

An Innovation Today Book. Go Indie.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2016 John Hennessy

August 2017 Second Edition

All rights reserved.

http://www.johnhennessy.net

Cover by Damonza.com

Edited by Trish Ledoux

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

# Also by John Hennessy

Novels

The Remnants Trilogy

Book One: Remnants

Book Two: _Defiants_ (forthcoming)

Book Three: _Dirges_ (forthcoming)

Black Bloods Quintet

Novella Prequel: Curefinder (free eBook)

Book One: Black Blood

Book Two: _Red Dusk_ (forthcoming)

The Cry of Havoc Saga

Book One: Life Descending

Book Two: Darkness Devouring

Short Stories

_A Stalker's Game_ (free eBook)

# Dedication

To my Grandpa John,

whose enthusiasm to read each

chapter the day it was finished,

week by week, propelled the story onward.

And to Katherine,

who never stops believing.

Table of Contents

Also by John Hennessy

Dedication

Part One: They're All Gone — Darrel

Part Two: Empty Shelves — Maggy

Part Three: The Long Road South — Darrel

Part Four: Red Tread — Maggy

Part Five: The Assistant — Darrel

Part Six: Shadow Stalkers — Maggy

Part Seven: Bones as Sweet as Candy — Darrel

Part Eight: The Speech — Maggy

Part Nine: Go Engines, Go — Darrel

Part Ten: Project Ranger — Maggy

Part Eleven: Hero Time — Darrel

An Excerpt from Black Blood

Connect

Acknowledgements

About the Author

#

"WE'RE BEING OVERRUN," I shouted into my comm.

"Everybody down," Maggy ordered.

All ten members of Divinity Squad ducked in unison as an intelli-bomb flew over our heads and stuck to the rock wall above us. "Activating shield pulse," Félix said, enveloping us in a field of energy that repelled the exploding particles. The narrow path we stood on threatened to give out from under our feet, the weight of our battle suits stressing the fragile surface, but when the debris cloud settled, it remained solid.

"We can do this, guys," Maggy encouraged the squad. Only sixteen, she was the undeniable leader of Divinity, with an astute mind for strategy and an ability to command that none of us possessed, which had earned her the nickname "IQ." Plus she owned the best gear and the most kills among us, two huge factors that swayed the majority when we voted her captain. "We've made it this far and haven't lost anyone yet. I can see the Kransuri Brain down in the valley. All we have to do is figure out how to take out that Warpgate and stop the reinforcements from coming through and we've got this. We can do what no one else has accomplished. We just have to play to our strengths and work together."

I watched as Hoban, the youngest member of Divinity at fourteen, rose above the natural dirt barrier that provided our transient cover. Bullets peppered his advanced suit of armor and he smacked the rock wall at our backs.

"Ah, shitballs! Are you kidding me, Hoban? After the speech I just gave, you go and die like that?"

"He can't hear you, IQ," I reminded her. With seventeen years under my belt, I was at the ripe age for deployment, a fraction below the mean of Divinity.

"I know that, Darrel," she said. "I'm aware of what reality means."

"Jar," Félix demanded. He was a month younger than me, and my closest friend.

"Jar," I parroted.

"Really guys? Now?" Her voice strained with anger. "You want me to do it now?"

"That's the rule," Félix said.

"I'll do it later. Let's get this done." Energy blasts rocked the ground as the Kransuri launched a wave of death at the dirt barrier protecting us. "Right now we have to take out that Warpgate, and I think I know how."

"There's no way we can do this with only nine," Cantwell asserted, the oldest member of Divinity at twenty-two, and the second-most decorated soldier, with a black and yellow battle suit that made him look like a wasp. "And without our medic this is just ridiculous."

"We can do it if you follow my plan," Maggy said confidently. "Darrel, Félix, and Cantwell surge into flight and draw the aggro west of the valley and away from the gate. Spiers, Nagel, and Botha jet above the gate and attack from the air. Brocato, Vaz, and I will charge in from the ground and plaster it with explosives. Everyone clear on their assignments?"

"What's mine again?" That was my sarcastic charm at work. The rest answered with a simple yes.

Maggy's authoritative voice came over the comm. "We can do this, guys, I know it. Go, go, go!"

I looked over at Félix in his blue and yellow armor while my fingers found the belt controls to my jetpack. Before Félix raised his reflective blue visor, he nodded at me with a stolid expression that said, _We got this,_ bromigo. Rocketing into the air, I jetted towards the Kransuri line, and pulled a dozen soldiers west with dispersed fire, rotating through the array of attachments on my REC3A assault rifle. Félix and Cantwell pulled even more troops away from the Warpgate. With the army heavily thinned, the others stormed in to pick off those that remained.

The Kransuri, an insectoid alien species with several metamorphic stages, looked like a cross between a devil's flower mantis and a fat-tailed scorpion in its fourth phase, by far the most aggressive and physically formidable of its forms. Fourths were also the most numerous of its kind, and it took more than just one bullet to deal with an individual, for their hard carapace deflected the first few rounds thrown at them. Eventually firepower won out, given time. But time wasn't what we had. Fourths swarmed the valley in daunting numbers, protecting the Brain, the controller of the hive mind on this planet, and what we were here to destroy.

"We could really use Hoban right about now," I shouted, spraying acid on ten Fourths. The bugs lashed out as they crumpled to the ground, hissing and howling in agony.

"We're losing them," Félix warned. "They know what we're doing and are rejoining the Brain."

"Keep them off us just a bit longer," Maggy screamed into her comm. "Most of the charges are set."

Félix, Cantwell, and I took to the air once more, unleashing acid from above to cut off the returning soldiers. The maneuver worked, dwindling their numbers to nothing, with Spiers, Nagel, and Botha adding their acid to the devastation. The word EMPTY flashed in my heads-up display in bright red, signaling that the acid tank went dry, so I switched backed to high-velocity rounds.

"Got it!" Maggy declared. "Clear the area." She counted down from ten. The blast that followed shook the valley, a plume of red and black ascending to the clouds, debris scattering like fireworks in all directions.

I waded through the smoldering wreckage, regrouping with the squad. Félix gave me a thumbs up. The others cheered and hollered.

"Nice job, squad," Maggy said. "Now all that remains is that bad boy." We peered at the monstrous Brain, a forbidding cybernetic organism twenty meters tall, with ten gargantuan legs and four arms ending in menacing pincers. Each Brain bore a unique appearance and this one, designated "Doomgunner," resembled none of those previously encountered, boasting an arsenal across its body at various parts, including rotary autocannons at each of its major leg joints, hence the name. "The trick is to make sure it doesn't focus on any one of us for too long. We have to spread out in a circle, and hit—wait! Vaz, what're you doing? Stop, you're going to pull it!"

Before we could retreat, the Brain sliced Vaz in half, and a split second later launched a hundred intelli-bombs from its cannons. Félix, next to me, raised his shield pulse and encompassed me in his protection, but the barrier only lasted long enough for me to watch everyone else die before the explosion overpowered the shield.

The world went black as a green countdown timer flashed across my eyes. After "one," I was transported back to our ship that orbited the raid planet Orsaga.

"FRAK!" Maggy screamed. "What the frak was that?"

"What—what happened?" Hoban asked over the squad chat channel.

"We wiped," I said. Our virtual reality characters stood in a circle around a transporter crystal that connected us to the instance. "Right when we got to the Brain." Sweat moistened my forehead under the VR goggles, so I slid them up, wiped away the perspiration with a towel I kept in my pocket, then ambled over to the southeast corner of the VR room where a glass of ice water waited on an end table. Blue padding surrounded me on the walls and floor, the ceiling the only normal surface, white and textured. Most middle-class families dedicated a room like this one to the VR experience, not just for games but interactive movies and concerts, too, and a hundred other uses I never took the time to enjoy. Years of rolling around on the mat playing video games had imbued the fabric with sweat and now pervaded the air unless filtered out, though I hardly noticed it after a few minutes with the door closed.

Hydrated, I entered the square sensor grid that acted as the safe zone so no one would accidently crash into furniture, and rejoined the virtual world.

"We needed ten players," Cantwell chimed in.

"We needed Vaz and Hoban not to act like dweezles," Maggy snapped. "Our chance at being the first to take down Doomgunner in reality mode is gone. I'm sure Cataclysm is doing it right now."

"Sorry, guys," Hoban apologized. "I got a leg cramp while squatting, and I just couldn't stay down any longer. I'll make it up to everyone though, I promise. I'll farm extra Lythenium minerals for the squad vault."

"No one cares about Lythenium," Brocata sighed. "Doomgunner is supposed to drop the Morphell Blaster."

"Plus new armor sets," Spiers added.

"And Vaz?" I asked. "What happened, dude?"

"I had a crazy itch on my eyebrow," Vaz said. "I think I need a new pair of goggles. Mine are too worn. They keep bugging me."

No one responded to that lame excuse. "We can try again," I suggested. "Even if we're not first, we can still get the loot." The raid, a typical Saturday night activity of my senior year of high school, often ended in the same fashion, with everyone dead and placing blame. And the squad wondered why none of us wore much high-end PvE gear.

"We have to get to the Brain with the tank and the heliwing intact," Maggy said. The squad debated the merits of this option and agreed. The tank, critical to surviving the intelli-bombs, needed to be the priority on our second attempt.

"Before we do anything, though, you owe the jar twice," Félix said. Of the ten Divinity members, Félix, Maggy, and I were the only friends in real life; the others I didn't know beyond their voices and pictures from various social media apps. Their computer-generated faces, like mine, didn't look anything like their real ones.

"Twice?" The confusion in Maggy's voice left room for doubt.

"Once for when Hoban died and again after we wiped."

"Oh, frak you guys, euphemisms don't count. You know that."

"We'll have to get clarification from Debra about that," I joked. Debra, Maggy's mother, disliked the use of curse words, and three months ago set out to correct her daughter's foul mouth with a punishment jar. For every curse Maggy was caught saying, she had to pay five dollars to the jar, all of which she kept secret from us until we overheard her mom demanding payment after a particularly bad raid wipe a few weeks into the experiment. Since then Félix and I had taken over as profanity police.

"Hey, my dad just came home, and he's in one of those moods," Félix announced. "I don't think I can—"

Félix's character vanished from the room in midsentence, a bad sign. "That was no logoff," Maggy said.

"He'll be fine," I told her. "He's always fine." Someone in the squad coughed awkwardly. Félix's home life was an uncomfortable topic that most of us avoided. His dad had a predilection for alcohol, which didn't work well with his temper, and once in a while resulted in a pulled power cord, or something much worse that he'd have to hide at school the next day.

"Well," Cantwell started. "I guess that ends raiding for the night. Anyone want to do the Temple Floor quest?"

"Sure, why not," Spiers said.

Maggy jumped _Antillica_ , the squad ship, back to Terran occupied space and we dispersed to pursue different interests. _Waves of Extinction_ , the expansion to _Death Squad,_ had only been out two weeks and there was a lot yet to explore even though we all had level capped within a week.

"It's only ten," I noted. "You up for two-v-two, IQ?"

"Yeah, all right." We formed a group and joined our own chat channel. "Do you think we should call the police, Blue?" Like the lump in her throat, her worry was palpable.

Blue—my nickname. What started as "Big Blue"—I was built with the size of a lineman who'd never stepped foot in a weight room—was eventually trimmed to just "Blue." Unfortunately my body didn't follow suit with the reduction. The moniker described a lot about me: it was my favorite color, and thus the majority of my clothing came in shades of blue, and it pointed out the strange deep blue of my eyes. "We don't know what happened. It could be nothing."

"I don't think it's nothing. I texted him and he hasn't responded."

"His dad always takes his phone away when he pulls the plug." I scrolled through the list of player-versus-player arenas. The expansion added over thirty new combat zones, and we hadn't tested most of them.

"Hang on, he wrote back. He said, _Fine. Talk tomorrow. Goodnight._ That doesn't sound too good."

"He wouldn't lie about it." I was never very good at calming Maggy down when it came to Félix. The best I could offer was distraction. It worked for me, allowed me not to think about it too much, which Félix requested I do after I called the cops once, four or five years ago. The phone call resulted in a night spent in the drunk tank for his dad, and that only made the situation worse, not better. "Let's try the new desert CZ." My suggestion diverted her back to the game, as I knew it would—she hated desert maps.

"I'd rather try one of the jungle zones," she said. From that launch point we played through the night and into the morning, climbing our way up the PvP rankings with every victory. We were in the middle of a match, my finger holding down the trigger on my REC3A assault rifle controller, when my VR goggles switched from a craggy upland to blackness and the flashing red words SERVER CONNECTION LOST.

"Oh, come on!" I screamed. I tore off my goggles, bolted for the PlayStation Infinity in the northeast corner of the padded room, and hit the power button. The modem, sitting next to the game console, displayed an unlit Internet symbol, meaning a dead line. Restarting the connection did nothing, but that didn't stop me from trying two more times, hoping it would solve the problem because that was the only measure I knew. Unlike Maggy, who was a tech wizard, my competence with electronics maxed out at the troubleshooting basics.

When I checked my phone, the signal strength read zero bars. So the issue originated with the service provider, which meant it was beyond my ability to fix. Past two in the morning, I decided to call it a night. How disappointing, because we were on a roll, hitting a real groove with IQ on sniper and me spouting molten fire with my flamethrower.

Almost forgetting the VR gloves and sensor patches on my legs, I stripped them off and put them away in a drawer, otherwise I'd never hear the end of it in the morning, a promise my mother made every day of the week. The lights shut off after I left the VR room and entered the kitchen. The mellow scent of pine trees struck my nose with a cool touch of peppermint from the aerosol deodorizers scattered around the house. Mom preferred the smell of freshness to sweat and must, and I didn't blame her. Dad and I could really stink it up if left to our own hygiene routines.

On the dining room table, the latest and last college rejection letter stared back at me, full of judgment and condemnation. I picked it up and read it again. My fingers impulsively tightened on the paper, desiring nothing more than to wad it into a ball and toss it in the trash, but something stopped me. "I'll deal with you tomorrow," I said. Shaking my head, I folded the letter back up, placed it on the table, and trudged upstairs to a welcoming bed.

#

THE HOUSE WAS normally quiet on Sundays, but this was unusually quiet. Dad liked to pass the day in the garage woodworking, and Mom could spend every moment of her life fussing over the yard and her precious plants. No hammering, sawing, or cursing came from the garage, and no busy sounds of my mother shuffling to tidy up disturbed the house.

I lit up my phone: 11:13. Getting up before noon was also unusual for a Sunday, but I felt rested, so I swung my legs out of bed and stumbled the short distance to my computer chair. The screen reported the same news as my phone, no service, which meant I'd have to survive the real world for the day. Mom would probably put me to work in the flowerbeds. Ouch.

My laundry hamper, overflowing with unwashed clothes, choked the room with staleness. I opened the window to a shock of cold air, gathered up the dirty garments that didn't fit, stuffed them into the hamper, and plodded downstairs to the laundry room where I dumped off the load.

The modem was still dead, as I knew it would be, and concluded this was the reason for the silence: my parents had gone to the store to resolve the issue. After all, a house without the Internet was a dull house indeed. Luckily, it was March and not September through the first of February, or my dad would've gone ballistic without football. Though if he'd become truly desperate he could've tuned in using the local broadcast input, an option none of us had bothered with since the installation of the satellite dish over ten years ago.

The rejection letter, in the same spot on the table, glared at me. I ignored it as I prepared breakfast, intent to not let it spoil a school-free day.

With a bowl of sugarcoated wheat flakes, I plopped down on the family room couch, and said, "On, Bruce." The brand new twenty-five decimeter screen, complete with over thirty thousand horizontal pixels, fired up. Bruce, the chosen name of the software intelligence, controlled all the voice commands. "Load 'StarCraft: The Fourth Armada,' season two, episode six." The TV switched from the menu to the selected episode, playing from where I left it a couple of days ago.

Halfway through the bowl, a roar rattled the walls, but it wasn't coming from the surround sound speakers. "Bruce, pause." The show stopped. That odd silence overwhelmed the house again, unnatural to my ears, a signal that something in the world was off, out of balance. I couldn't quite place my finger on it though.

A roar shook the walls a second time, much closer now, accompanied by a scream. I appraised the street through the open curtains. Another scream compelled me to investigate further, scampering to the giant window. I scanned left, right, left one more time. Nothing.

Then something. Movement down the road, a streak of legs and flailing arms. The screams belonged to a man, young, perhaps in his early twenties. "Help! Anyone—anyone! Help! Please!"

From above, out of my visual field, dropped a bulk of yellowish fur. The attack, so abrupt and horrific, sent a staggering jolt to every part of my body. The bowl in my hands crashed to the floor and cracked like an egg. The man shrieked in agony as monstrous teeth ripped open his back, blood drenching the beast's muzzle and the asphalt, all right in front of my family room window.

I gagged at the sight. The animal glanced my way and I ducked to the floor, not daring to breathe, bits of porcelain sticking into my flesh with a thin coating of milk. The man's screams started to grow farther apart, weakening, and faded into the distance as if he were being hauled away. On my belly like a caterpillar, I crawled to the staircase, out of sight of the glass pane, and scurried to my bedroom, peeking out the open window. The beast, an unfathomable feline mutation, was dragging the man down the street. The man's wound left a trail of blood so vivid it burned an image in my mind that I'd never forget.

What is this? What the hell is happening?

The man called for help one last time before he was out of earshot. Only silence answered him. The whole incident seemed like a scene from a movie. I kept waiting for someone to yell, "cut," or "that's a wrap," or some other cliché a film director would say on TV. No one said anything. In fact, I didn't see anyone else in the neighborhood, like I was the sole witness to this unimaginable atrocity.

Impossible. Not everyone could be at the store. I scanned Mrs. Cowinski's house across the road. The old lady never went anywhere; she didn't even do her own grocery shopping. Surely she saw what I had. You could find her spying through her front window at all hours of the day, seven days a week. Yet for some reason she was uncharacteristically absent from her perch.

Then I noticed the mark on her door: a slanted line with three lines pointing upward, like a tilted E, colored black and red. Examining the houses, the same symbol was etched into all the doors within sight.

An ominous chill ran up my spine.

My gut twisted into a thousand knots, unable to process the last few minutes. I backed away from the window, bumped into my desk, and collapsed to my bed.

_That wasn't real. No way. It couldn't be._ Panic set in. I cleared my throat, always a bad habit of mine. An idea sprouted in my brain and grew into a plan as I lay there. My feet found the floor and I bolted downstairs, grabbed a kitchen knife, and entered the backyard through the laundry room. Karl, my neighbor and friend since the sixth grade, would've seen the same thing, if it were real. Maybe it was a movie set and I didn't know about it. Things like that happened when you played as many hours as I did. Three years ago I lost track of time so much that I hadn't even known it was New Year's Eve until Félix asked me how we were going to celebrate. So, yeah, it was in the realm of possibility.

Under the cover of a patio chair, I surveyed the terrain, a field of grass and flowerbeds hemmed in by various trees. A stillness clenched the atmosphere. _Why is it so quiet?_ Try as I might, the answer still eluded me. If my parents saw me now, crouched behind deck furniture, chef's knife in hand, they'd think I lost it for certain. Part of me believed I had.

The boundary between our backyard and the Bogdanovic's, which consisted of a row of arborvitae on their side and a wooden fence on ours, made it no easy task for me to slip from yard to yard unseen from the road. Scaling the fence, an option for some but not me, left only one route: the front gate. I unlatched the gate, hooked a hard right, and squeezed between the tall evergreens, accounting for the small descent. A short wooden fence enclosed Karl's place, easy enough to climb over even for me, and ten seconds later I said goodbye to the Bogdanovic's backyard and landed in Karl's.

Karl O'Donovan's ugly lime-green house popped into view after navigating the shrubs and overgrown weeds of his tangled yard. I knocked on his sliding glass door. A minute went by, so I knocked again, this time with more urgency. "Karl," I whispered loudly. "Karl, you home?" I grew impatient, or nervous, or both, and sidled up to the southeast side of the house. Unlike most houses on the block, whose garages faced the street, Karl's faced the forest of Whatcom Falls Park at the end of our peaceful little cul-de-sac on Rhododendron Way. I spied through the window: two cars. Peeping around the garage to the curb, I spotted Karl's beat-up Ford Fairlane parked at a crooked angle.

