Alone

  “Of course I understand.”

  I don’t, really. I just visit the jungle—Maria lives out there.

  She takes my right hand and presses it against Fenrir. The beast stirs slightly—I try to pull away, but Maria is stronger than I am and she keeps my hand on the beast’s fur.

  Fenrir is…warm. He’s dirty—and oh my gods does he stink—but his fur is soft.

  “Don’t flinch,” Maria says.

  I start to ask why, then see movement on my left—razor-sharp barbed pincers hover inches from my face.

  I stay very, very still.

  Between the pincers are Fenrir’s little pink nostrils. They open and close, open and close—then they bump against my forehead.

  “He likes you,” Maria says.

  When the thick snake trunk moves the pincers away, I sneak a hand down to my privates to make sure I didn’t pee myself.

  “Eyes up,” Maria says. “The murderer is coming.”

  Sure enough, Spingate is walking our way.

  I stride toward her. I miss her desperately, and at the same time don’t want to see her at all. She knows how angry I am; she wouldn’t have come if she didn’t have critical information to share.

  When we’re a meter apart, we both stop.

  “Make it quick,” I say.

  She’s scant steps away, yet we seem as distant as Omeyocan is from the Xolotl. Theresa Spingate was my closest friend. Now she is a stranger to me.

  “Gaston has figured out most of the troopship controls,” she says. “He thinks he’ll do a test-flight tomorrow morning. And good news from Zubiri as well. She and Henry Bemba are building a processor that will convert troopship fuel into a form that works with Ximbal’s engines.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “Zubiri estimates a day or two, she’s not sure.”

  Could that work be completed before the Wasp army gets here? The shuttle has weaponry—when the Wasps attack, we’ll need that firepower.

  Or, we could fly Ximbal up to the Xolotl, evacuate the city…

  I shake my head, hard. We are not leaving our home.

  Spingate glances over my shoulder at Maria and Fenrir.

  “Bishop told me you were going,” she says. “I didn’t believe him. He loves you, you know. You two should have children.”

  “I don’t need relationship advice from you. Or advice of any kind.”

  She looks down. My tone is a rebuke. I know her well enough to understand that she didn’t come here just to tell me about the troopships and Zubiri’s experiment.

  Her hand absently rubs at her belly.

  “Em, you have to understand…I didn’t want to hurt Bello.”

  Her voice wavers. She’s still trying to come to grips with what she’s done.

  “You didn’t just hurt her,” I say. “You murdered her.”

  Spin lets out a breath as if I just kicked her in the stomach.

  This is gutting her, and I’m glad. She tortured a woman to death—I want my words to hurt.

  “I couldn’t have known Brewer would bring an antenna down the next day,” she says. “Lives were at stake, Em. I had to—”

  “How much fuel will we have when Zubiri is finished?”

  My words are sharp, biting. I don’t care about her excuses. I only care about facts.

  She looks off, wipes at her eyes.

  “Some will be lost in the conversion process, but there should be enough to fill the Ximbal’s main tank. We’re taking it from the crashed troopship, so that won’t affect the fuel supply of the two working craft.”

  If Gaston can fly the ships we captured, that would give us three working aircraft. I could quickly move our people to multiple areas. I could move Barkah’s troops, too. The ruins, the deep jungle…if we can find our enemy, we might be able to flank them, or even hit them from behind.

  Spingate is staring at me. I feel a stab of guilt for being so cruel to her—she’s haunted by what she did in that jail cell. If I was really her friend, wouldn’t I be there for her instead of making it worse?

  She misses what the two of us have lost.

  So do I. So much.

  No…no! I will not feel this way. It’s not like she broke up with Gaston and needs comfort—Spingate tortured Bello to death.

  And you would have done the same to Spin if Aramovsky hadn’t stopped you…you would have done WORSE….

  Maybe I’m wrong for acting this way, but that doesn’t matter right now—I need to find our enemy.

  “You told me what you came to tell me,” I say. “Anything else?”

  Her eyes glisten with tears that don’t quite fall.

  “No. Nothing else.”

  I turn away, but her voice stops me.

  “You don’t understand,” she says, her tone biting and aggressive. “You can’t. Not until you have children of your own.”

  She storms off toward the Observatory.

  Whatever signal left this place, whatever “the call” really was, I wish I could go back in time and stop it from happening. Omeyocan is a place of hatred, of death, and…

  …the signal…

  …the call…

  Puzzle pieces spin, circle, rotate, flip, all trying to fit together….

  The Church of Mictlan, founded to build the Xolotl, to bring people to this planet. The other races receiving the same signal, using the same schematics to build ships that look almost exactly like ours…

  The way the Wasps fought…they didn’t care about taking cover, they came right at us. They should have run. They should have surrendered. Instead, they fought like their own lives weren’t important, like they were sacrificing themselves for something greater…

  Aramovsky used religion to start a war, to make people want to kill.

  I look at the Observatory.

  So much damage to Uchmal…but no damage to that massive building.

  Or to the area around it…

  The signal…the call…

  The pieces finally click together.

  Two attacks from two different races, yet no damage in this particular spot?

