”

  “Hundreds of thousands of people were born and died on that ship without knowing anything but the ship,” Brewer says. “Over thirty generations that saw neither Solomon nor Omeyocan.”

  My life is far from perfect, but I have to wonder if I have it better than those people did. What would it be like to be born on a ship, to grow up and one day realize that you would live your whole life within its hull? To know that by the time the Xolotl reached Omeyocan, you would be five, six, ten, twenty generations back, completely forgotten.

  It would fill me with rage.

  Puzzle pieces click together.

  “They rebelled,” I say. “The vassals wanted receptacles. They wanted the same transformation the Grownups had, so they could live to see Omeyocan.”

  Brewer folds his spindly fingers together.

  “Some of them, yes. They mutinied because they didn’t know their place in life. They wanted the same privileges as we Cherished. But you knew that, Matilda. You fed on that selfish desire, used it to become the rebellion’s leader. To this day, I still don’t know if you actually thought they were in the right, or you just wanted to seize power. And your blasphemy when you won, making new Cherished and promising them they would live side by side with us on Omeyocan. Disgusting.”

  Gaston glances at me. “That must be why some of us woke up with bigger bodies. The new batch, the ones who woke up with twelve-year-old bodies and not just twelve-year-old minds, their growth began after the rebellion, when the Xolotl had already been traveling for centuries.”

  “Correct,” Brewer says. “The original lachas incubated for far too long, but the rebels’ timing was just about right.”

  I realize I’m caught up in the moment. I want to hear everything, but I’ve let myself be distracted away from the information we desperately need.

  “All the ships that came here look the same,” I say. “How did the Church of Mictlan get the Xolotl?”

  Brewer looks at me—I see his eyes cloud over.

  “Ships? What other ships?”

  No, I will not let him slip away.

  I reach to grab his arm again, but before I can, Kenzie grabs mine.

  “Em, stop it,” she says. “He needs rest.”

  Rest? Is she insane? I’ll—

  From the pillar platform come the excited shouts of three teenage boys.

  Peura leans out over the edge, looks down at us. His chubby face is electric.

  “It’s working! I sent a test ping, just two short bursts of static followed by two long bursts. We got the same message back. Em, the Xolotl can hear us!”

  And then, the city moans—the emergency siren.

  No, not now, NOT NOW!

  Gaston grabs my arm.

  “Let Theresa out of her cell, now. I need her in the Control Room with me.”

  He sprints for the spiral staircase that leads to the elevator.

  Nevins, Harman and Peura scramble down the rope ladder. They must have hit a switch, because the slab is already slowly lowering on its gold pillars.

  Bishop scoops up Brewer’s chair. Aramovsky and Kenzie walk with him, hands out, hovering to catch Brewer if Bishop stumbles, but Bishop does not.

  I’m the last one down. As I descend the metal stairs, the slab closes above me, sealing out both the morning’s light and most of the emergency siren’s haunting drone.

  That sound means only one thing: one of the alien ships is closing to attack range.

  I took Aramovsky back to his cell. He argued, said he wanted to go out and fight with everyone else, but I reminded him we would be fighting side by side with the Springers, and that they would probably kill him on sight.

  When I put him in, I let Spingate out. She’d heard the alert horns, knew why I was there. We didn’t say a word to each other.

  Bishop is in the streets, getting our units into position. If the aliens land troops, we need to be ready.

  Harman and Nevins stayed in the spiral stairwell below the antenna pillar. If the aliens attack the pillar, they are willing to rush out and make repairs.

  Gaston is once ag
ain in his favorite spot, standing atop the Well wall.

  Above the Well, the glowing display of Omeyocan, slowly spinning. A yellow dot comes slowly closer—the Goblin.

  “No sign of the Dragon,” Spingate calls out. “Or the Xolotl.”

  Gaston huffs. “Big surprise. As usual, when a fight comes, our progenitors are nowhere to be found.”

  Spingate is on the platform. Her belly, swollen. I would have killed her and the baby both. Milton Cathcart is with her, his eyes fixed on the icons floating above his pedestal. He’s assumed Halim’s duties, I suppose. Spingate has little Kevin in her sling. In a back corner of the room, Joandra Rigby leans against the wall, arms crossed. She’s glaring at Spingate, glaring with pure venom.

  Joandra, too? Is there anyone not turning into a horrible person?

  I’m down on the floor, standing with Peura at a student pedestal. He’s trying to reach the Xolotl.

  “Ometeotl,” Gaston calls out, “do we have a targeting solution?”

  “Not yet, Captain Xander. The Goblin is not yet in range. ETA to firing solution, forty-two seconds. Grandmaster Zubiri reports that the Goff Spear is loaded and ready to fire.”

  A red ring appears on the display, the image of Omeyocan at its center.

  “That red line is the Goff Spear’s outer range. Once the Goblin crosses it, we can destroy it.”

  The yellow dot is coming closer. It looks like we have a few minutes before it reaches the red line. I don’t want this battle to end the same way as the last. I’m hoping the Xolotl can help us somehow.

  Peura’s hands are covered in light. He’s moving glowing icons, working the controls. I wish I knew what he was doing so I could assist—I feel so helpless.

  He shakes his head. “The Xolotl isn’t responding to pings, or anything else. I think it’s beyond the horizon.”

  “Because it’s gone,” Gaston calls out. “Didn’t you hear me? Those cowardly bastards ran away as soon as the Goblin started approaching. Matilda wants nothing to do with a space battle.”

  Matilda wants me to live, but not so badly that she’s willing to fight those that attack us. Why am I not surprised?

  We’re on our own.

  We’ve always been on our own.

  Movement by Gaston’s feet draws my attention—a black rope, looped over the Well’s edge. I hadn’t noticed it before. From inside the Well comes Huan Chowdhury’s voice.