Someone had to be home, unless the entire family went for a stroll through the park, but that wasn't Karl's thing—he hated the outdoors. After one more try, I gave up, rooted around his back patio, uncovered his hide-a-key, and inserted it into the backdoor. The lock, of course, wasn't bolted, and the door swung in when I twisted the knob. I stashed the knife under a leafy plant and crept inside.

"Karl, you awake? Hello? Anyone?" The family room, devoid of life, greeted me with a creak. At this point in my seventeen years, roaming around Karl's house, uninvited and without anyone's consent or awareness, was the creepiest thing I'd ever done. I felt like an intruder. Despite this, I didn't cease my search, ascending the stairs to the first landing. "Karl? Anyone? This is weirding me out, dude. Say something already." I cracked Karl's bedroom door, half expecting him to be asleep in the buff, covers off, an unplanned joke at the expense of my retinas. An empty bed laughed at me as I shielded my eyes in assumption.

I browsed around. His phone, propped up against his computer tower, spoke volumes about the situation. There was nothing ordinary about it. People our age didn't leave their phones behind unless circumstance required it. Even though password protected, I lit up the device to see if he had service. This time my prediction came true. His Internet was also down, and they used a different company than we did, which meant a large-scale problem.

_Where did you go without driving and without your phone?_ The question plagued me as I exited the backdoor, retrieved my knife, and replaced the hide-a-key in its secret garden gnome residence. _If their cars are home but they're gone, and my parents are gone  . . ._

I hurdled the fence, sprinted up the slope, cut through the arborvitae, and raced for the backyard gate. Sped through the laundry room, down the hall, and into the garage. I could feel my jaw drop in terror. "No." I shook my head. "No way." Both cars, parked in their cozy spots, gave no hints of recent usage.

Just to make sure, I investigated my parent's bedroom before I flew off the edge of sanity and into the abyss of a psychotic break. The bed was empty, same as the rest of the house. The comforter, wrinkled with usage—Mom always made their bed—explained the scene: they'd been taken in their sleep. I examined the room with a keener eye and detected no sign of struggle. It was as if they'd simply vanished, abducted in the night like a thief stealing art, leaving behind no clues to follow.

I crumpled to the bed, the world out of focus, as if a doctor had just told me I had a month to live and my brain couldn't handle the blow. My face fell into my hands. Tears flooded my flushed skin, and my body convulsed in intense waves. By the time I collected my emotions, or what pieces I could manage, the sun had crossed over the midday hump. Injecting my mood with manufactured resolve, I embarked to explore the rest of the block.

The stream of blood in the middle of the street forced me to pause for a moment and consider the best way to proceed. Obviously, I couldn't go walking about in broad daylight. I had to employ stealth, or the art of ninja, as Splinter might say to his four sons. The glaring hiccup: I didn't possess a stealthy bone in my body. My eyes roamed the neighborhood from my bedroom window and mapped out a path. A loop from backyard to backyard of the closest houses would eliminate any doubt and might provide more answers. Heavy emphasis on _might_.

With another injection of determination, I gripped my knife and entered the backyard again, following the same route as before into Karl's yard, but this time I continued into the thick coverage of the park, which wasn't a normal park with open grassy fields, but rather a series of hiking paths through dense woodland. Circumventing the exposed cul-de-sac, I trudged through the brush and trees, wishing I'd worn pants and something with long sleeves, the plant life scraping and poking my limbs the entire way to the hidden house across the street. Most of the time I forgot the house even existed, blocked from the road by greenery, a longer driveway giving it space from the road.

It took an hour, maybe two, to search most of the houses on the block. I crept around as quietly as I could, stumbled into a few walls from time to time, knocked over some glassware on accident, and tripped over a wheelbarrow while avoiding a concealed rake. All in all, I escaped without making too much noise pollution. For me, at least.

By the last house, I drew the only possible conclusion: everyone was gone. The shock of it throttled my throat. Unable to breathe, I rushed home to my inhaler, shook for ten seconds, puffed once, and held until a cough broke loose. Then repeated. Asthma, a plague of the early twenty-first century that afflicted a fifth of the world, was now combatted rigorously by medicine, making it little more than a nuisance. I remembered from history class that it had something to do with a lack of air quality control starting in the 1970's and wasn't truly dealt with until the '30's, but all the details were lost in a haze that school so often produced, a gap between paying attention and caring for the subject matter. Overpopulation factored in somehow; there wasn't much it didn't affect.

When I regained my lungs, I decided it was time to move on and brave a trip to Félix's. So far I hated the statistics I'd collected, but maybe, just maybe he'd be there.

For a third time I found myself in Karl's backyard, then hit the park trail that connected to Iowa Drive, the next road down from my block, where Félix lived. His place sat nine houses west of where the trail emerged from the park. A short distance, granted, but before I reached the sidewalk, I halted. Two houses away, in the front yard, an animal the size of a rhino lay on its stomach in the grass, tearing apart a woman's body.

Disoriented by the image, I fled home, and puked in one of my mother's flowerbeds. _It's not real_ , I lied to myself. More denial, more delusion. I wanted to tell myself it was only a dream, but instead I hurried inside, locked all the doors, lowered every blind, and drew shut all the curtains.

The house, completely dark, shuddered. Or was that me? I checked my phone for reception. No change. _What the hell is going on? What was that thing? An alien? How? Why?_ Questions overwhelmed my brain.

To calm down, I did something simple. Loading up my toothbrush with paste, I brushed my teeth, then rinsed with mouthwash to get rid of the acrid taste stuck on my tongue and gums. Sitting on the couch, I tried to form a new plan, but my mind couldn't let go of that image of ripping flesh. Attacked again by nausea, I resumed watching the episode from breakfast, and the next ten after that, the volume barely above a whisper. I thought about fortifying the house, but that seemed pointless; if I truly were the last person on earth, what chance did I have against an army from another world?

When night fell, I retreated to my room with enough food and water to last several days. I dragged furniture from the guest bedroom that we used more for storage than anything and blockaded the stairs. My hope was that the obstruction would permit me some peace of mind so that I could sleep, but of course that was just wishful thinking. I knew the next time I fell asleep, it'd be because I was dead.

I scanned the neighborhood a hundred times through my window. Lights still shined in the houses, left on by residents before they were snatched from their homes. Nothing disturbed the absolute quiet of the street. The stillness twisted my stomach. I replaced the blinds and climbed into bed. The TV powered up across the room and the next season of StarCraft began. I turned off my nightstand lamp and settled in for the longest night of my life.

#

MY ROOM BECAME darker the longer I stared at the ceiling. Master Chief pointed his MA5B at my face from a remade _Halo: Combat Evolved_ poster. Everything was so still, so quiet. It was almost as if I lived on a mountaintop, in a sanctuary of solitude. Darrel Reid, the last dude on Earth—seventeen and soon to be dead.

The alarm clock on the nightstand pierced my ears as if it sought to kill me. I hated that sound, always had, and probably always would. Although this would probably be the last time I listened to it. Would that be so bad?

Programmed for a six thirty wake-up call during the school week, I forgot to tell it school was canceled, forever. Slapping the clock to shut off the damnable noise, I moved as if a reptile waking up in the cold, blood running slower than slow. Numb to existence, maybe, but I had never experienced this feeling before; I could've misinterpreted the emptiness. My finger must have made it to the correct button because the alarm finally ceased.

Perched on my desk, the computer tower pulsed with a soft blue glow, the black tape obscuring the LED peeled back in defeat. My eyes darted to the odd, disco ball-looking object Maggy had made Félix and me, which hung a sliver to the right of my feet, so that if it fell, it would crash on the floor and not shatter on my skin. The mirrored shell reflected the blue light in a hundred directions. It had taken a while to warm up to the device, dubbed the Spy Interference Machine, or SIM, and eventually I had to cover any LED indicator—which every tech gadget possessed—to prevent it from catching light and darken the room at night. It would've been simpler to take down the SIM, but Maggy had built it for me and so there it dangled. Its purpose, according to Maggy, was to disrupt spy equipment so that no one could listen in on our super secret conversations of world conspiracies, most of which revolved around aliens or Bigfoot. In actuality, I didn't think it did anything, though I often wondered if she gifted them to spy on _us_. But that wasn't Maggy's style.

My phone, buried in my sheets along with my headphones, reported that the world was back to normal when I unlocked the screen. The bars were at max, the modem and Li-Fi router were up and running, and there was even a newscast alert on my home screen that read: DARREL, DON'T WORRY, MOM AND DAD ARE DOWNSTAIRS EATING BREAKFAST. YOUR WORLD WASN'T DESTROYED AFTER ALL. HURRAY!

Okay, so that was all bullshit. Nothing had changed during the night. I hadn't slept a wink, and after eight hours of TV I switched to music to help drift off, but that failed to provide the usual comfort and relaxation. So then I just stared into space, for hours, and came to this verdict: today was my last day on this planet.

It was hard to get out of bed with this in mind. I cleared my throat. _Stupid tic_. _Just go away already!_ But it never would. As I rolled out of bed, I contemplated my life and the funny decisions I'd made, like my futon bed from freshman year. At one time I believed it would be awesome for its versatility, giving my room way more space, until the crummy mattress kinked my neck so badly my life literally turned on its side. It took several visits to a chiropractor to level my eyes parallel with my shoulders. The very next day my parents bought a normal mattress and I abandoned my vision of gaining twelve decimeters of room in the daytime.

And that was what my life had been, a series of random actions that led from one day to another, full of miscues and small achievements, none of which mattered much when you were about to die.

I replaced the black tape over the tower LED and drifted into the kitchen, possibly thirty minutes later, or maybe three. Where did time go these days? If I only knew, but I wasn't certain about anything anymore, except that I was about to eat my last meal. _Better make it count, Darrel_.

Clearing my throat, my eyes glazed over, and the cabinets vanished, hidden in a mist that did not exist. Spacing out was a large part of my survival mode for the last few hours, trapped in a perpetual daze.

Reality came back as a finger nudged a spoon that sat in wait on the counter. The countertops were designed to look like wood, a modern kitchen built of neo-plastic, a type of super plastic that I knew very little about. Maybe I should've paid more attention in school. The feeling of regret swelled in my chest, and I couldn't shake it.

I poured a bowl of cereal. Sugarcoated wheat flakes, I could've eaten them every day for the rest of my life, but the crumbs from the bottom slid out and announced an empty bag. _Mom was supposed to get more yesterday  . . . _The thought prompted me to glance at the fridge and the grocery list clinging to the metallic surface. I squeezed my eyes closed to stop the tears. I'd already done enough of that.

Drifting off into la-la land, reality slipped away again, and by the time I made it to the couch, the flakes were soggy. Damn. Some last meal, right? Still had an unopened box of corn puffs though, so maybe I'd follow up this bowl with seconds.

The couch was as comfortable as ever. Now this was a sanctuary, a haven, at least for the time being. All the family photos, which I'd taken off their hooks during my binge-watching yesterday, leaned against the walls, backs facing out. The small self-standing pictures rested face down instead of staring at me, haunting me. Tears erupted every time I saw Mom's happy, cheesy grins as the digital frames rotated from one family event to another. I couldn't take it.

"On, Bruce," I said loud enough for the sensor to pick up my voice. The screen lit up and above the program search: 3/23/2048.

My death date.

I considered this detail and wondered if there were death horoscopes, forecasting where I would go and how I would live in the afterlife, if such a thing existed. Would dying in March mean I'd be happier than if I died in September? I stopped myself before I got too involved, because horoscopes were my mom's thing, and I couldn't deal with those emotions. Not then, not ever.

Burning through all the episodes of StarCraft left me in a show hole. And then I remembered I'd been saving the latest season of Doctor Who for a situation like this. Well, not like this exactly, but for a time when I needed a spirit boost.

"Bruce, load SciStreamer," I said.

"Unable to load Internet app," Bruce reminded me. "Please check Li-Fi connection."

"Dammit," I groaned. "All right, load 'The Stashed Gunman,' season one, episode one."

Immediately, Benny the red-stashed cowboy, a hero from my childhood, took over the screen. This would be how I'd go out, watching cartoons on the couch with a bowl of soggy cereal. What a way, yeah?

All the blinds were still drawn down, as I hoped to ignore the street, and the terrible rumbles that knotted my stomach. The end of the world wasn't about survival, at least not for me. Nah, it was about indulging in kid TV shows and reflecting on a short, ordinary life while waiting for some monster to break down my front door.

After a few episodes, I opened the freezer to grab a handful of ice cubes, and guess what I stumbled upon behind the ice cream? Pot cookies. Oy, my dad, he was always trying to hide his weed somewhere in the house. Like the last coffee mug at the back of the cupboard. Or my old piggy bank living out its golden years in the ottoman. This wasn't even trying though, right there in plain sight, behind a comfort food. Funny thing: he didn't even _have_ to hide it. Legal for almost four decades, no one was going to discover it and rat him out to the police. Maybe he thought I'd steal it. If that were true, poor choice leaving it behind the ice cream, Dad.

I grabbed the bag and tossed it on the coffee table. The end of the world, right? Might as well try something I never thought I would. You know, to mellow out. Truth: I was freaking. And I liked cookies. I went back and snatched the ice cream too.

Whoever said pot cookies taste good was a lying sack of dog turds. They tasted horrible. I mean really, really bad. Supposedly they made tasteless weed, but this wasn't it. Not by a long shot. Despite the rancid flavor, I forced all of it down, for the experience.

The world slowed as episode after episode played endlessly. Was this what it was supposed to feel like? Was it working? My eyes became heavy and my head fogged up. I couldn't concentrate on the screen anymore. A midmorning nap seemed appropriate, falling asleep to the boom of cartoon violence.

#

SNIFFING AT THE front door stirred me. My chest tightened. The end at last, I hoped.

After muting the TV, the sniffing grew louder, worse than a dog at a party—damn crotch intruders. Silence followed. Eerie silence. The kind of silence you knew wasn't going to stick around long.

I shot up, flung the bag of weed-infused cookies behind the TV—blame paranoia for that one—and bolted for the foyer and the door, which was still closed, locked up tight. The blinds of the giant front window made me think twice about checking outside. The house creaked and groaned. Was this paranoia from the pot, too? Did I even hear anything for real? Nah, it was all in my head. Pot delusions. That was something, right?

Behind me, the light disappeared, and I spun around in a poorly imitated karate jump. Something stood on the other side of the sliding glass door, blocking what little light the blinds let in. My arm hairs bristled like a porcupine. Good news: pot didn't make me paranoid.

The sniffing returned.

Screwed. _This is it, Darrel. This is the end. Fight or flight?_

I stood, encased in ice. Blood thumped hard in my ears. A drumbeat of doom. Maybe a heart attack would kill me before whatever drew in those deep whiffs.

The light returned as the figure slunk off.

When I reached the edge of the couch, my feet refused to take another step. I wanted to arm myself with a knife from the block on the kitchen counter, but there was no way my body was going to allow it.

The doorknob to the backyard rattled in the laundry room down the hall from the sliding glass door. Locked. But the inside door wasn't, and I thought about closing it for extra security. My body, on the other hand, remained immobile, already dead. The lock didn't last long, busted in. My breathing hadn't sped up like it normally did in tense situations; I just stood there, stock-still, unable to move beyond the spasms that cursed my muscles.

Something bumped the inside door to the laundry room, and it swung open with a heart-stopping creak so slow it lasted a full minute before it faded. From around the corner, a beast drifted into view, its nose pressed to the floor, sniffing the carpet. It raised its head and gazed at me with green eyes made from steel, blades piercing and effective enough to cut my soul. With short tawny hair, the alien resembled a lioness, but easily stood two meters. Two more furry arms sprang forward from its shoulders, jointed in too many ways to count. At their ends rotated a hand with four humanlike fingers and two thumbs opposite of each other.

A giant, freakish monster. Cool.

Not really.

Piss-your-pants scary was more accurate.

Gripped in its stare, I could only watch as it crept closer, its mouth opening to display bloodstained teeth sharper than my dad's saw blades. My heart was panicking, punching against my ribs as if it were going to burst through my skin and rocket across the room. It begged me to run. But I was frozen, completely rigid, like an old action figure past its prime.

The alien sensed my petrified state, and it seemed to grin, happy for such an easy kill. A deer caught in headlights? Pfft, please. Deer had nothing on me.

I blinked.

When I opened my eyes again, the alien had a santoku knife stuck between its right eye and ear, blue blood exploding from the wound in a stream, soaking the couch. Its eyes quivered before it collapsed with a boom so powerful it shook my knees and surely dented the floor.

Whipping left, I spied a blurry figure standing under the front doorframe. "Darrel?" a voice said, but I was on my way out. Blackness surrounded me, engulfed me. It took care of me, like a warm electric blanket.

#

WATER SPLASHED MY face. I guess that worked, because I woke up, wet and screaming. Curse after curse, all the ones I knew, I let them fly.

"Calm down, bromigo," a voice tried to soothe me. An almond-shaped head dropped into view in front of me, two round, burnt eyes staring at me from behind nifty spectacles. Sitting up on the couch, my jaw hung open. I didn't trust my vision.

"Félix?" I gasped, still short on breath. I cleared my throat. Shocked, I just gaped at him.

His long face turned into a smile, presenting his luminous white teeth. His clean pearls had been the same since we became best friends in the second grade at Roosevelt Elementary. He was sort of a fanatic about hygiene. "Yeah, it's me. You going to pass out on me again?" he asked, nervous. He ran his shaky fingers through his short black hair. A dark bruise swelled above his left temple. Those bruises were all too common on him.

"No. At least I don't think so. I could use some ice water though, five cubes." A second later he was pouring me a glass, iceless. I never thought simple water could taste so damn good. "Thanks," I managed, setting the empty glass on a neo-plastic coaster. Mom hated watermarks. Next to the glass five empty cereal bowls lined the coffee table. When did that happen? I only remembered eating the one bowl. Was that what pot did? I knew it gave you the munchies, but why did I get a different bowl each time?

"No prob," he said. He poured himself a glass, sat down in the chair next to the couch, and watched the animated bullets coming right at us. They looked cooler with 3D lenses, but who had time for such luxuries anymore? "Can I ask you something?" He shifted in the velvety fabric, turning to see my expression.

Despite the lingering grogginess, I gathered what words waited on his tongue. "All right."

"Did I—did I just kill an alien?"

I glanced behind the couch at the giant corpse. Blue blood pooled on the carpet. "I'm not positive," I answered. "Could be dreaming."

"You or me?"

"Dunno."

"Why are you watching cartoons?" he asked. He avoided turning back towards the corpse. Maybe he felt that if he ignored it, it would turn out to be just his imagination. That was what I was hoping. Ah, the sweet life of pretending.

"You see the mark on the door?" My voice cracked.

"Yup, had the same one on my door."

"That's why," I answered, turning back to the showdown, Benny the Stashed Gunman settling a dispute with a duel. "Plus the Li-Fi is down, and since we're hooked up to Satellite, I guess we don't have a regular TV antenna. So this is pretty much it."

"None of your TV's have an internal antenna?"

"I tried to figure it out yesterday, but I'm not sure they even make TV's with them anymore."

He shifted back and peered at the alien. "We gotta get out of here. I'm not waking, you're not waking—it's goddamn real." He jumped off the chair and dashed into the kitchen, retrieved another knife, and squatted before the alien. "It's just so massive." He lifted a limp paw with the blade, then dropped it, afraid it wasn't actually dead.

I stood beside him. Dazed, the world still felt slow, out of sync. Unreal. "What does this mean?"

"What do you mean 'what does this mean?' We're—"

"No," I cut in. "No, dude, we're dreaming."

"That doesn't make any sense," he said, retrieving the dropped knife. "You know it doesn't. The whole block is gone, all communications are down, and lion-looking aliens are roaming the streets. This is real, Darrel. This is really happening."