  The aliens didn’t attack the Observatory because the call, the signal, it came from the Observatory itself.

  Or, rather, from whatever lies beneath it.

  A pair of flashlights illuminate the narrow tunnel.

  There are no ceiling supports of wood or stone. These tunnels weren’t engineered, they weren’t made by flowing water.

  This is the kind of tunnel an animal would make.

  Something dug this.

  I sent D’souza’s Demons and Lahfah’s Creepers on the scouting mission—but told Lahfah herself to wait for me. Once I’m done with Huan, she will take me north. We know the rendezvous points for the check-ins, so as sprawling and vast as the jungle is, we should be able to connect with Maria.

  Unless the Wasps get her first.

  “Huan, I don’t give a damn if you’re afraid—keep moving.”

  If only I was as brave as I sound. There’s something about this tunnel…something wrong.

  Huan Chowdhury glares back at me. My climbing harness matches his. The rigs’ metal loops secure us to ropes when the inclines are too steep to walk, or when they drop straight down. I’m filthy, he’s filthy.

  “You better watch your ass, Em. You get lost down here”—he smiles, rests his hand on the handle of the knife in his belt—“and they might never find you ever again.”

  The growl in his voice…is he threatening me? I didn’t bring my spear—it’s too cramped down here for it—but I have a knife, too, and I know how to use it.

  Test me, little boy, and I’ll add one more kill to my list….

  I stop walking. What kind of a thought was that? You don’t kill someone for words. And Huan’s thinly veiled threat…that’s not like him at all.

  Whatever release we gained with the fight against the Wasps, it’s gone.

  Because the God of Blood is in us.

  “Huan, we both need
to relax,” I say. “The violent urges are coming back. Do you feel them?”

  He glares at me, suspecting I am trying to trick him. Then he rubs his eyes. His face scrunches up.

  “Yeah,” he says. He grabs his chest, fingertips digging into straps and black canvas. “In here…I’m so angry and I don’t know why.”

  I’ve felt this thirst for violence before. Strong in the jungle. Stronger in the city. Stronger still in the Observatory, and strongest in the Control Room.

  But in these tunnels, it’s even worse.

  There is something evil down here. The source of all the hate and anger…we’re closing in on it.

  Whatever it is, could it also be the thing that called so many races across the stars?

  And it’s not just anger this time…there is also fear. My body screams at me to get out of this place, to just run.

  I will not run. I will not give in.

  “You were right,” I say to Huan. “It is spooky down here. Damn spooky.”

  He looks at me doubtfully. “Are you mocking me again?”

  I shake my head. “No, and I’m sorry I did before. It’s terrifying down here. I should have believed you. We all should have.”

  I see the anger melt from his face. In that moment, Huan isn’t a little boy anymore—he’s a man finally getting the respect he deserves.

  “Thank you,” he says.

  Something unspoken passes between us. Whatever must be done down here, Huan and I will do it together.

  We continue on. At the tunnel’s end, there is a Huan-sized dark shadow in the muddy wall.

  “That was the spot I told you about,” he says. “I was able to push through into a new tunnel. A few meters farther in, there’s a bend to the right. That’s where I heard the voice.”

  He doesn’t want to continue. Neither do I.

  But we have to.

  I slip through the muddy opening into a larger tunnel. Huan hesitates, then follows.

  It’s hotter in here. Hotter and more humid, just like Huan said.

  And then I feel it, just barely—a push/pull of air, soft, repetitive, insistent.

  As if something is breathing.

  I’m so afraid it’s hard to think. It’s like an entity is in my heart and head, making me afraid the same way I would make a puppet dance.

  “Huan, I’m really sorry I called you a coward.”

  He nods, a simple movement that tells me I’m forgiven. I believe him now, that’s all that matters to him.

  We continue on. The soles of our boots squish in mud. Our flashlight beams play off of water slowly dripping from the ceiling and thin rivulets running down the walls.

  Up ahead of Huan, I see the tunnel bend sharply to the right.

  Huan points with a shaking hand.

  “That’s where I heard her,” he whispers. “That’s where I heard my mom.”

  We have to go on, but I can’t bring myself to take another step forward.

  Then I hear it—a soft human voice echoing off the wet dirt walls.

  “Don’t be afraid….”

  Not a woman’s voice…a man’s.

  My body trembles. I want to run away, but my feet have frozen solid to the tunnel floor.

  “Don’t be afraid,” the voice says again, closer now. “I’m right around the corner. I’ll approach slowly.”

  The voice of an older man. It sounds a little like Marcus.

  I grab Huan’s arm.

  “You said it sounded like your mom!”

  He’s shaking his head, nonstop.

  “It did! I swear it did!”

  “Don’t be afraid,” the man says a third time. “I’ll step around the corner now.”

  He does.

  It’s a man. Older but not old. Jeans and a blue button-down shirt.

  Black hair.

  Black mustache.

  Matilda’s memories are sparse, scattered and mostly fuzzy. Very few of them burn so clear they are real to me, like I experienced that moment myself.

  One of those memories has come to life.

  A memory of being a little girl, crying, sitting on a man’s lap.

  I stare at that man now.

  A single word escapes my tight throat.

  “Daddy?”