"Félix, how are you even here? Yesterday I tried to get to your place, and one of these things was kicking back on the lawn of the house with the willow tree, eating someone. I saw another one kill a guy in the street and drag him away. I thought it was a movie set—"

"A movie set? Out here? What are you—"

"High? Not yesterday. Just confused as hell. What about you, have you seen anyone?"

Whatever I said struck a wounded chord in him. He sunk into the couch cushions and buried his head in his lap, sobbing. I heard a muffled, "They're gone."

His words, stifled by a cough, barely reached my ears, but I understood. "Mine too," I said quietly and sat next to him. "S-sorry about your folks." He raised his head and nodded, taking off his glasses to dry his cheeks. "I searched for hours when I realized my parents were gone. Both of their cars were here, so I knew they hadn't driven anywhere. Needless to say, I didn't find them. I didn't find anything, anyone, not at Karl's or Mrs. Cowinski's, not a trace of a single neighbor. I tried to get to your house, like I said, but I couldn't. I didn't go anywhere after that. I wanted to check out my grandparent's house, but I—I wasn't going to drive anywhere, you know?"

A long pause choked the air.

"When I got up, they were just gone, Darrel . . . just gone." Every word sounded like it tortured him. "No trace. Nothing."

"Yeah, same," I said. "Their sheets were wrinkled like they slept in their bed. Guess that's when it happened."

"Guess so," he stammered.

"Well, don't worry, they'll be back." I didn't know what else to say, living in denial, more than likely all my words would be lies. Picking up a pair of VR goggles, I said, "You want to play _Death Squad_? We can still do campaign mode with the Internet offline." A new vision of my demise flashed before me: I'd go out doing what I loved, gaming, the virtual reality consuming me, allowing me to become oblivious to when it would happen.

"Are you crazy? No I don't wanna play _Death Squad_ ," he said sharply. "I wanna get the hell out of here."

"And go where? Go where, Félix?" I pointed at the alien. "I've already let it all go, man. I've already accepted my fate. Haven't you?"

"Are you saying you've just given up? Is that what you've been doing here, sitting around waiting to die?"

"You say that like there's another option."

"There _is_ another option."

"Yeah? And what's that? We fart out a magic death ray and return the world back to normal? This is it, don't you get that? This is the end of the world. And people like me, we don't survive the end of the world. We die in the first scene."

"How can you say that?" He jumped to his feet, angry. In girth, I was much bigger than him, and a couple centimeters taller, but he possessed more endurance, more willpower. "We can fight. You _can_ survive. I get it, thinking you were alone, but you're not. We're both here. We can do this, together."

I cleared my throat. "You honestly believe that?"

"I do," he answered.

Before either of us could say more, the house began to shake. A crack of thunder split my ears open and whopped my brain as if struck by Thor's hammer. The abrupt boom waned to nothing almost instantly. The picture frames rattled against the walls in the aftermath. The five cereal bowls, each a quarter full of milk, quivered. The box of corn puffs tumbled to the kitchen floor. Other crashes came from around the house.

Panic hit like a sack of cinder blocks to the gut. We ran, skidded, tumbled, and clambered to the front window. Curses were the only words that left our mouths, in an echo similar to a fading song chorus.

I brushed aside the blinds. A tiny little dot in the sky vanished from view right after I spotted it. Then another ship followed, triangular in shape, crimson gas spitting out its aft as it zoomed over the neighborhood. The second boom destroyed my eardrums.

And then silence.

It took a few moments for the ringing in my ears to subside. "Dead," I whispered. "We're all dead." My stomach burned like it was about to come up my throat. My arm twitched, then my legs gave out, sending my face to the carpet.

"You okay?" Félix asked, twitching as well.

"No," I said. It was the end, but it wasn't happening like in _Fury of War_ and _Our Descent_ , the two games we had played most before the release of _Death Squad_. The aliens weren't landing legions to fight off with our tanks and fighter jets. There wasn't any point in that because no one was left to steer the tanks and fly the jets. There was no one left to hold the guns and plan the battles. No killer viruses, no global EMP, no unthinkable subterfuge and sabotage from within. They simply took everyone off the face of the planet in one night. One. Freaking. Night. Everyone but Félix and me. A pair of seventeen-year-olds with no real combat experience and nerves so shaky it was difficult to hold a glass of water.

"Yeah, same," he said.

"What do we do?" I asked numbly, lying there, spasming. I couldn't do this. Couldn't survive. My sole thought: _It'll all end soon._

Félix slumped against the wall beneath the window. "The Lake Whatcom Emergency Shelter."

"That's where you want to go? To a shelter built for a volcano eruption?"

"Exactly. It's a survival shelter. If others are alive in the area, they'll go there, and we can figure out what to do next from a safe place."

"Relatively safe," I added.

"Sure, right. Relatively. But I bet it beats the hell out of this place."

I sat up beside him. "So what's your plan? Are we driving there?"

"I don't know how to shut off the fake engine noises, do you?"

I shook my head. "Nope. So that leaves us with walking? It's like sixteen klicks away, dude."

He laughed. "Sixteen klicks? You really are bad at distance, aren't you? It's probably more like five."

"Yeah, well, when's the last time you walked five klicks in real life?"

"That doesn't matter. We can do it. I know we can. We _have_ to."

Taciturnity became our mood. My brain couldn't process it all: the missing people, the alien invasion, the idea of fighting to survive outside the VR room. _How can this be real?_ I zoned out again, floating in space, unable to think clearly.

"It's funny," Félix broke the silence. "All we've ever done is play video games, and now when it comes to it, all that training means nothing."

I turned to him. "Training?"

"Don't you think we've been trained for this? We've been playing VR shooter games since we were little, and game controllers are shaped like guns, they even weigh the same as real ones. And most of the games make you go through a virtual boot camp level. Remember, the military uses VR games for combat simulations."

"Virtual boot camp is not the same as actual boot camp, Félix," I said. "You know that. Real recruits have people screaming at them, they have people instructing them, they have other tests besides combat games."

"True. Still . . ." He wanted to say something more, but stopped himself.

"You really think we should go to the Lake Whatcom Emergency Shelter?" I said, not entirely excited for his answer.

Félix propped himself up using the window ledge. "All I know, bromigo, is that I can't watch cartoons waiting to die . . . waiting to be taken. I think it's a good place to start." He hastened to the kitchen, where he began to empty the knife block. He was always using the Spanglish word "bromigo," something passed on by his cousins from his trip to San Diego two summers ago. I had tried it out once, but it didn't roll off my tongue so well. Of the many classes I performed poorly in, Spanish was at the top of the list.

"What are you doing?" I asked, uncertain as to what he intended to do out there, on the streets that promised our demise.

"What's the first thing you learn before playing _Our Descent_ online?" he asked, frantically scouring through drawers. He placed older knives next to his assembled weaponry.

The answer came easily, probably a saying I'd repeated a million times since I'd heard it years ago. "The well-armed take advantage; whether physical or intellectual, all are assets to the soldier," I said without fault. For some odd reason the saying sparked a feeling of courage in me. It ignited a strange passion that I'd never comprehended.

"Then let us be well-armed," he said, raising his eyes from the collection of blades to meet mine, now ablaze with the will to fight. I placed the thought of surrender in the shadows of my mind. _So it's fight after all._

Jumping to my feet, invigorated, I yelled, "My dad's tools." His eyes glinted at the idea. We raced to the garage, the walls of which were lined with wireless woodworking implements. I clutched one of the several electric handsaws, charged by the sun. "The batteries should last years, unless the aliens block out the sky or hit us with an EMP." All at once, the adrenaline ran dry, replaced yet again by fear.

Years . . .

How long could we really survive? Video game campaigns ended when you shut off the application. A nightmare was beginning to unfold in my mind.

A hand landed on my shoulder. I jerked. Félix gave me a half-hearted smile. "Let's just make it to the shelter first." I was pretty sure I nodded. His effort to comfort me freaked me out even more.

I tried repeating the energizing motto, but its power lessened the more I recited it. Félix held up a hatchet, twirled it around. He eyed it for a long time, then asked, "Why does your dad have a hatchet when he has all of these saws?"

"Beats me. My father is a strange one, smokin' pot like he does." My lips didn't flap about my little escapade from this morning. What would Félix even say? Maybe: "Let's bring the bag with us," or "You got high and watched cartoons at the end of the world? You really are a dumbass, aren't you?" Nah, he'd probably just shake his head. "I don't know what he did with it," I said, regarding the hatchet. "He might've used it to chop up wood just for the hell of it." A sharp pain stabbed my stomach. Talking about my father was more real than anything I could handle at the moment. Over the last two days I'd been dealing with my grief with the power of denial. For distraction, I searched around, but nothing resembled any real weaponry, then I remembered my neighbor. "The Troll," I shouted unintentionally.

"What?"

"The Troll," I repeated. "He has all that hunting gear."

"I'm not going anywhere near that place. Besides, what's wrong with this stuff?"

"The range," I said. My fingers glided over the sharp teeth of a blade. "None of this stuff has any range, it's all last-resort gear. We need guns. Rifles, pistols." He nodded, as he hadn't thought of that either. "Best to fire from ten meters than to slice from one."

"All right, but if he's home, we're dead."

I cleared my throat. "We're dead if we don't go, too," I added, clearing my throat again. The thought of leaving the house started to agitate me. My throat felt as if it would never be clear again.

"You all right? You're clearing your throat more than normal," he observed.

"Guess it's not a normal day."

His lips moved to one side of his face in a half-grin. "Guess you're right about that. Let's put this stuff in a bag with some food and get going. Might take us a while to get to the shelter and I don't want to be out in the dark. Not with those things out there. Plus we have to go check out Maggy's."

Maggy popped into my mind's eye: I could see her, surrounded by a hundred different gadgets, fighting off the aliens with bombs and traps in a last stand, laughing maniacally while wearing her Steampunk aviator goggles that were more advanced than the VR pair I owned. "You think she made it?"

"Of course I do. What, you don't?"

"I didn't say that," I spat out. "If we made it, she made it."

Félix buried the hatchet in a woodblock. "All right, let's get to it then, shall we?"

We gathered the equipment, grabbing any spare blades and accessories. My dad's utility belts proved useful for stuffing knives into as well. In twenty minutes we transformed ourselves from scared-shitless teenagers into scared-shitless teenagers with garage weapons.

Time to face the world.

#

READY FOR DEPARTURE, I surveyed the street through the peephole. Nothing. No movement, no sounds. I hadn't registered a dog bark or a bird chirp since Saturday, but then I wasn't listening for them either. It had been a world blocked out by TV and ignored by my headphones, in collusion with my brain, which required little effort when armed with denial.

I cleared my throat. "Ready?" Rotating to check with Félix, the alien corpse was within view behind him and sent a shiver of dread down my spine. _You're not ready for this, Darrel. Don't go out there, man. You'll die._

It was hard to talk yourself up when you were a coward. I could try and hide the fact that I was one, but really, come on, all the outward signs were there, telling me to retreat back to the couch. The couch, oh God, that sweet, magnificent piece of furniture.

"I wish," Félix answered, snapping me from my minibreakdown. "Don't you want a sweatshirt or something?" He wore a _Fury of War_ jacket, the orange strings from the hood dangling across his chest, bright and conspicuous.

I examined my Traitors in Green t-shirt. Worn, with a small hole in the right armpit, but a good shirt nonetheless, and a great band. "Don't need one." I had never liked coats or jackets, or even pants, with a preference for a simple shirt and shorts, though I did opt for jeans for such an excursion.

My fingers curled around the knob and I opened the door. Slow and with caution, at least I tried, but the damn thing pealed like an eagle, alarming anything within a thousand meter radius with its impairing creak. An exaggeration on my part, probably. Time would tell shortly.

Mrs. Cowinski's empty house yawned in boredom. In fact the whole street seemed to yawn, fatigued, wrapped in an impenetrable hushed bubble where sound didn't exist. _Why is there no noise? What's happening to the world?_ The complete silence rattled me the most in spite of what we faced.

Looking at the doorknob, I grinned at the hide-a-key Félix had used to get in, thankful to have such a friend who I trusted enough with its secret location. We slinked into the front yard, crouched behind some flowers I had never bothered to learn the names of, mostly because my mother rattled them off as if I already knew them.

The random thought of Mom wrenched my heart. I could still hear her say the words of our last real conversation Saturday morning when I'd opened the rejection letter from Western, my close-to-home-backup school. "I'm still so proud of you, Darrel. You've done a great job this year improving your grades. You really tried and that's all anyone could ask. Besides, there's no shame in going to Whatcom. I went there, your Uncle Will went there. It's a great community college, the best in Washington. You'll love it there, and this way you can save money staying at home for two years before moving on. Trust me, it won't be so bad, I promise."

How I replied to all her love and support: "I'm sorry I'm such a disappointment." I stormed out of the house and slammed the front door, taking a heated stroll through the park, then secluded myself in the VR room for the rest of the day. The memory evaporated as tears began to collect around my eyes. Shaking off the strong emotion, I took a deep breath, and regarded the yard and beyond.

The neighborhood: dead. It was a wasteland. The neatest, cleanest wasteland of all time.

Examining the houses, the tilted E symbol marked all the doors within sight. I turned back and saw the same engraving on my door. My eyes flooded, no stopping the tears. I wanted to run back inside, sit down on the comfy couch and watch cartoons until my eyes bled, so that I could pretend that everything was fine.

_Man up, Darrel._ My father's voice. _Stop being a baby and man up._ Man up? What did that even mean? Nah, what I needed was to Hulk up. Smash aliens. Smash spaceships. Smash something.

I glanced at Félix. His face was the same. We weren't soldiers . . .

After a spell spent composing ourselves, Félix nodded at Karl's unsightly house. "When was the last time you checked?"

"Yesterday morning," I answered.

"We should—"

"It won't matter," I cut in. "He's gone, dude. No one else has returned, why would he have? Come on." He followed after a moment of hesitation. It was a hard thing to swallow, Karl's disappearance. We'd spent almost every Saturday night playing _The Black_ for the last two years. He'd never play any video game but _Halo: Masters of Time_ , a game we had grown out of years and years ago, but he'd come over for a good D20 roll. He would sometimes join us for poker, too, and get shitfaced from my dad's cheapo beer, usually MGD or PBR, losing all his cash in the process. He never left a winner.

How long did it take us to travel seven houses up and across the street? I couldn't say for sure, my mind occupied by memories of Karl, but we made it to the Troll's house in one piece. His mailbox, decorated with red flames and a menacing skull and crossbones, disturbed everyone in the community, as though even his mailbox was an extension of his sinister aura.

You see, Rhododendron Way hadn't changed much in the last decade, and neither had Bellingham, still relatively small with fewer than two hundred thousand, still progressive in its collective views, still pro gun control. The Troll was different. I suspected he would've fared better living on the outskirts of Lynden to the north, but then again, my knowledge of the man equaled squat. Except that he favored hunting, boasting an arsenal fit to take down a small militia on his own. No one on the block had liked that. Dad often remarked that he was going to go crazy one day and just start firing away at the neighborhood. The real crazy thing was I never dismissed the idea.

"His house has the same mark as everyone else," I noted in a tone full of apprehension.

Félix rubbed the symbol with quivering fingers. "Just like us."

"What do you think it means?"

He shrugged. "I haven't even thought about it. I haven't _wanted_ to think about it."

"You think he's gone?" I asked, my mind running wild.

"Probably."

I nodded. My skin pimpled from a shiver, the silence of the street eating at my fragile nerves. We snuck inside, the Troll's properly lubed hinges producing no noise. No bullets sprayed the entryway like I imagined would happen when we crossed over the threshold. A quick search told us the Troll was nowhere within. "Why do you think we're still here when everyone else isn't?"

Félix shrugged. "No clue. It doesn't make sense that our parents are gone but not us."

"I bet Maggy will know," I said, hopeful.

"There's little she doesn't," he agreed. In the kitchen, we stocked up on more cutlery, as his were grade A, sharpened to perfection. Félix carried a handsaw in his right and the hatchet in his left.

"You plan on becoming Rick Grimes?" I asked, toting two knives.

He sighed. "I sure hope not. The man's a badass, but mental."

We crept down the basement stairs, but our furtive steps seemed pointless. Nothing jumped out of the dark. In the corner of the room, Félix tapped the door to a huge metal cabinet. "A gun locker."

"I don't think that's a normal gun locker. It looks like it has a security system to protect diamonds."

"So, no guns. . . ?"

"Guess not. Even if we found the key to it, we'd have to crack the code, and neither of us have the skills for that. Hey, over here." I headed towards an old armoire covered in dust. Besides the glossy metal safe, the whole room matched, decaying and dusty. A dozen moths flew at our faces when I opened both of the wardrobe doors.

Félix jumped back and screeched like an owl.

"Dude, they're just moths," I laughed.

He punched my shoulder.

"All right, all right." I scooted away. "But really though, how rational is it to be afraid of moths? They can't even sting or bite you."

"Irrational fears aren't rational," he snapped. "That's why they call them _irrational_ fears."

I shooed away the fluttering insects as best I could. "I suppose that's why you've never rooted for Mothra in Godzilla showdowns." He chose not to respond.

Daylight found its way in through a small window, and shined on the armoire like a spotlight, where several bows greeted us, including an ancient one without any technological enhancements. Hunting blades hung on the doors, a few of them the size of small swords.

I snatched one of the compound bows, and a pair of goggles fell to the floor, a small dust cloud puffing up upon the impact. Scooping up the headgear that resembled ski goggles, I slid them over my eyes, flipped the switch on the side, and the shadows in the room lit up in black and white and all the shades of gray. "You've got to see this, I can see everything."

"Near-infrared," Félix said. "Shorter wavelengths than thermal imaging."

"Slick."

"Expensive."

"Yeah, I bet," I said, pulling back on the bowstring. "Except for that." I nodded at the ancient bow. "Don't know why he'd keep that around."

"Probably worth a ton. It looks like an artifact." He skimmed the heavy wood with a finger, careful not to knock it over. Eventually he selected a compound one, stowed a bundle of arrows, along with half of the hunting blades. The other half I took, placing the deadliest-looking one in a soft sheath that I wrapped around my calf. The Troll had three quivers, one probably as old as the ancient bow, the other two maybe a few years past their prime, but they held together.

I scanned the room for anything else viable for combat, but came up empty. Pictures of the Troll and his lumberjack hunting companions hung on the wall, displaying their acquisitions. I'd never seen such a spitting image of the fantasy creature. The apt nickname described the man in full detail. A shudder struck me. _At least I never have to see_ you _again._

I turned back to Félix, who was holding an open shoebox, his face contorted in disgust.

"What? What is it?" I said.

"He really was a monster," he mumbled.

"What are you talking about?"

He tilted the box so that I could see. Pictures filled the container, and at first I couldn't make out what they were of, so graphic in nature that my mind couldn't accept them as real, but rather something pulled from a dark crime show. I spun away after I processed the images. "Oh shit, I'm gonna puke." And then I did. The wall supported my body as I heaved my guts onto the floor.

Félix dropped the box and the photos spilled all over the basement. "Let's get the hell out of here." Back in the kitchen, he handed me a towel to wipe myself clean. "That was messed up."

"It was always a joke that he was a serial killer," I said. "I never actually believed . . . he was my neighbor . . ."

"Sometimes what we think of people is what they really are," he said. "Come on, I can't stay another second in this house." We ducked between bushes in the Troll's front yard and regained our composure before we set out for Maggy's.

"I can't do it," I confessed to Félix.

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm not gonna make it, that's what I'm talking about! I don't have the mettle, the right stuff, or whatever the hell you wanna call it. Whatever it is, I don't have it."

"The right stuff? Get a grip, bromigo, because you're losing it."

"I can't use this bow, Félix, or these knives, knowing what he did with them. I can't stomach it. It makes me feel like I was a part of it somehow."

"Look, what we just saw was something unspeakably awful, but we need this stuff. We have to keep it. What's out there, it's worse than the Troll."

"Is it though?"

He weighed his response. "Maybe not, but that doesn't change the fact that we'll die without this gear, at least until we find something else. And don't give me that shit about not having mettle. It's stupid and pointless. I mean, what makes you think you have any less mettle than me? We're the same, Darrel. We're both scared, we're both uncertain about what's going to happen, but we can do this. All right? Now get your ass up and let's save our friend." He stood up and offered me his hand.

Hesitation drew out the moment of encouragement. Finally I grabbed his hand and got to my feet. "Okay, you're right. I'll stop with the self-pity."

"Promise me," he said. "Promise you won't think like that again. The time for that kind of attitude is over. It's the only way we'll make it through this."

"I know, and I promise. No more, okay?"

"Good. Now let's get moving." He nocked an arrow and drew. "We don't have all day. There's an alien up the block."

#

WHEN I WHIPPED around, there was nothing but an empty street. "Good one, Félix." I punched his arm, hard.

The arrow launched at a car as he stumbled back a step. "Hey, you knew it was coming at some point."

"Just wait," I said, shaking my head. "You'll piss your pants when I get you back."

"Yeah, maybe."

"Time?" I asked, moving up the sidewalk, crouched.

For his birthday a few years ago, his parents gave him the choice between a smatch—smart watch for the lingo illiterate—and the new _Invasion Force IV_ , which was why he wore a crappy relic on his arm. That was true dedication to gaming. He rotated his wrist and said, "Four thirty-seven."

Good, our little detour hadn't taken too long, ten, twenty minutes, not the end of the world. Well, okay, it was . . . "Still plenty of time to reach the shelter," I said.

Félix retrieved his misfired arrow. "Yup."

Neither of us spoke as we made our way up Crown Lane, where the sidewalk disappeared, curving left onto View Ridge Drive, exposed the whole way. We didn't bother crouching anymore, for which my knees were eternally thankful, burning in disapproval of the hunkered posture. During the trek, I thought about Maggy.

When I had first met her five years ago, before we became close friends, I crushed on her hard for a while. I mean, she wasn't the only girl I had crushes on over the years, but the funny thing about hers was that it never actually went away. Was that really funny? Nah, probably not.

It was obvious she had always known how I felt. Girls always seemed to know. They were good at that and even better at concealing any awareness. That was probably to make it less awkward when their feelings didn't match. And they never matched. Not with mine anyway.

"You're a good guy, but I don't think of you that way," Allison Green told me after I'd asked her out in eighth grade. Spring was in full swing and everyone did track in those days, including an indoorsman like me, twirling in the shot put circle. It was just after practice, a mob of people waiting for their parents, and I plodded up to that hot redhead, sweat in my eyes, in my pits, on my back, ass, crotch, everywhere imaginable and probably a few places you wouldn't think, but that was the time I'd chosen, so I took a breath and went for it. Bad timing in hindsight. Why didn't I ask her out in the morning when I had a fresh coat of Old Spice?

Allison Green's response was the standard rejection from then on, with one exception in ninth grade, a two-week dalliance with Rebecca Hawkins, a pushy bigmouth who liked to order me around like a dog. The relationship probably would've lasted longer had Félix not intervened and smacked some sense into my head—literally.

The memories floated away as we crossed Alabama Street, the main artery from downtown to Lake Whatcom, but because we felt so vulnerable out in the open, we darted up the next street and took a circuitous route to reach Maggy's cul-de-sac, Lakeridge Lane.

Her bright yellow home shined at the end of the road, as if it smiled in the overcast. The large five-bedroom house gave Maggy and her mom ample space for the two of them to work on various projects. Debra, a top regional surgeon, dedicated one of those rooms to sewing and quilting, and every time I visited she'd show me her latest undertaking in full detail, right down to the type of stitches she used. Maggy's projects were quite different in contrast: tech gizmos that won her blue ribbons at science fairs, including a small house-cleaning robot she called "One-zero-one."

We stopped on the porch, whispering what to do if she wasn't there, or if it was a good idea to know at all. The foreign symbol with three lines marked her door, same as ours. Same as the rest of the world. I gripped the handle and shook out the nerves. "Okay," I sighed, then twisted the knob.

A knife struck the molding. In a panic, I swiveled, shoving Félix off the porch as I jumped away. I heard a strange shrill scream. It just kept coming, louder and louder. _Oh God, that's me!_ Despite recognizing my own breakdown in composure, I couldn't stop. My heart had pounded playing video games before, but nothing compared to this. And the heat: it was the worst hot flash. My skin gushed like a waterslide.

Spotting a row of bushes, I dove and hid behind them, desperately trying to calm my breathing. It was as rapid as a fully automatic spitting out five thousand rounds per minute. Félix joined me a second later. "You all right?" he asked.

No. How could I be? I nodded, drawing in a deep, deep breath.

"I dropped my bow," I stuttered.

He glanced at the sword-like knife resting against my calf. Withdrawing it, the blade shook and shook in my hand. _Oh God. Oh Shit._ My nerves. I looked over at Félix. He nodded as he drew the same conclusion I'd come to. Aliens. Inside. Waiting for us. This was it, the moment of truth, or as Grandma Dawson used to say: "Time to meet the Man Upstairs."

I cleared my throat a hundred times. The vein in my neck bulged as if a snake got stuck in it. My blood pumped out of control: _thumpa-thumpa-thumpa._ My eardrum couldn't withstand such stress much longer.

We charged around the corner, yelling war cries. I threw the knife, but it more slipped from my hand than anything, rotating in the air like a saucer. Félix fired an arrow towards the door, but it missed, only to hit the doorbell. My knife didn't make it that far, as it thudded into the porch stairs.

Maggy stood in the doorway, staring at us in complete disbelief behind her aviator goggles. "Hol-lee shitballs. Blue? Habi?" She was carrying two steak knives but dropped them once she saw us. "You morons, you're alive . . ."

At that moment, I hoped the wetness around my crotch was sweat—to my luck, it was. "IQ!" I ran up the steps, hugging her skinny body as tightly as I could. Releasing my hold, I took a step back. "You tried to kill us."

"You tried to kill me," she said, resting her goggles on her forehead before she wrapped her arms around Félix. The conversation paused there, and their embrace lasted a long time, longer than a normal one. I began to think it might go further, but then the two parted. "Even?" she asked.

"Even," I said, pushing past the slight awkwardness of the lengthy hug.

Her face grew dark, serious. "Hurry, get inside." One-zero-one must have been charging or in the repair shop again because the house was a mess. Chaos. The opposite of mine. Her mom got on her case about everything, but she never nagged her to clean up like mine did. You would think it'd be the other way around, given how sloppy I generally was and how smart Maggy was, but I liked things neat. Tidy. She liked to leave clothes and books lying around like a tree shedding leaves in autumn, letting them fall where they may. Harder to find something that way, but apparently it worked for her.

"You guys okay?" she asked. We spread out on the furniture, all cluttered with books. Shop till you drop? Nah, read until a book bashes you in the face. That was her motto. I could picture her at two in the morning, pages resting on each cheek, her nose digging into the spine. That was how she slept most nights.

"We're fine, bramiga," Félix said. "What about you?"

"I—I honestly don't know. It's all been a lot to handle." Maggy reached for Félix's temple. "What happened to your eye, Habi?"

Habi: Félix had grown rather fond of this nickname, since it meant he was fiery like a habanero—at least while playing video games. He wasn't really fiery, not compared to Maggy, who was always willing to step into the middle of a conflict and fight, even against dudes twice her size. Not fight as in fist-to-face, but rather mouth-to-ear. She defended a lot of people with her tough attitude. Bold tongue, small girl. Anyway, Habi. For a while now I also suspected that it held a second meaning to IQ, one she was never going to tell. It made sense, the two of them together. More than she and I did anyway. He had smooth, pecan skin—a gift from his Salvadoran ancestry—and didn't hurt the eyes quite like my fair, acne-infested complexion. Their personalities meshed better too. She was too serious and me, well, I was never serious enough.

But that didn't matter much because Félix and I had a pact that neither of us would date Maggy, so as not to break up the trio. A two-year-old pact, but still, it was a pact. We didn't do any weird blood stuff, just a handshake. That was enough. Right? The past two months they'd been acting a tinge different than before, with subtle looks at each other from time to time, but I thought it was because of the projects they did together for AP Computer Science. Now I was starting to think something else was up.

"Played too much _Death Squad_ Saturday night," he said about his black eye, leaning away from her touch. "My dad ripped all the cords right out of the wall, then . . ." He rubbed the bruise. "I texted you that I was all right, and I am. Swear to Bigfoot." He knocked on his foot like someone would a wooden tabletop for good luck. An inside joke, slash secret greeting. "It could've been a whole lot worse, trust me. He was in a rage."

"So that's what happened . . . Sorry." She glared at me. "I told you we should've played _The Black_ like we normally do."

Without responding, I just stared at her beauty, probably a bad habit I should quit, but I didn't know how. Asian-American, she had a short, thin build with flawless skin. Her yellow eyes stunned me for a few moments every time I looked into them. She once told me she inherited her startling eye color from her father and his Norwegian blood, which was about the only thing I knew about him; he passed away in sixth grade, long before we were friends. Wherever she got the color, they were unlike any natural eyes I'd ever seen, Asian or otherwise.

No one spoke for a while. "They're here, IQ," Félix broke the uncomfortable silence.

She snapped her goggles against her head like she did when she was restless. "I saw the aircraft. The booms nearly made me shit my pants."

"They're on the ground," he told her.

"Félix killed one at my house," I said. "He saved my life."

"You should see them," Félix said. "They're huge and muscular—"

"And terrifying," I cut in.

"—and look like lionesses with these weird, freakish arms coming out of their shoulders."

Her lips parted with a sharp gasp. "Lionesses?"

"Yup."

"So it really is an invasion," she whispered.

"Is it still an invasion if they abduct nearly the entire population?" I asked. They both stared at me with unamused looks. "What? I'm just saying, isn't it more of a culling?"

She waved me off, sprang to her feet, and peeked through the blinds of the front window. "I—I thought about running over to your houses, but I—I didn't want to know for certain, and the . . ." She gulped a dry swallow. "The sounds outside . . ." Her eyes misted up and she wiped them with a sleeve.

"Everyone's gone," I said miserably.

Maggy picked up a dog harness. "They even took Lilly." Her black-and-white Havanese that obeyed almost every command Maggy gave her, but, with ingenuity, ate her share of human food. She loved to role around on her back and have anyone, particularly Félix, pet her belly. I couldn't think of meeting a better dog than Lilly.

Félix was at Maggy's side in an instant, rubbing her back. "They took your dog? That's crazy—"

Maggy shuffled out of his hands, brushing away tears. "Everything about this is crazy, like the fact that we're still here. You guys made it—how?"

"We don't know," Félix said. "We were hoping you might have a theory."

"Oh, sure I've got theories," she laughed. "Not one of them makes any sense, though. I can't think of anything that'd link all three of us together. Unless . . ." She trailed off, her mind processing a thousand thoughts a second.

"Yeah?" I prompted.

"Unless you two still have those SIM's above your beds?"

I chuckled. "Mine's still up there."

Félix turned his neck so abruptly it popped. We stared at each other, incredulous. "Mine too."

"You guys serious?" After we both assured her we were, she said, "Follow me." She led us to her bedroom, where she snagged the SIM hanging a few decimeters behind her pillow, then she hurried into her laboratory, designated by the sign INNOVATION IN PROGRESS posted to the door. At the top of the device, where the piece of string hooked to a loop, she unscrewed the plastic ring and pressed down. Six sides blossomed like electronic petals, presenting wires and capacitors and other circuitry that made up the machine's innards. Retrieving a chip from inside, she inserted it into the side of her laptop, opened up a program she most likely invented, and scanned the data. "I built in a type of recorder that keeps track of the signals it blocks."

Line after line of information filled the screen. "What is all of that?" I asked.

"Most of it's just noise, signal pollution pretty much. But every once in a while it blocks a different frequency. Like right here"—she pointed at a line highlighted in green—"this is someone actually trying to pick up an ultraviolet signal in my room last week. Could've been my mom trying to listen in to a video chat, could've been any number of possibilities. We're looking for something that happened Saturday night, Sunday morning. We'll have to wait for the program to finish."

I observed each line as the program broke it down. "How long will that take?"

"Three or four minutes," she said.

We all sat on various surfaces free of parts, which were few enough in the room. "Where's One-zero-one?" Félix asked.

"Oh, he's all futzed up." She whirled in her chair. "I was going to fix him this week. He's down in the repair shop right now." The repair shop, aka the garage, was where Maggy did the majority of her machining and created her larger projects.

"Hey, that reminds me, you owe the jar two more Lincolns," I pointed out.

"What are you talking about? Futz isn't a curse word."

"No, but you've said shit twice since we've been here."

"He's right," Félix said.

"Real cute, guys, but the jar's donezo. Over. Dead. All right? So let's not talk about it anymore." The room grew quiet as Maggy fought off tears. It was her mom, I realized. She was thinking about her and her rules, about how she was taken and was never coming back. So much reminded me of my own parents, I should've grasped this sooner, before I ever spoke. "I can't believe my mom is gone . . . I can't believe my dog is gone. I mean, why the cockwaffles would they abduct a dog? Aliens don't do that in the movies."

Félix and I peered at her, grinning. "Cockwaffles?" I said. "Where do you come up with this stuff?"

Maggy tapped her skull and smiled. "This genius brain of mine." She grew serious again. "I wish I really were a genius, then I could figure out what's going on. It all just feels so unreal right now."

I nodded. "I know what you mean. I feel like I've been living in a fog, thinking maybe I'll walk out of it and find my parents sitting at the table eating breakfast. But now I know that's just a dream. They're really gone . . ."

Another hard, reflective silence followed my words.

"Oh hey," I blurted, louder than I meant to. "They have blue blood—the aliens."

"Strange," she said. "That means their blood is probably copper-rich hemocyanin instead of hemoglobin like ours, which is full of iron."

Félix raised an eyebrow. "And that's strange because?"

"Because on Earth, vertebrates don't have circulatory systems like that, only invertebrates do, like arthropods and cephalopods. Spiders, crabs, scorpions, cuttlefish, octopuses. Stuff like that."

Clearing my throat, I asked, "So, what does that mean?"

She shrugged. "Dunno. But from what I've read, hemocyanin doesn't carry oxygen as well, so it doesn't make a whole lot of sense that a large predator would evolve with it. At least not on Earth. But the universe is a wacky place where anything and everything can happen, so it seems. Their hearts may be super strong and pump blood faster to make up for it. Or maybe it's not hemocyanin at all, but something else, something that doesn't exist on Earth. It's a question for someone who has their PhD in cell biology."

Neither of us really knew what to do with that information. I liked science just fine, but I never had a knack for it, and Félix was much more into fiction as opposed to _National Geographic_.

"Would you look at this?" Maggy hovered the mouse over the last line. "At three thirty-three Sunday morning the SIM blocked a signal we don't use for communications. We don't have the tech yet to handle it."

I leaned on the desk. "So that's when the aliens abducted everyone?"

"Looks like it." She typed away at her keyboard. "Before that, at two thirty-three they began jamming wireless communications, that's when all the signal pollution stops."

"It was you," Félix whispered. "You saved us. You're machine saved us!"

"You really are a genius, IQ!" I yelled, and clapped her on the back.

"Maybe." She permitted herself a smile. "But what do we do now? I saved us, but what did I save us for, a gruesome death?"

Folding his arms across his chest, Félix shook his head. "We can't think like that. You saved us, that's what matters. As for what's next, we've got a plan. The Lake Whatcom Emergency Shelter. We'll check it out and from there we can figure out what to do next. With some luck, others will be there, too."

"I'm in, bromigos." She was good enough at Spanish to pull off the word. Félix had always liked that. "Let me gear up." Packed with kitchen utensils and a replica of Gimli's walking axe from _Lord of the Rings_ that I'd never seen before—probably an early birthday present—she added in a few more things that we had forgotten, chiefly, a change of clothes. She also brought the SIM for anti-abduction protection. "There's some stuff in the garage I want to take."

A sensor lit up the garage when the door opened. We passed One-zero-one on a workbench, his metal chest cover beside him, giving a glimpse of his hi-tech organs. Maggy slipped off her aviator goggles and tucked them into one of her backpack's many pockets.

"Not gonna wear them?" I said, while she loaded other gadgets into her bag.

"Nah, they're on the fritz. I was upgrading them and they shutdown. I'm bringing them so that I can work on them later." Holding a pen up to her thumb, she clicked the top and injected something into her skin. "Thumb please."

Félix gave her a disconcerted look. "What's that?"

"A short-range locator chip," she said proudly. "I invented it myself, to track animal movements. There shouldn't be anyone else using this frequency. I've got one for each of us, in case we get separated. We don't have the magic of GPS anymore, and if we can't find each other, we're fraked."

Félix held up his thumb, and she inserted the chip. "Smart thinking."

I allowed her to pump the tech into my body. The prick, little more than a bug bite, stung afterwards. "How do we find each other?"

"Have your phones?"

"Yeah," I replied, "but it's dead."

"Same," Félix said.

"But lithium-air batteries last almost ten days, how could you let them die?"

Félix and I looked at each other and raised our shoulders, arms up, palms out, making silly faces.

"That's all right, we can get by with these." She supplied both of us with a small two-centimeter by two-centimeter screen. "The chips have a forty-klick radius, which should be enough if something happens. You guys ready?" After we confirmed that we were, she said goodbye to her robot. "You made my life a lot easier, One-zero-one. If I can, I promise to come back for you." She kissed his metal cheek.

We circled back to the front door and stopped on the porch.

I inclined my head at her replica. "Isn't the axe a little heavy?"

She laughed. "It's not the '20's." She tossed me the weapon. It was as light as the hunting knife. "It's neo-plastic, probably stronger than that blade you have," she bragged.

With a smirk, I handed it back to her.

"It's almost five thirty," Félix updated us.

"Ready," she said.

I nodded. "Good to go."

But before any of us descended a single step, a roar crashed against the sky, the knell that vowed our imminent demise.

#

"WHERE'S IT COMING from?" I squeaked in panic.

"The west, I think," Félix said.

"Should we drive?" Maggy asked.

I shook my head. "No cars. They're too loud."

She twirled her axe. "Good point. Let's take Silver Beach to Northshore. We can try cutting through the lakefront yards, they're not really fenced off from each other, and it might give us more coverage from the aliens."

"Guess no one will mind," I said.

"Unless they're alive. Maybe we should look for survivors on the way," Félix spoke up, nocking an arrow back, primed for engagement. All he needed was a set of hunting clothes to complete the transformation.

I copied him, though I doubted it would make a difference. The damn thing would fly ten meters from anything I aimed at.

"We have about two hours of decent daylight, if we look too much, we won't make it there before twilight," Maggy said. "That's not something any of us want." She started up the road, axe raised, her eyes on duty, alert.

I followed close to her right, so Félix trailed to her left, putting her in the middle. She could probably take us both, but that didn't matter. Something instinctual made us bookends. After a few blocks, the silence tore into me. "Why do you think it's so quiet?"

"Because they took the animals, too," Maggy suggested. "Lilly's gone, and so are the squirrels I was tracking. And when was the last time you heard a bird call?"

"I—I don't know," Félix said. "I haven't even thought about it. Birds are always making noise."

A scream cut short the conversation. I froze and scanned the vicinity. "That was a person."

"It came from the lake!" Maggy took off at a sprint. "Hurry!"

With no other choice, I followed, unable to match their speed. Another cry of torment made me double my efforts. Despite the stamina I showed in the VR room, I was quickly losing steam. Gamer shape: worlds apart from track athlete. Silver Beach dumped into Northshore and we kept running east. After three houses, Maggy and Félix halted in the driveway of a two-toned house close to the road. I caught up, huffing, and bent over, my hands resting on my knees. My heartbeat pounded in my ears and made it impossible to hear.

Maggy, observant as ever, regarded the mark on the bright cedar door. "It's different." Carved into the wood, the same slanted stroke bore only two protruding lines instead of three.

Félix shuffled towards the door, his shoes drawn like magnets. "What do you think it means?"

Fearless, Maggy tried the handle and found no resistance; she pushed the door open so that we could peer inside. "There's only one way to find out."

An ordered entryway welcomed our feet. Félix slipped in first, bow shaking but ready to launch. Maggy tiptoed after him, and I guarded our six, constantly peeking their way. "Anything?" I whispered.