  He can’t be real. He can’t.

  My father smiles.

  “Hello, peanut.”

  His words crush me, steal the strength from my limbs. I lean against the tunnel wall to stop myself from falling.

  Peanut.

  That’s what he used to call me. Call Matilda. Call us.

  I know he’s not my dad. Matilda was born—I hatched. In the deep fiber of my being, though, she and I are the same person. Which means no matter what this thing is, I feel a connection to him so powerful and so real it doesn’t matter who came from where.

  This is my father.

  Am I imagining this?

  “Huan,” I say, “what do you see?”

  “A man.” Huan sounds almost as shocked as I am. “A black-haired man with a mustache.”

  “You’ve done well, peanut,” my father says. “We know that many of you died on the journey here. That is to be expected. Only the strong survive, and only the strongest merge.”

  This is madness.

  “You’re dead,” I say, my voice cracking on the words. “You’ve been dead for a thousand years.”

  That smile…so warm, so loving.

  “Think of me as an echo. An echo of a concerned parent, if you will, perhaps no different than the memory in your thoughts that lets me take this form.”

  This is a memory? I don’t understand.

  “Can you read my mind?”

  “Not in the way you mean,” he says. “I drew from your experiences to find a form that is important to you.”

  He can’t read my mind, but he can read my memories? I don’t know how those things are different.

  He is anguish and heartbreak dragged from my past and sculpted into reality. My father. So many times I’ve wished I could meet him. Now here he is, but he’s not real. Whatever this thing is, it is cruel.

  A tiny part of me is glad I’m not looking at an “echo” of O’Malley. I don’t know if I could take that.

  Maybe this thing would have chosen my mother, but I don’t remember what she looks like. I don’t know her face.

  Am I going insane? This whirlwind of emotions

  —love and hate and terror and killing rage—

  whips at me, makes it hard to see, impossible to think.

  “Em,” Huan whispers. “Em, say something.”

  My fingers flex on the handle of my knife.

  Have to focus…I’m here for answers.

  “My people received a signal,” I say. “Very long ago.”

  My father shrugs. “Long is a relative term, peanut.”

  “Don’t call me that!” I draw my knife, shake it at him even though I’m not sure if there’s anything really there that I can cut. “Did you send that signal, or not?”

  “I did. But not for myself. As I told you, I’m an echo. I’m not real. You know one like me….his name is…ah, now I have it—his name is Ometeotl.”

  The Observatory computer.

  “You’re a machine,” Huan says. “A godsdamned robot?”

  My father glances to the tunnel ceiling, a painfully natural, human expression—he’s thinking over Huan’s words.

  “No, not a machine, but perhaps robot is close. I am a small piece of a sentient, biological organism.”

  He smooths his mustache. He does this because I remember my father doing the same thing.

  But…why my father?

  “You take a form only I know,” I say. “Were you Huan’s mother before?”

  My father nods. “I was. Now you are both here, and of the two of you, peanut, I sense you’re the natural leader—you are the stronger one.”

  He isn’t talking about physical strength. He can look into our thoughts. Or, perhaps, into whatever passes for our soul
s. I don’t know what lies in Huan’s heart, but I know the blackness that buzzes within mine.

  “Stronger,” I say. “To you, that means more violent, doesn’t it?”

  My father’s smile widens.

  “Violence and strength are the same thing. In all the history of all the worlds before this one, and in all the history of all the worlds yet to come, the violent always win. Those who are capable of committing violence, or getting others to commit violence for them, or who build systems that create mass violence, more efficient violence—those beings eliminate the opposition and, therefore, create the future.”

  He’s spouting some kind of philosophy. I don’t care about that.

  “The signal wasn’t for you,” I say. “So who was it for?”

  He beckons us to follow him.

  “Come. I will show you.”

  He wants to take us deeper into this place of hate and fear.

  I want to run away. I want to be with my friends, touch their faces, hear their voices, celebrate all that is real and solid and true.

  But if I don’t get answers, those friends could die.

  And I realize something ironic, something twisted and dark—I never met my real father, but I often feel his spirit within me.

  He would expect me to be brave, to follow through.

  If you run, your enemies will hunt you.

  I will not run.

  I sheathe my knife. “Lead on. Show me who did this to us.”

  Huan glances at me, that guarded look again in his eyes. He hears the barely controlled rage in my voice. I’ve been hurt before, badly, but this is different—something has invaded me, forced its way into the most private place anyone can have.

  And that something is going to pay.

  My false father leads us into the tunnel on the right. A few meters farther is a narrow opening on our left.

  “Do not be afraid of what you see next,” he says. “This could be the destiny of your people.”

  He walks through the opening.

  Huan and I follow, into a small cavern. Two flashlights aren’t nearly enough to light up the whole space.

  Our beams play against something large, something with the satiny gleam of dull metal.

  Metal…that moves.

  “Tlaloc,” Huan whispers. “What is this?”

  Something unrecognizable fills this cavern, presses against the ceiling and walls. It’s bigger than the cavern, with much of its bulk hidden by darkness, dirt and mud. I can’t see all of this thing, but it has to be massive, maybe as large as five shuttles laid end to end.