"Bedrooms are clear," Maggy reported. "Let's check downstairs." We descended the steps to a living room vacant of life. Crunches echoed off the walls, as if bones were being crushed under extreme pressure. A door stood ajar at the far end. We gathered around it and glanced at each other with various degrees of trepidation.

Maggy, the most phlegmatic among us, tapped the center with her axe handle and the door swung in.

Oh God. Oh shit. Run, Darrel. Get out, get out, get out!

Horror-struck, we all screamed. One of the lionlike aliens was hunched over a corpse, gnawing on a skull, a pair of VR goggles covering the man's eyes. Surprised, the alien jumped up on all fours, snarling.

No time.

My arrow ricocheted off the living room wall while Félix's arrow penetrated a tawny foreleg. Maggy slammed the door shut and sprinted for the sliding glass door at our backs, flipped up the lever, and threw the slider open. "Hurry!" she shouted.

The alien burst through the wood like a cannonball. A roar that differed from a true lion, lower and as ominous as any video game dragon, rattled our ribcages. I swallowed a hundred times. No more saliva existed to scream.

Félix crossed the threshold last, stubbing a foot on the track. He tumbled onto the wet lawn in a hard crash and his bow went soaring. A deadly paw stomped down on his foot. He shrieked. We turned and glimpsed the giant mouth, brimming with scything teeth, about to crush his skull. Maggy, with one hand, pelted the alien with steak knives, drawing them from her belt. I launched the hunting blade sheathed around my calf. Within moments, our weapons speckled the creature, blue blood squirting in a dozen directions.

It roared again. My stomach quaked and gurgled. I nocked another dart and loosed it. It flew straight for its shoulder. As it hit, the alien twirled and stepped back. Félix crawled until he was able to stand, and we raced for the lake once he caught up.

A well-maintained motorboat, powered by the sun, was moored to a short dock forty meters away, strangely idle in the creepy water. Maggy was the first to reach it. She jumped in. "No key," she yelled. I helped Félix settle down into a seat. The alien, now recovered from our startling attack, bolted down the slope of the lawn in an unimaginable surge of speed, twice as fast as any cheetah. Its second pair of arms folded along its torso, flattened against its coat, virtually disappearing into its body.

Maggy searched for a key. Félix handed me his hunting knife, and I slashed the cord, then pushed off from the dock. We slowly drifted away in the calmness of the lake.

Once the alien reached the shore, it stopped, stamped about for a second, then roared furiously.

"Maybe it's like that old, old movie, what's it called?" Félix said.

" _Signs_ ," Maggy replied.

"Yeah, yeah, like _Signs_. Maybe water will kill it."

As if it heard Félix's words, it defied his guess and rushed into the water, paddling hard after the boat.

"Find the key!" Maggy ordered. We scrambled in haste. Hidden or lost, no one could find it. As the creature swam, it used one of its humanlike hands to yank the arrow from its shoulder. The bright blue blood dyed the dark water.

"Shoot it!" Félix yelled at me.

But I couldn't. Stiff. Paralyzed. Dead. Already dead. Real fear didn't exist in video games, and I couldn't handle facing this opponent.

Félix looked up at me, his glasses still intact, then quickly snatched the bow and arrow, firing. Missed. He shot a second and a third, until at last the alien was upon the boat.

Maggy leapt forward with her neo-plastic axe and hacked off one of its six-fingered hands. She brought down a sweeping arc and buried the axe in its head. The blade stuck, embedded too deep to get free.

The alien cried out as it sank. Bubbles surfaced, but they stopped after half a minute.

We sat in silence. Our quick breaths could have propelled a small sailboat. "Frak me, that shit was crazy," Maggy panted.

"You can say that again," Félix said, staring blankly at the water. "You just killed your first real alien . . ."

"Alion," Maggy said after a while.

I puffed a shot from my inhaler. "What?"

"Alien plus lion, it's an alion," she laughed.

I mulled it over for a second. "Nice, very nice."

Félix and I laughed, and she smiled. "You were right about those weird hands with two thumbs . . . I mean, they're just . . . out there."

"Definitely not bug-eyed grays," I said.

She gave me a broad grin. "No, I guess not. Let's look again for the key." She finally found a ring of keys in a dry box under the removable seat of the captain's chair. It was a good thing that Lake Dwellers were so trusting. If it were my boat, I would've kept the key in a safe, or at least someplace a little more hidden from thieving hands.

Maggy locked in the key and the motor powered on. I checked over Félix's wound. It wasn't as bad as his cry had led us to believe, barely a scratch. Sitting across from him, I said, "What now?"

"I say we stick with the plan," Maggy voiced her opinion.

"But we—"

"She's right," Félix cut me off. "We still have plenty of light to get to the shelter."

"Fine," I accepted. The closest house we could hunker down in for the night seemed the most logical choice. But then the emergency shelter was built to withstand a volcano eruption, and that was a pretty big plus—if we made it there.

As we cruised across the water, I contemplated the man's death, how strikingly similar it was to the way I imagined I'd die but a few hours ago: alone in a VR room, distracted and comforted by some impossible reality, unaware of the monstrous cat about to pounce and rip open my back. Félix had changed that outcome, with his encouragement and confidence that we could survive. We could've done the same for that man, if we'd gotten there sooner. He could've made it with our help. The thought plunged my spirits into the watery depths below us.

We reached an expensive, neo-plastic dock on the northeast side of the lake. "The shelter's at the end of Eagle Ridge, tucked away in the forest," Maggy said as we climbed out of the boat. "Is that what you guys remember?"

"Sounds right to me," I said.

The lakefront patio afforded a great view of the sunset on a clear day, but rainclouds were strolling south, always the backdrop of Bellingham. The majestic panorama still stole my breath away. Out here, east of the city, population expansion hadn't completely destroyed the beauty of the natural world.

Maggy gazed at the lake with a glum face. She blinked back tears.

"What is it?" Félix asked.

" _Liontamer,"_ she answered with fondness. "My axe." Clearly there was more to the story, to have her so worked up, but her lips were tight.

He chuckled. "You named it?"

"All the best swords have names, why not axes too?"

"No, you're right, they should," he said. "You just never said anything about it before. It's a fitting name, though."

"It was a damn good axe," she said, mournful.

"Sorry for your loss," I teased.

"Kid all you want, it saved our lives."

There was no doubt there. I stared at my feet, wishing I could retract my remark. No one spoke a word of how I froze in the face of danger. Kind friends. I'd probably end up getting them killed.

Maggy started up the steps south of the house that wrapped around to the front. "If we're lucky, we won't be too far from the shelter. I'm pretty sure I didn't overshoot it." Our feet encountered Northshore Drive again after the short driveway, and then we proceeded south to the nearest road sign. "Donald Ave," she read aloud. "Yeah, we're still above it. Less than a klick, I'd say."

I studied the dead end, and the first house on the left popped out as something familiar, something I recognized from the past but I didn't know why.

Before I could recall the reason for the familiarity, Félix said, "Guys, look! On the door."

"The two-line mark," I gasped. "Should we?"

"Of course we should." Maggy found two knives in her backpack, a butcher's and a chef's, each thick and sharp. "There could be someone in there, someone that needs our help." She didn't wait for us to dilly-dally. At the door: "We can do this. Just think of it as a raid. We've done a million of those. Habi take the left, Blue the right. I'll go center. Ready?"

The bow didn't work so well in close quarters, so I pulled out a handsaw. Félix gripped his last two hunting knives. We both nodded.

Maggy rotated the knob.

A shadowy foyer greeted us, bleak and chilly. We crept down the short hall in single file. My foot knocked over a glass bottle. We paused, depriving our lungs of air. The bottle rolled forever, producing a death song on its interminable journey, a tune that would attract the entire alion invasion force. The bottle collided with the couch and, paralyzed, we waited five minutes before anyone moved. Maggy sighed and continued on. Straight ahead of the foyer connected a living room with a long curling couch that boasted seven cushions or more. In the corner of the room there was a TV fastened to the wall. It relayed nothing but static and emitted no audio. Bottles, scattered across the carpet, coffee table, and the end tables, filled the house with the stench of alcohol.

"Look!" Maggy cried. She ran to the couch where a sprawled body slept.

"Holy crap, that's Jacob Moletti!" I shouted. And then it hit me, the familiarity—I'd been here before. It was for a birthday party in grade school, back when we were friends, but he was a year older and after the switch to middle school we grew apart, and I'd put this house to the basement storage room of my mind. "Is he alive?"

She put two fingers to his pale throat. "Yeah, just passed out, I guess."

"Look at this place," Félix said. "I've never seen so many bottles of alcohol, not even at your parents' New Year's parties."

"You think he'll get alcohol poisoning?" I asked. They both shrugged. I walked into the kitchen with Félix not far behind. A thousand unopened bottles lined the countertops. A dozen or more little green propane tanks glared at us from the floor.

"You think he was planning on going camping?" Félix's voice quivered.

"Don't know. IQ, come here."

Maggy bounded into the kitchen. "Survival gear," she exclaimed, fingering a backpack full of supplies. "Maybe he's a prepper."

I shook my head. "Nah, look at him. A prepper wouldn't do this. A prepper would dig in, not attempt suicide. He probably stole this stuff."

We all shuddered at the bleakness.

I picked up a bottle of scotch and read the label. "What do we do now?"

"Search the house," Maggy answered. "Find more supplies." We explored the house for a while, until about six thirty. Night crept upon us with about an hour before sunset.

We gathered by the couch. "Anything?" she asked.

"No guns," Félix replied. "But I found an Apocalypse Room. It has a metal door, pretty thick too."

"That's good to know." She turned to me.

I shook my head.

"Well, I don't know what to do now . . ." Maggy trailed off. "We could put him in a wheelbarrow or something and take him with us to the shelter."

In the backyard, a motion light turned on abruptly. We all hit the floor, crushing bottles and all. Curses, it was all curses after that. "They're here. They're frakin' here. What—what now?" Félix stuttered, beyond panic.

"The propane," she whispered.

"Huh?" he said.

"We blow the house with the propane while we hide in the Apocalypse Room. They're built to withstand bombs, so we'll be safe. You two line the house, and I'll put one in the oven." No one argued. She always had the plans, and we always listened.

A window broke somewhere in the house.

More curses sputtered forth.

We planted as many tanks as we dared, then hastily lugged Jacob down to the metal room, and as we pulled on the door, a furry arm reached into the crack.

Maggy snatched a handsaw out of my utility belt. The massive bone was as dense as neo-plastic and it fought against the saw teeth, but the alion finally withdrew its limb, cut halfway through. Blood splashed the cold floor. When the door shut, no light illuminated the cramped space.

Claws, powered by tough, strong muscle, struck the door. No one screamed like on TV. I guess when fear was thick and real, they just didn't come out. My throat was so dry, so terribly dry.

"It will only take about a minute for the oven to get hot enough," Maggy said while stroke after frenzied stroke fell upon the door.

Silence overtook the room on our side of the door. My body quaked worse than a nine-point-oh. Reaching into my backpack for the near-infrared goggles, I believed, without much consideration, that sight would calm me.

I gazed upon a black and white world, with some gray, some cold gray. Jacob's body lay in the back, still and lifeless. He'd certainly had the right idea. There was no fear coursing through him now, no stomach pains, no nausea—nothing but blackness. I scanned the room until my eyes fell upon Félix and Maggy. They huddled together across from me, cozy and tender. I spotted their interlocked hands.

Our pact!

Silly me, pacts didn't matter when facing death. That was the number two rule of pacts. Should've known. Should've realized.

I had never felt so sick. So hot. So enraged. If ever an all-time low existed, this was it. I cleared my throat over and over again.

The first tank exploded. The chain followed. I closed my eyes to peer at the darkness that blackened my thoughts. I waited, filled with anticipation that this was it. At the end now, at the end.

#

HABI WAS HOLDING me tight, his grip comforting and hurting at the same time. That was how hard he held me.

My head rested against his chest. For a while, I just listened to the _buh-bump-buh-bump_ of his heart. This was the first time its song graced my ears, and it was the best song in the world. In the complete darkness, I grew relaxed, and all I wanted to do was fall asleep, but my mind jumped around as if I'd had three cups of coffee.

I looked up at Habi. No one else knew why I really called him that. Hot like a habanero, I wanted to kiss him every time I saw him but never had. Two months ago we had our first official date and we were taking it slow, the way he liked to approach romance, which meant little physical affection beyond holding hands on secluded walks. There were many reasons for our secrecy, Blue prime among them, but also his dad didn't like that I was Asian. He'd often spout that Latinos and Asians didn't mix well when he drank, and you could count the days he didn't drink on one hand.

As my eyes adjusted, I could make out Habi's countenance, his lips spread in bliss. Maybe that was what I wanted to see, another delusion brought on by the tightening noose, battling at Death's door. Melted people on the street used to shout: "The end is nigh! The end is nigh!" No one could laugh at them anymore. Well you could, but maybe while tipping your hat off to them, or perhaps a congratulatory pat on the back. _You called it, you crazy bastard. Now what?_

Blue was somewhere across from us, hidden in shadow. I was glad he couldn't see Habi and me together. He'd hate it, for a while at least. But all the signs were there, so long in the making. Neither of us meant to hurt him, but we faced that inevitable conclusion now; it was only a matter of when and for how long.

I scanned towards the door; there was nothing but blackness. It held, solid. Apocalypse Room: it bore that name for a reason. I wondered if it did anyone else any good. Without some kind of SIM, I doubted one of these rooms provided much protection from whatever technology they used to snatch people right out of their homes. Before I succumbed to a panic attack, I reminded myself that the SIM was tucked away in my backpack next to me, and I pushed the thought from my mind.

Finally, I let Habi's warmth overwhelm me. It soothed me into sleep, and there I stayed, probably for the rest of my life.

#

STARTLED, I ROLLED over. My pulse screamed in my head. A roar rumbled across the countryside. A deep, monstrous roar. It echoed in my ear. _You were dreaming, Maggy. It was only a dream._

My leaden eyes stared at nothing, a void of black. Somehow, I had broken loose from Habi's clutch, so I labored to my feet, using the frozen wall as a prop. At the door, the handle wouldn't budge, as if jammed. I tried over and over, useless. The wall met my fist. Fuck! "Watch your mouth, young lady," I could hear Mom yelling, like she always did when she overheard me swearing. But it was the end of the world, and I fucking felt like fucking swearing, you know? Maybe after a few days it would wear off. Now though, it was a deluge. Sorry, Mom.

You didn't want this life for me. No, you wanted an Ivy League undergrad, then a top-rated med school, a doctorate, a successful career as a surgeon, and so much more. You pushed me to earn a four-point-three GPA to get there. Practiced piano everyday. Read biology books and medical journals. But that life, that future, it was gone now.

And I never even told you I didn't want that life.

All that time, _Wired_ hid underneath _The New England Journal of Medicine_. I'd wanted to tell her a million times, but we were so close, and the idea of me entering a field other than medical would've crushed her. Or would it? She was the one who funded my experiments, the one who allowed me to transform half the garage into a machine shop, the one who, to my complete surprise, turned a spare bedroom into my laboratory when I was gone for a week at science camp three years ago. She must've had some inkling that my passion was for computers and engineering and been okay with it, despite only ever talking about following in her footsteps.

It didn't matter now though. A week ago, no one would've believed me if I'd went around saying all the people on Earth would be gone come Sunday. How insane, right? The numbers. The reality. It boggled the mind. My mind. I couldn't compute it, not totally.

I wanted to scream until it all went away. Until it all returned to normal. I wanted to scream and scream and never stop. Frustrated. Depressed. Defeated. Nothing was working out, and now the door wouldn't even open.

Hopeless.

The feeling ate at me. Consumed me. All I could do to fight it off was curse and ball up my fists and carry on. Because that was what people had to do. It was what _I_ had to do.

There were buttons on a keypad by the handle, so I fiddled with those, but they were useless, too. Finding a flathead screwdriver from my pack, I pried off the keypad cover, and worked blindly with the wiring, an action my fingers often performed in tight spaces. All of a sudden, there was a computerized click. My chest heaved with relief. Pushing the door open, a sliver of light came in through the crack. It was devastating. I pulled back on the door again to reduce the harshness. After a minute or two, I kicked it open. It barely swung. Two of the hinges were bent, so I was happy that it moved at all. We could've been trapped in there, but maybe that would've been for the best.

Ash layered my tongue, and the reek of ash and smoke and death smacked me with the force of a heavyweight shot to the nose. I leaned against the door, grimacing.

Turning around, I jerked back when I noticed Blue. He was staring at me, and the burnt room behind me, where three charred corpses smoldered in the rubble. There were goggles on the floor next to his feet, and for a second I wondered if he had worn them while we were in the void. I hoped not. I really hoped not.

"We didn't die." His gruff voice called for water.

I grinned. "Nope." I pointed at the hole that cut through the ceiling and the roof above it. "The sun is shining." The walls all around us were black from the explosion.

He smiled back at me. "Yeah." He looked relieved and burdened, burdened by something I knew he wasn't going to tell me about.

My stomach grumbled, using its weird digestive speech, begging me to feed it. "Did we eat yesterday?"

"I don't wanna remember yesterday."

I nodded. That was fine, I guess. "Well, we need to eat today at least. Probably nothing left upstairs, but the neighbors might have something."

He turned around and grabbed a granola bar from a shelf. "It's an Apocalypse Room. There's lots of food in here." He tossed me the bar.

I caught it, tore off the wrapper, and started munching away.

Blue walked over to Habi, bent down, and shook his shoulder. "Hey, dude. Wake up."

"No thanks," Habi said, then rolled to his side, facing the wall.

"All right, suit yourself." Blue attempted to wake Jacob, but he didn't stir. "He's still breathing."

I nodded. "Good. You want to look around?"

"I guess so. Not really though. I don't wanna see what's out there." His eyes told me that he wanted to stay in the Apocalypse Room for the rest of his life, where it was safe. Safe. As safe as one could be in that cozy little box of a room.

"That's fine, I can go myself." The granola bar was in my belly now, so I grabbed two knives and checked out the adjoining room, a long hall that ended with stairs on one end and a sliding glass door at the other. The stairs were wrecked, impossible to climb up, so I headed outside, kicking over an alion corpse on the way; it scattered into ashes and coated my nostrils, eliciting a sneeze. Water pooled in the house. Last night's rain, which must have extinguished the fires from the propane tanks. Blue followed me through the daylight basement, but it didn't seem like he was paying attention, as if dazed.

The cool outside air revitalized my lungs as they slowly expanded. I hadn't even notice how tight my chest had been, how closed my throat was. Now I could breathe. Each inhale a new experience. A moment of pure ecstasy. Like I'd never taken a real breath before this moment. _We're alive! We're alive! We're alive!_

A part of me wanted to celebrate this small victory. A dance? A drink? The reverse direction also seemed appropriate. A tantrum? A breakdown?

Hold it together, Maggy. For them. They need you and you need them. You'll get through this, together.

"Looks the same," Blue said. He plunked down in a black patio chair that circled a decorative table. The sun briefly beamed past the clouds then disappeared.

"Doesn't feel the same, though. Feels like it's dead out here." I plopped into a chair next to him. The air was calm. No birdsongs. No dog barks. No frog croaks. No insect buzz. Nada. Blue mentioned they'd seen moths at his neighbors, but where were they now? What had the alions done with them?

I rubbed away the dried rheum at the corners of my eyes and mouth. "What should we do next?"

He cleared his throat. "You're the idea maker. The planner. I've got nothing." He started to unwrap a granola bar when he twitched in his chair.

On my feet. "You see something?"

He eyed me, disturbed. "I always see something these days. Whether or not they're there, now that's something I don't know."

I surveyed the area but didn't see anything, so I sat back down, my heart racing. "I hope Jacob makes it," I said when my pulse settled. The sliding glass door rolled in its track, and I whipped my head around as Habi bumped into the frame. My blood instantly warmed at the sight of him.

"Hey," Habi said, his throat dry and raspy. "Can I get some water?"

I offered him a bottle. He downed what was left of it in a hurry. "Good?"

"Real good," he replied. He dragged a third chair around to the door, permitting him a view of the backyard and beyond. None of us wanted to put our backs to it. "What are we going to do now?"

"The shelter," I said. "We should still check it out." For some reason, all I wanted then was for Habi to hold me, to say that it was going to be all right. I needed that, but I knew he wouldn't do it in front of Blue.

Habi glanced over at Blue. "You okay, bromigo?"

Blue was practically steaming, as if he were about to clench his fists. He didn't, though.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just a lot to take in, you know?"

"Yeah, I know," Habi said. "I think we should be dead, there were a lot of those propane tanks."

"But we're not," I reminded them. "We have to make a plan. We might have to devise a way to bring Jacob with us if he doesn't wake up soon."

Blue cleared his throat. "You do that," he replied in a heated tone. His face was changing to the color of chili peppers, red hot, maybe even hotter than that.

"You sure you're all right? You look like something is bothering you," Habi said.

"No, I'm not all right. Everyone is dead, and we're not. I thought I was going to die, but I didn't, and now I have to live another day like some goddamn rabbit being hunted down."

"You want to die?" I asked him.

"I can't do this. Can you do this?" he yelled, springing to his feet. He cleared his throat. "I—" He was struggling to breathe. He gulped in air. "I—I don't—want—to—live—like—" He wobbled around on the grass.

"His inhaler!" I screamed.

Habi sprinted down the hallway and came back with an inhaler, shaking it the entire way. He pressed it into Blue's right hand.

Blue pumped the inhaler once, sucking in the medicine in a deep inhale. He let it out and did it a second time. "Like a rabbit," he finished. He looked up at the sliding glass door, surprised.

I turned. "Jacob."

Jacob was staring at Blue. "Darrel?" He staggered, wiping his nut-brown eyes. His longer brunette hair was as messy as the ruined house.

"Yeah, man. It's me. You look pretty bad."

"I bet. I feel pretty damn bad." Jacob examined us. "Félix?"

Habi nodded at him.

Jacob looked at me again. "I don't remember you, do I know you?"

"Not really. We went to Squalicum together last year, but that's it," I answered. "Easy to be forgotten in a crowd of five thousand."

"That's Maggy Li," Habi said, introducing me.

Jacob stumbled back, almost fell over, but Habi caught him and guided him to a chair.

"You need water badly, I'll grab you some," Habi said. He came back from the Apocalypse Room with a bottle of pain relievers, water, and a giant bag of turkey jerky.

"Thanks, I needed that," Jacob said after he drank his fill, swallowing a couple of the pain pills. "What the hell happened? How did you get here?"

"We walked here," Blue told him. "Well, we also ran and boated across the lake."

"Didn't take a car?"

Blue shook his head. "Didn't wanna make any noise, draw any needless attention. I don't know how to turn off those fake engine sounds cars make."

"But you boated across the lake?"

"That was a last-resort situation," Blue responded. "We had no other choice. Alions were gonna kill us."

"What the shit are you talking about?"

"They're here, on the ground," Habi said, sitting down. Blue and I followed suit. "Aliens that look like lions, that's what's taken all the people. You haven't seen them? We thought that was why you drank yourself to death."

"I drank myself to death because there was no one else around. Everyone was gone, vanished, poof, you know? I drank because I couldn't use a gun."

We all looked at him, his green face, bowls for eye sockets, stringy hair that looked as if it was falling out. He was in bad shape.

Silence overtook the patio. An unnatural silence. A silence so totally without sound that I swore I'd gone deaf. Blue's heavy exhale told me otherwise. You could've said it was deafening, but the cliché wasn't strong enough. A more appropriate description: sickening. It was a sickening silence, one that actually hurt my stomach, as though the absence of noise screwed with its harmony somehow.

"The aliens," Jacob said after a while, "they took all the animals. Why would they do that?"

"My money's on a Noah's Ark type of thing," Blue jested. "They're probably taking them to a new home." There he was—the normal Blue. The bullshit spinning jokester. "They probably just have to renovate this place for a few years and then they'll bring them all back. After all, the atmosphere could use a little work."

"Still the same ol' Darrel," Jacob laughed. "Full of shit."

Blue hung his head. "Not the same. Not exactly."

"It's a good question though," I said. "Why did they take them? What do they plan on doing with trillions of animals? How could they even store so many?"

"Who says they are?" Habi threw out. "Maybe they just beamed them up into space."

Chilling thought. My hairs stood up all over. I shook my head, unable to accept such a horrific, permanent idea. An idea without hope that our families still lived. "Why would they come all this way just to toss every living organism into space? No, they need us, the animals, for something. They're storing us on their ships, I just know it."

"Better question." Jacob ran his fingers through his hair. "Why are _we_ still here. On Earth. It's not a fluke we're alive."

"Us three are here because of Maggy," Blue said. "It's kind of a long story, but the short version is that she made a device that blocks certain signals, and apparently that includes their beaming technology."

"It's really quite incredible," Félix complimented. "She's a tech genius."

"Sounds like pure luck," Jacob said. "Okay, so you guys aren't supposed to be here, but what about me? Why am I here?"

I cracked my knuckles out of habit, anxious. "It obviously has something to do with the marks on the doors. Yours is different from almost everyone else's, with two lines instead of three. We saw another house with the same mark, and a person was also left alive in it."

"The guy didn't make it though," Blue told Jacob. "He was killed by an alion while doing VR. I saw two other people being eaten, but I don't know if their houses had the same mark."

Habi leaned on the table. "Well, if we assume they did, then that'd mean the alions are leaving a certain population behind, and it seems pretty obvious what for."

"To make us their sex slaves," Blue joked. Habi shot him a glare that said, _Really, dude?_ "What? That's the premise of _Modern Species_. It was a good movie."

"To hunt us for sport," I said. "And I think last night was a trap. They could've killed Jacob at any time when he was passed out, but they conveniently showed up after we got here."

Blue snickered. "So you're saying we're just some taxidermal wall mounts? I thought we weren't going with any movie plots, because that's the storyline of _Predator_. And _Trophy Case_. And _Wardrone_. And a dozen other MFT movies over the last fifty years."

"Made for TV," Habi whispered to Jacob when he gave him a confused glance.

Jacob rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. "Even if it's true, and they are hunting us for sport, what's the point of it?"

"They're aliens, who said there had to be a point?" Habi laughed.

"It could just be fun for them," Blue said.

"Could be the case," I agreed. "People do the same thing all the time, hunting lions and elephants and rhinos, and they pay good money for the chance."

Habi, his eyes focused on the distance, grunted. "So you think this could be a side attraction to the reason why they abducted everything else?"

I pulled apart a piece of turkey jerky. "Would make sense, don't you think?"

He shrugged. "We still haven't figured out why they've taken everyone."

"How can we?" Blue wrestled a strip of jerky out of the bag with his large, clumsy hands. "It's not like we can just walk up to one and ask, 'Hey, mister, what'd you do with all our friends?' "

"Blue's right," I said. "That's an impossible question to answer."

"That's probably true," Jacob said. "But there are other questions you can answer. We've talked about why _they're_ here"—he pointed to the sky—"now tell me why _you're_ here, at my house?"

Habi sat back in his chair, still scanning the vicinity, more vigilant than a hawk. "We were heading to the Lake Whatcom Emergency Shelter. We thought it'd be the safest place to go while we made more long-term plans. When we boated across the lake, we docked at your neighbor's across the street, and then we saw the mark on your door . . ."

"We had to help, if we could," I finished when Habi trailed off.

"I see," Jacob said quietly. "So what are you going to do now?"

"Not _we_?" I asked. "You don't plan to stay with us?"

"Hell, I don't plan on living another day. I've got a hundred bottles of alcohol waiting for me upstairs. I thought I drank enough last night, but I'll be damned if I don't tonight."

"Actually, you don't," Blue said.

"What do you mean I don't? Don't what?"

"You don't have any more booze upstairs. Really, you don't even have an upstairs anymore."

Jacob ground his teeth. "What's that supposed to mean?"

I considered what to say. Hungover, he clearly missed the gaping hole in his ceiling and the scorched walls throughout the house. "Uh, didn't you notice anything different on your way outside?"

"No," he said hoarsely.

We all glanced at each other, nervous. Blue explained, "They were breaking into the house—the alions—so we lined up those green propane tanks from the kitchen to the Apocalypse Room, put one in the oven, and well, you don't have any more booze."

"Fuck! You blew up my booze!"

"And saved you," I added.

He looked at me as though he were thinking of strangling me. Jumping out of his chair, he started pacing back and forth on the lawn, muttering curses. He really wanted to die, wanted to drink himself to death.

We left Jacob alone to calm down, outside on the grass. I gathered up our things in the Apocalypse Room, while Blue and Habi rifled through the food supplies on the shelves and hidden away in deep cupboards spaced along the back wall. "We should at least leave him some food, in case he chooses not to off himself," I said, squatting next to our backpacks, loading what would fit.

"I think food is the last thing on his mind." Blue shuffled some canned goods around. "Someone with a death wish doesn't care about eating."

"Someone who _had_ a death wish." Jacob stood by the door, arms folded across his chest. "You guys changed that."

We all turned to him. My surprise couldn't be filtered. "We did?"

"I'm not alone anymore," he said simply.

"That's right, you've got us now, bromigo." Habi patted his shoulder. "We'll find others that can help us. We can't be the only people left on the planet. Together we'll fight them, we'll beat them."

"I might know where to start with that." Jacob produced a small tablet from his back pocket.

"The shelter—" I began.

"The shelter is a waste of time. Trust me, I went there, and it's a sad sight. Whoever's in charge has let the place go to hell. The mattresses are a joke, there's mold on the walls, and the rations are gone. It's not a viable option, but there might be something on here that can help us, or at least point us in the right direction. You're a tech genius, right?" He offered me the device.

"She's a certified wizard," Habi praised in a tone that bordered on bragging.

I stood up and accepted the tablet. "I can hold my own, sure. Why? What's on here?"

"Classified emails." Jacob tore into a bag of dried mangoes.

"Like FBI classified?" Blue said, his eyes practically bulging with excitement.

"Nah, something much better: the IPDA."

"You're kidding," I said. "The International Planetary Defense Administration. How? Why?"

"The how is easy." Jacob leaned against the wall, munching away. "Simon, my father, he had them on his laptop and I tried to read them but couldn't, so I put them on my tablet, thinking I'd learn how to crack into them later. Obviously that didn't happen. The why is much more complicated, but it boils down to Simon abandoning us two years ago to go work in California. He was recruited by the IPDA for a special assignment called Project Raptor, and these emails are about that project."

"And you think this is important because?" I searched my backpack for my naildrive, a hard task considering the bag's bloated figure. My fingers pulled it from the bottom of the small front pocket, underneath a travel toolkit, and plugged the drive into the USB-G port.

"Because I think they were trying to stop this—the abductions—from happening." We all studied Jacob to gauge his seriousness. The straight, rigid lines of his face told us all we needed to know. "So?"

I stretched out my arms and cracked my knuckles. "No sweat. Give me ten." Armed with several programs I developed, I began hacking the encryption. Bodies shifted around restlessly as I worked. After ten minutes, Jacob demanded an update. "Okay, so I said no sweat, but this isn't like hacking into the school—"

"Which she's done a ton," Habi interjected.

"—this is going to take a while. The encryption isn't like anything I've ever seen."

"But you can crack it, right?" Jacob's eyes pleaded for the truth.

"With time, I think so, yeah," I said. Jacob and Blue left after I chided them for pacing. The first level of encryption fell twenty minutes later, but that was just the beginning. Perspiration started dripping down my forehead from nerves before I finally shouted, "Got it!"

Habi clicked a button on his watch. "Two hours and fourteen minutes. I'd say not bad, given it's the IP-frickin-DA. I'll go get Darrel and Jacob." He returned with the two, Jacob scrambling into the room at full speed.

"They're spaceships," I blurted.

A stroke of surprise contorted Jacob's face. "Spaceships?"

I handed him the tablet. "Yep. Project Raptor is the umbrella term for Project Whitehawk and Project Spacefalcon. Your father was offered the project director job of Whitehawk, which are drones capable of breaking the atmosphere. It looks like the drones were altered from a project originally designed for missions to Mars, repurposed for warfare."

"What's Spacefalcon?" Blue asked.

"Manned spaceships," I answered. "What exactly they're for, the emails don't say, but I'd reckon something other than warfare, since the drones are safer and they already have them."

"Maybe satellite repair missions," Habi guessed.

"Maybe, but usually it's cheaper to build and launch a new satellite than to send a crew to fix one."

"Well, there's only one way to find out," Jacob said. "We go there. Did you find where they're building these secret spaceships?"

"One of the emails mentions the JPL campus," I said. "But it can't be there because NASA runs it, so the information would be released to the public."

"Simon is living in Pasadena." Jacob scrolled down on the screen with his finger. "So maybe it's there, but hidden, kept concealed by its proximity to such a public operation."

Blue edged himself closer to Jacob to get a better view of the tablet. "Are there any pictures of the ships?"

"Not that I could find," I said with as much disappointment as Blue's expression conveyed.

"Pasadena is a long way," Habi reminded us. "Shouldn't we look for a military base or something before we go searching for some mysterious IPDA base?"

I shook my head. "If Jacob's right and they were building these ships to try and stop the invasion, then maybe they were able to block the abduction device like I did. Besides, the alions are smart, they probably destroyed all the military bases so that they could hunt those they wanted to with only minor opposition. That's what big-game hunters have always done, set it up so that there's minimal risk but just enough for a thrill."

Blue pretended to wave sparklers in the air. "Hurray for us, we're a thrill."

Habi brushed him off. "How are we supposed to get to California alive with gigantic cats chasing us down? Show them, Maggy. Show them the saw."

I snatched up the saw that I'd used on the alion; it was slightly bent and stained with blue blood. "I tried to cut off one of its limbs last night, only made it halfway before it decided we weren't worth the trouble."

"Shit," Jacob muttered. "Was the battery almost dead?"

"Fully charged," Blue replied. "They're just that tough."

Habi felt the warped part of the blade. "See what I mean though? We have to make a plan to get down to Pasadena, and even with a solid plan, the chances of us surviving are only a shade higher than our parents returning home."

"Félix, our parents aren't coming back!" Blue yelled.

"That's the point!" Habi shouted back.

"You're the one who wanted to do this, remember?" Blue snapped at him.

"To the shelter, not California," he retorted.

"Whatever." Blue turned to me. "What's the plan? How are we getting down there?"

"I can think of three options. One, we head down I-5. It's a straight shot to L.A., which is not too far from Pasadena, and it makes our journey nice and simple. It'll be our quickest route but potentially more exposed on the corridor. Option two, we cut over to the coast and take the slow winding roads. It'll take a lot longer, which means we're at risk for longer, but it might be safer with the tree cover over the roads. Option three, we take the PCT."

"Are you melted?" Blue laughed. "We can't walk that far. And none of us know how to hunt—we'd starve."

"The Pacific Crest Trail will be by far the safest route," I said.

"Not in March," Habi countered. "It's too cold, and we'd have to make fires every night, which exposes us to aircraft. And Darrel's right about hunting, that'd be another risk altogether. Plus a lot of the trail will be covered in snow."

"We can hit REI. The snow wouldn't be a problem with the right gear."

"I have to agree with these two," Jacob said. "Walking should be our last resort. The quicker we get there, the better."

"Let's take a vote then," I proposed. "Those in favor of option one?" To no surprise, Jacob and Blue voted for the quickest route. "Option two?" Habi raised his hand. I sighed. This eliminated the PCT option, the most logical of the choices, so I raised my hand for the coast. This also put us at a draw. "We need a tiebreaker."

"PRS?" Habi suggested.

"I'll play for us," Blue told Jacob. "I always beat these two."

Jacob gave Blue a thumbs up. "Go for it. I'm lousy at guessing."

"You go," I said to Habi, squeezing his arm. "Best of seven."

Blue won the first two with rock, then paper. They went back and forth after that. "Yes!" Blue pumped his fist, and high-fived Jacob. "Told you I'd win."

"All right, so I-5 it is," I said. "First we stop downtown and pick up supplies. Food, water, weapons if we can."

"Are we walking there?" It was plain Blue didn't like that idea.

I nodded. "The world's gone silent, best to make as little noise as possible till we get to the cover of the corridor."

"I ain't walkin' that far," Jacob spat.

Habi crinkled his brow. "How else are we going to get there, a car?"

"You're damn right a car." Jacob smiled as he slid the tablet into his pocket. "I know how to unwire the fake engine noise. We'll be as quiet as a computer."

Blue sighed in relief. "Sounds great to me, dude . . . show us the way." He grabbed his gear. We did the same.

Jacob spun around and headed outside. Blue followed.

Habi put a hand on my back as we left a few strides behind them. The nerves where he touched me lit up as if they'd never been on in my life. A hundred new sensations all from one spot. "It'll be okay, we'll be okay."

I turned around and stared at him, raised my gentle fingers to caress the bruise his dad had given him. "I know." Comfort and warmth pulsed in my veins, and I stood on my tiptoes and kissed his cheek for the first time.

He blushed.

"But Habi, you have to tell Blue. He knows something's up. We've already waited too long, and you know he'll want to hear it from you most."

"I know. I will . . . I just . . . don't know how to bring it up."

One more kiss on the cheek. "I know . . ." Turning for the door, I fell in line.

#

WHEN WE CAME through the garage door, cinder and ash scattered as we tramped around. The two cars were melted, bent, and pliable. "Awesome. Just incredible," Jacob said, sarcasm straining his vocals. "You ruined my cars."

"And saved your life," I chimed in again.

"And melted my cars . . ."

"What about your neighbors?" Habi spoke up, running a hand over the softened neo-plastic that used to be a hood.

"Yeah, they didn't make it—they're gone."

We left the piles of goop and ash behind. We were all furtive except for Jacob. He didn't care anymore, if he ever did. He just strolled on over to his neighbors, as if he wanted to be captured, but I didn't think he did.

"So your mom was taken?" Blue asked.

"My brother too," Jacob replied. "John, he was a good kid. A little troublemaker sometimes, but a good kid."

"Didn't even know you had a brother," Blue said. "Sorry."

"Fuck it, you know?" Jacob snorted. "I came home from U-Dub to do some laundry Friday night, didn't even see the little shit until Saturday morning, said one word to me, and—and he was off to a friend's house on Eagle Ridge. My mom Skyped me from work that night, told me she had a feeling something bad was about to happen, that I should stay in. The next morning I got up to find the house empty. When I went looking for John at Eagle Ridge, the whole neighborhood was empty, and that's when I checked out the shelter. After that I came back here and you can guess the rest of it." He tried the doorknob to his neighbor's front entrance. Locked. "My mom had some guns hidden in her bedroom that we could've used." He faced his house and shook his head at the enormous hole in the roof. "But I guess they're ruined now." Returning to his task, he broke one of the large front windows with a rock, climbed in, then went around to unlock the door for us. In the garage, two neo-plastic Fiat Tracksters sat in idle disappointment. One of the coupes was fiery red, the other aquamarine. "Which one do we want?"

"The red one," Blue insisted. He ran to the door, opened it, plopped down in the seat, and started feeling the wheel like it was the only thing in the world that mattered.

"Yeah, sure. Whatever." Jacob went to the hood. "Pop it, bro." Blue popped it, and Jacob started to tinker with the wires.

"This is so slick," Blue said when we walked over. We piled our backpacks, the two utility belts furnished with knives, and the bow into the trunk. "This must be brand new, a few weeks old at most." It was good to see Blue so ecstatic. "Look, it doesn't even have the old MPH numbers underneath the KPH. My mom's car is two years old and has both."

"About time," I said. "It's been ten years since we said goodbye to the Imperial System and adopted metric. You would think car companies would've dropped it a lot sooner."

"I bet it's real smooth," Blue said, pressing down on the GO pedal.

Jacob slammed the hood down. "Too bad you don't get to drive it." He disappeared inside the house and came back jangling a fob remote. "Look what I've got, bitches!" He laughed in a painful squeal before breaking into a cough.

"Where'd you find that?" Blue asked sourly.

"I noticed on the way in that it was hanging on some hooks in the kitchen. Now scoot your ass over."

Blue got out and went around to the passenger's side, flipped the car seat forward so that I could duck into the back, and eagerly jumped in after I buckled up.

Jacob slid into the front seat after Habi got in beside me. "Are we ready to have some fun?" He put the fob in its magnetic holder on the dash and tapped the green ON switch. The car came alive with lights, silent, deadly to anyone listening to music or looking the other way, which was why all electric cars had the fake engine noises. The lower half of the driver's side windshield displayed the car's vitals, among other information. "Full batteries, baby. We're ready to fly." He pressed the garage door opener.

"Don't kill us, please," I implored.

But it was too late; he had already pounded the GO pedal. We launched out of the garage like a fighter jet.

"I—I read an article on the Trackster," Blue stuttered to get out. "It's one of the few cars that have a rectenna built right on top and gets its power directly from the electrical relay plants." He cleared his throat. "This baby will go forever, as long as the bill is paid. Doesn't even use most of its batteries, just straight direct current, like it's plugged into a wall socket."

I had never heard of that before. Everything was on the grid. Six years ago, the twenty-year project to put solar panels in space was finally over, with the completion of the last Solar Station—one of five—that collected solar rays around the clock. They transmitted electricity as microwave energy, then converted the energy back into electricity at the electrical relay plants, where everything I knew about got its power. People recharged their cars at home, and at the electricity stations that replaced all of the old gas stations, not directly from the relay plants. "Incredible. So you never have to stop at an electricity station?"

"Never. It's the same for most metro buses."

"Just incredible," I repeated. We could go all the way to California without stopping; I liked the sound of that. No, I loved the sound of that.

I was enjoying the scenery when Habi tapped my shoulder. "I don't believe it," he mumbled.

"What? What is it?" I scanned over his shoulder, out the window, but the woods blocked my view.

He accidentally jammed his finger into the glass, pointing towards the lake. A yelp escaped his mouth. "It's your axe! I see your axe!"

"I see it too!" Blue exclaimed.

"You have an axe?" Jacob asked, incredulous. He turned with precision along the winding road, never slowing down.

"Pull over! Pull over!" I yelled. He pulled the car into a lakeside driveway. We scrambled out of the Trackster and broke for the shoreline. There it was, floating like the brilliant Liontamer that it became after it sunk to the depths of the lake. I picked it up and inspected it. "Yep, it's mine. See the initials on the haft." I showed them where I had engraved ML. I looked at Habi. "Good eye." I wanted to kiss him again, but resisted the urge. A practice in restraint. I twirled the slippery weapon with both hands. "I'm back, baby."

Blue snickered. "Were you ever gone?"

"My dwarven spirit was," I responded, putting Liontamer in the trunk.

We crammed into the car again, and off we went, zipping around Northshore Drive. Cars were scattered along the roadway. "People must have been taken while they were driving," Blue gasped. "While they were driving . . ." He freaked all of us out when he said that, but I reminded them that we had the SIM.

"Hey, Jacob," I drew his attention.

"Yeah?"

"You said you didn't talk to your dad much—"

"Where are you going with that?"

"I was just curious if your mom or dad ever told you why your family had that Apocalypse Room?"

He shrugged. "Lots of families have them. It was built in the early thirties during the Great Threat, before the UN established the IPDA and launched the Planetary Defense Network. We didn't even live there yet, so I don't think he planned on my family using it for this, especially since he was only recruited two years ago."

"Good point," I said. "I was just wondering because it was so updated."

"That'd be my mom. She was a cop and didn't exactly believe people were more good than bad."

"Oh, okay," was all I could think to say, my question answered.

Northshore: a narrow, two-lane road that snaked like a river, and Jacob cruised along it faster than I was comfortable with, much faster. I glanced at the speedometer: 116 KPH.

"Can you slow down, bromigo?" Habi asked. We were all tensed up. Apprehension hung in the air. Like we were all squeezing the same nervous fist.

"What for? I have it under control. You can't even tell that I'm going over a hundred."

I cracked my fingers. "Because there are cars blocking the road. What if we come around a corner and there's a car that you can't maneuver past? You want to kill us?"

Blue started clearing his throat more, on edge. The road was so curvy, with too many blind corners. We could hit a car at any moment.

I perched myself between the front seats, watching, waiting. As we came around a bend, I spotted the dead car, vacant of a driver.

Jacob dipped the wheel to his left, eyes on the car in our lane.

"Car! Car! Car!" I had never screamed so fiercely before. I fell back into my seat, still buckled.

"What the hell!" Jacob shouted.

Another car drove right for us, barreling down the road as fast as Jacob was driving. It honked its horn: _bern-bern-berrrn!_ We missed each other by a centimeter. A mere fraction. Jacob went straight into the ditch and out again, braking like a madman, not thinking but reacting. We halted in the middle of the road. My nose smashed the seat in front of me.

There were a few groans as everyone settled. I couldn't tell if they were mine. "Everyone all right?" I asked. My voice sounded broken to my ears. My head was swimming as I tried to shake off the incident.

"Yeah," Habi uttered to no one in particular.

"Yeah," Blue groaned. It was him who was doing all the groaning.

I unbuckled to examine Jacob. He was out. Fainted. "He doesn't look so good, probably dehydrated. Why did we let him drive, he wasn't even functioning properly."

"He took the starter," Habi said. "I don't know . . ."

Blue got out, letting me out after him. We inspected the Trackster. "What a shame," he commented. "It was brand new, and bam, a scratch." The neo-plastic body was light but incredibly durable, and even at the scary speeds we were going, the front bumper was barely even scuffed. Neo-plastic, a life-saving material no one should have ever had to live without; it probably prevented a million deaths a day in car accidents alone. "What a damn shame. Must've hit a rock in the ditch." He shook his head, but more groans followed. He eyed Jacob. "He's melted, completely insane."

"That's certain," I said. "Probably enough to be in an institution."

Blue laughed. "What do we do?"

Suddenly, a roar flew by us, deep and threatening; it promised vengeance. It came from the east, in the direction of Jacob's house.

"Oh, no. No—no—no—no—no! What do we do?" Blue threw up his arms, wild, clearing his throat over and over. His panicky movements disoriented me for a second.

"Stop it, Blue!" I yelled. "Stop it. Panicking won't help, so stop. Help me move Jacob to the back." Together we lifted Jacob and plodded around the car, every labored step ached, but we got him into the back seat. "I'll drive."

Blue's eyes pleaded with me to let him drive, but he said, "Sure, yeah, all right. You're the better driver." He hopped into the passenger's front.

I got behind the wheel. I didn't ask if they were ready, just adjusted the seat and mirrors, then zoomed away, west, towards Bellingham, listening to the echo of another roar. The Trackster was smooth. I had never driven a car like it. Especially since Jacob disabled the fake engine noise. It was so quiet as I hit eighty KPH. A few years ago, someone had exhibited a 1970's gasoline engine at school, and it amazed me that anyone could stand such a noise-polluting machine; it was detrimental to my ears.

"There were people in that car," I said after a hushed moment.

"What?" Habi said. I glanced at the rearview mirror and saw him adjusting his glasses.

"In the car that drove us off the road, there were people in it. We're not the only ones left up here."

"I didn't even think about that," Blue reflected. "It's so normal for people to drive cars . . . I didn't even think about that."

The conversation ended as we all contemplated the fact that other people _did_ survive in the Bellingham area. It was obvious we couldn't go back and search for them, too many branching roads, and the roars, they were heading right for them . . .

Most of the city's expansion ran north and south, leaving the lake rather undeveloped, which was nice. I liked living so close to it. It was so much quieter there. The parks, the inhabitants, for the most part, were all muted in comparison. And all the evergreens, all the giant organic towers that made the Pacific Northwest home. Quarter-way up Alabama Hill, the tops of the skyscrapers emerged, long, bright towers covered in green solar panels. The organic compounds of the solar cells worked exactly like trees, but twenty times more efficient, or something like that. They also didn't expel oxygen, not yet anyway. They probably never would now. Unless the alions were kind enough to leave a few scientists and engineers behind.

The closer we got to downtown, the harder it became to maneuver, much harder. Cars jammed streets everywhere, parked at haphazard angles, some smashed in pileups six vehicles long, but many left gaps wide enough to negotiate through the silent, immobile chaos. "Hey, you guys, can we make a stop before we hit downtown?" Blue looked over at me, his eyes misty. "My grandparents are up by Broadway Park. I—I have to know."

"Of course," I said. The only one with extended family close by, Blue had much tighter familial bonds, with cousins and his grandparents. This brought Grandma Sharon to mind as I turned north on Cornwall. How long had it been since I'd last seen her? Three, four years? She lived in Michigan and we rarely visited. I remembered fixing her VR goggles so that she could watch her soaps. She'd made me giggle when she confessed she liked seeing the men take their shirts off as if they were in her room.

"Now that's just between us gals, all right?" she said, winking at me from across the room in her recliner. "Your mother doesn't need to know. Now cut two slices of cake and tell me all about the boys at school." I never told Mom about our conversation, keeping my grandmother's confidence, our one and only true bonding experience.

The memory dissolved when Blue said, "Turn left on North Park. It's the third one down." I didn't bother pulling over to park. The three of us got out while Jacob, still unconscious, remained. We spent a few minutes investigating the empty house, which bore the three-line mark on its front door, before we resumed course for the city center.

"Sorry, Darrel." Habi squeezed Blue's shoulder from the backseat.

Blue wiped his nose with his forearm. "It's okay, it was always a long shot. If you guys don't mind, I'd rather not talk about it right now."

"We get it," I said. "But we're here for you."

"Jacob's coming to," Habi informed us a minute later.

Jacob grumbled about his head for a bit. "I screwed up. I screwed up bad."

Habi smiled. "We're alive. You didn't kill us, not yet anyway."

"How are you feeling?" I asked.

"Like I'm going to puke my goddamn brains out," he answered. He loosened the strap across his stomach and chest.

"I bet," Blue said.

"No, I mean it. Pull over." But there wasn't time. He retched a pool of death by his feet.

"Why? Why wouldn't you do it out the window!" Blue shouted. We rolled down the windows and opened the sunroof. All useless, in the end. It was so bad I almost added the granola bar I'd eaten to the putrid smell.

"I'll just go to the bus station, and we can figure out something from there."

"Wait," Jacob said. "The police station is only a few blocks away. I know my mom's code to get into the armory. It'll have all the guns we'll ever need."

"Smart," I acknowledged. The smell was getting to me, dizzying my head, but fortunately it was a short drive. I pulled into the Bellingham Police Department lot and we all climbed out. The entryway, unlocked and unguarded, gave way to three diverging halls and a staircase on the far right. Jacob led us down the hall under the stairs. We entered a room with twenty or so desks organized in three rows separated by short dividers, where he immediately sprinted to the southwest corner.

"It should be here!" Jacob rummaged through the drawers. "Someone took it!"

Blue stumbled into the desk but caught himself before he toppled over. "Took what?"

"Doesn't matter. The armory is this way." He jogged off, and without much choice, we followed. "There it is." At the end of the hall: a large door to the left and a barred security window to the right where officers signed out firearms. Next to the door: a multifunctional biometric scanner for handprint, voice, and iris recognition with a PIN entry, plus a scanner for badges.

"There's no way we're getting in there with just an access code," I snorted.

"We'll see." Jacob punched in a series of numbers on the keypad. The authentication light remained red. "Come on, work you piece of crap!"

"Voice recognition unidentified," a female voice said. "Authentication failed. Please try again or see personnel at requisition counter."

Jacob stepped back and kicked the scanner. "Dammit! Just open. There's no one here."

I peered through the window at the closed door inside the checkout room that connected to the armory. The same scanner protected the entrance. The computer behind the counter slept with a black screen, calling to me, spawning a hundred ideas. "I might be able to unlock it, if I can get to that computer."

"You're small, but you're not that small," Blue said. "No one can fit through that window."

"I don't have to, just my hands do." I reached through the minimal opening and tugged on the monitor cord. The screen slid across the counter like a boat on water. The wireless keyboard, out of reach for any tool we possessed, smiled triumphantly at us.

Habi attempted to retrieve the keyboard with a long knife but soon gave up. "What about the keyboard?"

"Got one right here." I withdrew my phablet, then my naildrive, and plugged them in with a cable hub. "I should be able to deactivate the biometric scanner. We'll need a badge though, so search the desks for one."

The three nodded and set out to fulfill the task. By the time they returned, hands loaded with badges, I'd taken down two of the three biometric securities. The last one, voice authentication, proved much harder to disable, but it too eventually fell. "Now I just have to trick the system into allowing any badge to align with your mom's PIN," I said. A few minutes passed. I learned then that hacking was much easier when three people weren't standing over your shoulder, pestering you with questions, the pressure mounting. So I tried to think of it as a test with a dozen questions left and only a few minutes—I seemed to do well in those situations. "There, got it! Scan one of the badges and input the code. It should work."

Jacob entered the code and swiped a badge under the scanner. The authentication light changed to green. "Welcome, Officer Moletti," the same female voice spoke.

Blue and Habi high-fived me, and Jacob slapped me on the back. "You may have just saved our lives," he said.

"You mean again?" I said with a humble grin.

"Don't get penissy, kid," Blue warned, holding back a laugh.

"Really? Family Guy?"

Blue shrugged. "It's a classic."

Jacob swung the metal door open and revealed a shocking sight. "Can't be," he said, vehemently shaking his head. "No. No, I don't believe it."

The armory was empty.

#

"EMPTY? WHAT—"

"I think you mean how," Habi spoke over Jacob. "You think someone got here before us?"

"And raided every weapon inside?" Jacob shook his head again. "Not likely. The four of us couldn't carry a tenth of what was in here. It'd have to be a huge group to take it all."

"They didn't take everything." I pointed to the left corner closest to us at a rack of pistols. Picking one up, I marveled at its unique design.

"Maybe because that's not a real gun," Jacob said. "It's a Pacifier. You can switch it between advanced electroshock bullets and tranquilizer darts. They will knock someone out like that"—he snapped his fingers—"which works great against perps, but probably won't do much against aliens . . ."

Blue grabbed a black duffel bag from a rack by the door. "Better than nothing." He and Habi loaded all the Pacifiers into it.

"We should take the rest of the duffels, too." I hooked a couple over my shoulders. "I say we hit the grocery store next." No one argued. They rarely did. The blow to morale was unquestionable. Not having the guns made a big difference in confidence. Survivability dropped to zero without them.

The Little Old Food Mart parking lot, a few blocks away from the bus station, took less than a minute to reach from the police station. Remodeled and renamed from the Public Market, it was my mom's choice place to shop. Staring at the store sign, my heart seized. Mom had made omelets Saturday morning, before the marks appeared, with vegetables from this store. Our store. "We should look for a new ride," I said, choking back tears. Maybe they'd think it was because of the smell. "I can't be in this car anymore."

We abandoned the poor, defiled Trackster after we outfitted ourselves with weapons, leaving most of our gear there for now. I twirled Liontamer, careful not to clip anyone. For some reason, spinning it around provided a certain level of comfort, and the mighty blade reassured my nerves that I could handle what was to come. We assembled in the middle of the deserted parking lot, the few cars sitting neatly aligned, plugged into charging stations, little gray poles at the rear of each parking space. All ripe for the taking. No Beamers though. Too bad. I'd always wanted to drive one to see if they really were the ultimate driving machines, but apparently people who owned them didn't shop for groceries at three in the morning.

I surveyed the streets. If you had seen downtown at the turn of the century, you would not have known Bellingham compared to what it looked like now, near the halfway mark, or at least that was my impression from old photos. Located on Cornwall and York, the grocery store was darkened by skyscrapers that reached for gray clouds, where before only single-story shops had been. Across the street Arlis's was still in business, on the ground floor in the corner unit of a thirty-floor beast, still pumping out pancakes and serving Agri-Bay Breakfast Blend, the best coffee I had ever tried. Mom's coffee. Photos hung on the wall of the restaurant, detailing their development in a historic timeline, and it was weird to look at, though nostalgic for my grandparents on my father's side, who still came to visit every other year from Florida.

"See anything?" Habi asked.

"Nada," I answered. "Come on." I waved them towards the Little Old Food Mart's entrance.

The slider doors opened as usual, a computerized bell ringing when they did. We stood there, gawking.

"It's empty," Habi gasped. "All the shelves, empty. Just like the armory. How is that possible?"

"It's not," I said, stupefied. "With all the people abducted, the people left couldn't have taken it all." We went down the aisles: the canned goods, the cereals, the produce, meats, and the baked goods, all of it gone. All the consumables. The cooking utensils, neo-plastic water bottles, aluminum foil—that stuff was all left alone, barely touched. Then it dawned on me: people didn't take the food. "The alions didn't just take all the animals . . ."

Blue slid his hand along an empty shelf. "So you think. . . ?"

"Yep," I responded. "I can't think of a better explanation, can you?" He said nothing, his forehead scrunched together, pensive. "Let's get some more water and some medications, only essential stuff. We can't waste room on crap we don't need."

"I think I'm melted," Jacob burst out. "I can't see straight, I can't think straight. I mean shit, how can everything be gone?" He began shaking his head. What little was left of reality was breaking down. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm going crazy, or have gone." Sitting down on the tiled floor, he emptied a water bottle on his head. "It's certain, isn't it? I'm gone."

"If you think you're gone, then you're probably not all gone," I said. "Probably."

He cracked a small grin. "Thanks."

"In any case," Habi said, "this is messed up. What're we supposed to eat if nothing's left?"

"There was food at my place," Blue asserted. "And at IQ's, and in the Apocalypse Room, so there's stuff left in the houses."

"We'll just have to gather food as we go," I said. "For now, let's just get what supplies we can. And Jacob, please don't waste any more water. We've no idea how long the electricity will stay on, which means we don't have an endless supply coming from the tap."

Habi leaned against a shelf. "I thought city water worked without electricity."

"It does, but I don't know if it does indefinitely, and I don't really want to take the risk. Do you?"

He shook his head. "I'm not much of a risk taker, you know that." The remark earned a laugh.

While Jacob rested, the three of us split up and searched the store, throwing valuables into the duffel bags. When we finished, we met up at the storefront. "What kind of medicines did you find?" I asked Blue.

He cleared his throat. "Pain relievers, antibiotics, adhesive bandages, topical healing creams, hydrogen peroxide, a bunch of inhalers. I think stuff we'll need." He picked up a brown bottle with VITAMIN C in bold yellow. "I grabbed lots of supplements, just in case we don't find much food variety."

"Good thinking," I said. "As long as we get enough calories, the vitamins will help us stay in working order. None of us want to get scurvy."

Blue laughed. "Arr," he said in a deep, throaty voice. "No, we wouldn't."

"Let's not get into pirate talk," Habi said. "Last time we did that it lasted weeks."

"On another note," I continued, curbing a laugh as the memory arose of when we had all given our best effort to speak like pirates for a month last year. "I have to pee."

"All right," Blue said. "We'll go across the road to Dusty Shelves Antiques. Antique stores always have knives and other crazy stuff. I once saw a rack of katanas there when shopping with my mom."

"The antique store?" Jacob said, surprised. Then his eyes lit up and he jumped to his feet. "Why the hell would we go antiquing when Yeager's is right next to it? That's where we'll find our guns! They also have camping equipment."

"Back to the guns idea? How are you gonna cut off an alion's head with a gun?" Blue made a horizontal slicing motion with a knife. "I'm telling you, a katana is where it's at."

Jacob rolled his eyes and slugged Blue in the arm. "Let's go, smartass."

"Don't leave me alone, that's stupid," I said. "I'll only be a couple of seconds."

"I'll stay," Habi offered.

My heart leapt. Alone again. That meant another kiss. Maybe a real one, on the mouth. One real kiss before we died. Even if it only lasted a minute or two, it would be nice. More than nice. Fantastic. As many kisses as we could squeeze in before this all ended was high on my priority list, especially now, with the prospect of insufficient food supplies.

"Yeah, okay. We'll be right across the street," Blue said. They left and took a few of the duffels.

"I'll be quick," I told Habi. "So we can talk about . . . you know, what to do and all."

He held a cleaver in one hand and a Pacifier in the other. "I'll be right outside."

The bathroom was cleaner than I imagined it would be, which was awesome, a real bonus for the day. I laughed when I noticed that the toilet paper was out. _It's just that kind of week._ When I came out, Habi was no longer there.

"Habi?" I said loudly.

The bathroom was in the back, down a hall. When I made it to where the hall joined the main store, I glimpsed a sliver of him across the walkway, one aisle back from the aisle in front of the hallway. He slowly crept to the edge of the shelves and put his index finger over his mouth as we made eye contact. He pointed to my right, and I spied an alion crouched low, sniffing at two of the leftover duffels.

Its powerful nose detected us. It knew we were there. After a few more sniffs, the alion jerked its large head our way, sighting us instantly.

"Run!" I screamed. But Habi was horror-struck, petrified. I sprinted across the aisle, firing the Pacifier the entire way. The first tranquilizer dart did exactly the same as the next four: nada. Unless I wanted to try my luck with Liontamer again, there was only one option, so I grabbed Habi's arm and yanked. I yanked so hard he nearly fell to the ground but caught himself at the last second with a reflexive hand. The alion knocked over a shelf, starting a chain reaction, like dominoes all lined up and ready to fall. How many shelves stood between us? Six? Eight? I didn't know, and we didn't stop to find out. We stumbled past the end of the aisle, and a rush of air whooshed at our backs as the shelf toppled.

The store layout, a disadvantage for the large predator, allowed us to outdistance the alion as it navigated the narrow paths to the front. We cleared the sliding doors and bolted under the overcast sky, heading for the sporting goods store.

"Darrel! Jacob!" Habi bellowed.

"Back here," Blue replied. "By the guns." An electric sign above the aisle pointed us towards the firearms. When we found them, hunkered down behind a glass counter, Jacob was loading an old handgun. Blue held up a bizarre ooze-green and black shotgun.

"I forgot this is also a _used_ sports store," Jacob said. "Most of the stuff is from the last cent—"

"Alions!" I stammered. "In the grocery—chasing—escaped . . ."

"What?" Jacob croaked, straightening up. "You saw one?"

"It's coming this way!"

"Don't worry, I'll put a few slugs in it," Jacob reassured us. "Grab a gun, figure it out. We have nine of them, and enough ammo to last a while." I slung Liontamer over my back and fastened it into a sling that came with the gift, then tossed the Pacifier into the duffel between them and picked up a pistol with a crimson slide that gleamed in the dull light. "Nice choice, a Heckler and Koch USP Nerve. Should be a good fit for you."

Habi picked up a pistol too, but it differed from mine, larger and with a stainless slide. Glass broke at the storefront. "We gotta move!" he said. "Head on, or out the back?"

"Are you crazy? Out the back," Blue answered. "I'm not going head-to-head with those things if I don't have to."

"Let's go," I whispered, heading for the backroom. An exit sign hung above a door to the right, so we took it. We filed into a cramped and smelly alley. "We'll circle around." I led the way and stopped where the alley dumped into the street. "I don't see anything."

"Then go already." Jacob pushed Blue, who fell into Habi, who collided with me. I hopped forward, catching my balance, then rushed for the car. The hatchback was unlocked, so I hit the latch button underneath an overhang. We gathered the gear left inside, and even though we had the guns, Blue grabbed the bow and quiver. No reason asking why.

Something moved in the corner of my eye. I spun right. The alion galloped down an aisle in the sports store, coming our way; in seconds, it hurtled over the broken storefront window frame, out into the street.

All I heard was the gun blast.

The alion crashed into Jacob. But a bullet went right through its eye socket. It rolled away from Jacob and caught its feet, stabilized. With blue blood oozing out the hole in its face, it charged for a second run.

Another gun blast.

A second bullet struck it, this time through its throat. It fell over, coughing, struggling to breathe. It was horrible to listen to as it sucked in and blew out: _klehh_ -AH— _klehh_ -AH. Then it started to gurgle before it died, blue shooting out its neck.

Jacob stood up, staring.

Habi had his arm extended, shaking as he held the gun. We all looked at him.

"You saved me," Jacob said, his voice cracking. "I almost got you killed . . . and you saved me."

"Well, hopefully you'll do the same for us when the time comes," Habi said.

Jacob nodded. "You saved my melted brain." He didn't say anything more, no thank you, no yeah, I'll be there to watch your back, nothing but: you saved me.

I gazed at Habi. I wanted to kiss him, but the time wasn't right. All I said was, "You did good."

"Holy shit!" Blue exclaimed. "Yeah he did. The well-armed take advantage and you took advantage!" Before anyone could deal more praise, another roar echoed in the city.

"The buses, they're big enough to push cars out of the way, let's take one of them," I suggested.

"Good idea." Habi started south for Railroad Ave behind the grocery store. The bus station was right across East Champion Street, less than a block away. Cars were everywhere, parked at the meters, and dead in the street, blocking it. A few buses looked as if they had been pulling out when the people aboard had been taken. Screeches and the crumple of metal and plastic drew my ear west, as if someone were skidding over a car hood, and I glanced up the road at the Magnolia cross street, counting three alions. They charged down the road at blinding speeds.

"They're coming!" I shouted. "Get inside, get inside!"

Habi pushed in the doors to a small shuttle bus. We scrambled up the steps, and Jacob vaulted into the driver's seat. "No way, bromigo," I laughed. "Get out." I threw my hand back behind my head.

"All right, all right." He scurried off to the back.

Luckily, the fob remote was locked in the ignition pad and not on the bus driver. I pressed the big green ON button. It fired up, the motors quiet. Habi had shut the doors, and now they locked as the bus came to life. I tossed Liontamer in the seat behind me before stomping down on the GO pedal. The tires squealed, then with a jolt they shot forth. I twirled the wheel to the right and headed up East Champion, a one-way going the opposite direction, but I figured no one would mind.

By then, they were upon us. They were smart, too. They went right for the tires. I watched as they slashed the outside back tires. Fortunately for us, the bus had dually tires all the way around, just in case something happened to one, the second would support the bus for a decent enough distance.

Failing to slice the inner tires, the alions gave up. Instead, they changed their tactics, running alongside the bus. I swerved, trying to squash their guts, but they were nimble, far too nimble. I took a right on Ellis. It was nice not having to stop for traffic. Or lights. I lost track of two of them as I studied one in my side mirror, gaining distance, almost to the front tires.

I swerved again.

On agile paws, it leapt away.

Habi was also observing the alion. "I think I can shoot it." He closed one eye and aimed.

"Open the window," I shouted back to him. "Glass could go in your eye."

He slid the window to the side and locked it in place. "Hold the bus steady."

"I can't!" Left up Lakeway. The alion faded back for a second, hopped over a glossy silver coupe, dodged another, and sprinted to where it had been before, near the front tire.

"Shoot it! Shoot it!" My voice. My scream. It echoed down the bus. It sounded as if it existed only in my head though.

I glanced at the mirror and saw the longest, deadliest claw lacerate the outer tire. I skidded right as Habi fired. The bullet missed. I steadied the bus out. He fired a second shot. I spotted a patch of bright blue around its shoulder.

"Again!" I cried.

_Pap_ - _pap_. I glimpsed the alion flipping headlong into a tree on the median. About to turn right up the I-5 on-ramp, I swerved back into my lane, the ramp blocked by three or four cars.

Focused on Habi and the left, I reoriented my attention, and Blue's high-pitched screaming became clear. "We're dead, we're dead, we're dead!" He repeated the line over again. "One of them is skipping on the hoods of the cars."

Then all of a sudden a _thunk_ on top the bus.

Blue—in complete hysteria—pointed his shotgun at the roof. He discharged the cartridge. Another _thunk_. Debris mushroomed in all directions. "I think I got it."

We waited. I checked all my mirrors, but I didn't find anything, not even the third one. Then I heard scraping, as if nails were digging into neo-plastic _._ A paw busted through a window near Habi, reaching, striving to slice one of us to pieces.

In a panic, Blue launched a buckshot spray. A roar followed as the paw exploded. He aimed up again, guessing where the beast was perched, then pulled the trigger. Debris scattered as the spread of shots hit fur, flesh, and bone. Blood trickled down the holes like disgusting blue rain. The body rolled off the roof going _bump-bump-bump_ the entire way.

In the clearing fog of debris, a round of cheers followed.

I checked the mirrors again, but I still didn't detect the third one. But then something caught my eye at the door—the alion was galloping alongside us, trying to pry the doors open with its two humanlike hands that jutted from the tops of its shoulders.

I veered right down Lincoln Street and sped up. Cars everywhere, it became difficult to dodge them. Bumpers blocked all five lanes ahead. I had to smash through them or try to squeeze by on the sidewalk and bike lane to the far right. "Hold on to something!" I shouted.

The bus tires, big as they were, couldn't handle the curb at such speeds. The vehicle tilted, wobbled on two rebellious wheels for a second, then we plowed into a road sign and spun out of control.

I didn't want to die. I wanted to kiss Habi for real. Just one time. On the lips. Why hadn't I done that before this moment?

Finally gravity tipped us just enough and the bus toppled.

I closed my eyes and braced for the inevitable.

#

THE BUS SKIDDED to a halt.

I held on to the overhead rail that spanned the distance of the bus. My body jerked in the impact. My neck whipped back then forward. It felt like it snapped. Unable to breathe, I released my grip and just lay there. I wanted to inhale but couldn't, not even a short breath. I felt like a fish out of water, gulping for air, but the system didn't work. Everything was warm around me. My head swirled. It was nice, even comforting. The fringes of my vision were turning black.

And then Félix was standing over me with an inhaler. "I shook it already."

I put the magical instrument to my lips. The mist flew down my throat and expanded my lungs as I held for thirty seconds. Clicked down the silver tube again. The life-saving spray shot down in sweet relief. "Thanks," I managed after a few normal breaths.

He nodded, wiping his spectacles. "Yeah, bromigo. I'm going to check on IQ."

I cleared my throat. "Yeah, okay."

He replaced his glasses and climbed over the bus seats to the front where Maggy was strapped into the driver's seat. She looked unconscious. I could barely make out the chair in front of me, everything was blurry, unfocused. I was so dizzy. So damn dizzy. I put my hand to the floor and felt the tiny glass bits digging into my palm. Sitting up, I wiped away the fragments, each piece burning with a trickle of blood. None of the piercings were more than little pricks, but they still hurt like hell, and forced out a couple of cries on removal.

"You all right?" Félix asked, crouching next to Maggy.

"Yeah, just some glass bits stuck in my hand. Nothing serious." I pulled myself to my knees using the edge of the tilted seats. "How's Maggy?"

"I'm okay, Blue. Everything is just spinning, that's all," Maggy said, her voice high and scraping. Félix gave her some water.

"Yeah, same for me," I said, rubbing my eyes as I stood upright. My feet were planted where the window used to be. I turned and searched for Jacob. He'd been holding on to the bar a few rows behind me, and I found him sprawled out on his back, unmoving _._ He had dozens of scrapes, some bruises too. _Oh God, he's dead._ I reached down and checked his neck for a pulse. It pumped against my fingers. Without realizing it, I was holding my breath, and exhaled with the force of a tempest when the vein confirmed his state. "Jacob's in bad shape, but he's alive."

Barely.

Félix walked over to me, hunched over. "If he makes it, I think I'll try to make him a medal or something."

I laughed. "He'll make it. I mean, he's trying to kill himself, but I'll still bet that he survives longer than all of us."

Félix smiled. "Yeah." He turned and unlocked one of the ceiling hatches, kicked it out after a few hits, and crawled through. "Come on."

Maggy slowly made her way over and crawled out. I followed after. We examined the wreckage. The minimal cosmetic damage made the whole scene seem somehow minor, like a kid falling off a bike when learning to ride.

"The wonders of neo-plastic," Félix said. "It's the stuff of miracles . . ."

"I've watched a lot of YouTube videos showing how it's saved so many," I said. "But it's a lot different when you're the one in the video. It's mind-blowing."

"I'm just glad we didn't hit that." Maggy pointed to a one-ton truck a few meters in front of the bus. "Might've been a different story."

"I guess we have _some_ luck," I laughed.

Félix backed up from the bus a couple of steps. "Hey, where's the alion?"

We all backpedaled, slinked around to the other side, and paused. "You see what I see?" I asked.

"For certain, bromigo." Maggy crept closer to the back wheel well. Two tawny paws stuck out, crippled, visibly shattered. "It must have run with us the whole way, the dumb bastard."

"It really wanted to kill us," Félix added.

Relief stormed my veins. What a wild ride. No more hunters, no more alions to worry about, or at least, one less. I could barely take it. "I'm gonna go check on Jacob."

Félix nodded. "Good idea."

I crawled through the hatch and checked Jacob's vitals again. I sprinkled some water on him, since it had worked on me yesterday. It worked on him too, kind of; he was already waking when it hit his face.

"What's going on?" Jacob squinted at me with cloudy eyes.

"You'll be all right. Just take it easy."

"Do you have any gin?"

I laughed. "No, dude. I don't have any gin. Do you want some water?"

"What's water ever done for me? Do you have any vodka?"

I shuffled through a bag. "Yeah, I do." I offered him the water.

He snatched it up and drank it. "Christ that's good . . . Never had vodka taste so clean, so smooth."

"Well, make it last," I told him. "You have asthma?"

"Doesn't everybody?"

"Take this." I handed him an inhaler. He accepted it after a moment of consideration. "I'll be right back. Just relax. I'll be right back." I straightened up as much as I could, found the hatch, and crawled out. As cozy as it was in the bus, it was nice to be out in the open, breathing the untainted air. When I walked around the bus, I came upon something I didn't want to see. Ever. Never ever. Maggy had her arms around Félix, staring at him. At my best friend. She rose up on her toes and kissed him. I twirled around as fast as my feet could handle and strode away.

"They were just friends yesterday . . . just friends . . ." Grinding my teeth, I kicked a piece of debris. I'd really only been a beer drinker when it came to alcohol, but I could've gone for some of Jacob's magical vodka. The real stuff. My world was spinning, around and around. I puked a few meters from the crash.

Gazing at the contents of my stomach, my entire body shook. Was this anger? Rage? Or did it even have anything to do with the two of them? So what, Félix and I made a stupid pact two years ago and that was what, supposed to keep them apart even though they clearly belonged together? This seemed bigger than that, bigger than them. Nah, this was the end of the world. Trauma. That's what people called it. Trauma. PTSD or some acronym like that.

Maybe WTF covered more. Or FML. One of those old ones. The staples of teenage angst.

Whatever it was, it hurt. Especially in my chest.

Félix and Maggy came running up. "You all right?" Maggy asked.

"Oh, yeah, fine," I lied. "I'm fine. Just a sour stomach or something, probably just needs to come out."

Félix grabbed a towel from our supplies and handed it to me. "Thanks," I said. He nodded. I found something to drink and sat down, slouched against the bus. "What a nightmare."

"A little worse than a nightmare, that's certain," Félix said, his voice shaking. "We have some guns, some food, some water . . . but how far can we make it? It's a long road south."

My throat burned like hell so I sucked down the water. "And we don't know anything about conservation. Every time I put a bottle to my lips, I drink half the container."

He smiled. "Yeah, me too, bromigo. Me too."

"But we have to try," Maggy said, her tone full of hope. "We all know it. Even that cracked drunk knows that. We're stronger than you guys think. We'll persevere. That's what it's about, isn't it? The perseverance of the human race, that's our quality. It will be the alions' downfall."

"We don't know anything about the alions," I countered. "Except that they have spaceships, they're smart, they're fast, and they look like lionesses with a second pair of freakish arms growing out of their shoulders. And by how empty the city is we can guess that they've taken about ninety-nine point-nine percent of the population or some cliché statistic like that. That's all we know."

Her eyes narrowed. "We know they bleed, bright blue blood, and we know they can die."

"I—"

"No, we're going south. Together. That melted asshole, too. He'll make it."

I looked up at her. "He's already awake. He's fine, or should be fine. He thinks his water is vodka."

They both laughed.

"I bet he does," she said, chortling. She kneeled down beside me. "Don't worry. We'll make it to Pasadena. All of us." She was so strong. So much more than me.

"I wish I had a head like you," I confessed.

She blushed a little. "We can head back to the on-ramp and find an SUV on the second tier. The second level has always been the least driven, so hopefully we won't have to worry about so much traffic to bump out of our way. We'll be in Pasadena in a day or two if we drive without stopping."

I nodded. "Sounds good, IQ."

"Habi and I will gather everything up, you rest there."

"Nah, I'm all right." I clambered to my feet with the aid of the bus. I was still holding the towel with puke chunks, so I tossed it, and we crawled through the hatch in single file.

Félix helped Jacob out of the wreckage. We removed everything that was still intact and started to consolidate our inventory. I evaluated our supplies. "So we have water bottles, some food, cooking equipment and utensils, including a stove we found at the sporting goods store, medicines, some towels and blankets, and a whole duffel with knives, guns, ammo, arrows, and saws. But we left the utility belts with knives back in the Trackster."

Maggy leaned against the haft of her axe, the head resting in the soil. "Too bad we left the other duffels, too. The toilet paper will come in handy later on."

"We'll find some more along the way," Félix said. "We'll find what we need." He took an ammo box that read 9MM PARABELLUM on the lid and started to reload his gun the way Jacob had showed him a few minutes before.

"And make sure the damn safety is on," Jacob told Félix. "You don't want to shoot one of us. That goes for all of you." He shifted his narrow gaze on to each of us.

"So how is everyone feeling?" Maggy asked, changing the subject. "I have some big ugly bruises on my waist, shoulders and, well, everywhere."

"My hand stings a little, but it's minor," I reported, waving the bandaged palm for them to see. "Other than that, I have a few pretty bad bruises on my shoulders, arms, and ass, but I'll survive."

"Pretty much the same for me," Félix said.

Jacob looked the worst out of the four of us. Thanks to Maggy, bandages covered the ugly scrapes on his arms and legs, and his body language said he was in no condition for a long hike. "I'm not sure I can walk right now. I feel like I'm going to drop from fatigue." He was sitting against the bus, his eyes partly open.

"If you can't walk, we'll support you," Félix told him.

"What about the weight from all the bags? We can't support him and carry all this stuff," I said.

Jacob took a step and collapsed. "Yeah, we need a new plan."

"Habi and I can go find a ride and drive back here," Maggy said. "Blue, stay here and keep him safe." She pointed at Jacob.

I nodded. "That's not safe or smart, but neither is leaving this stuff behind."

They left, taking only three guns and the replica axe.

Jacob sat back down, hunched over as he ate some jerky. I joined him, sharing the meat. After a gap of eerie silence, I asked, "So you and your brother were close?"

"Nah, not really," he answered. He was staring at the ground ahead, a glaze in his eyes. "We used to be, but he's four years younger and, you know, people do different things when they get older." He leaned over and struggled to pull out his wallet. He unfolded the flaps and withdrew a picture. His eyes never strayed from it, glued. "We hadn't gotten along for about five years . . . he was always doing shit children do, like playing with action figures, all the shit I was trying to get away from at thirteen. You know what I'm saying?"

I shook my head. "Only child."

"Ah. Well, there are times when you feel like smashing every goddamn Batman toy just to let go, just to say to yourself: 'I'm too old for this shit.' I'm not saying it's right or anything, that's just how it goes." His voice began to crank up in pitch. He wiped his nose and eyes with his forearm. "God, I wish I could take it all back . . ."

He unloaded a whole mess of tears.

What was I supposed to do? I had no words of comfort for him. The only thing that came to mind was to share with him, to show my grief. I dug through my backpack where I had stashed my wallet. My fingers trembled as I slipped a photo of my parents from a plastic sleeve. Amy and Richard. Mom and Dad. Mom, plump with big cheeks and big brown eyes, had blonde highlights in her fallow hair, as she had always described it. Dad was even bigger, with short wavy hair, and a deep line that split his lower forehead in two. One of Dad's arms was wrapped around her shoulder and the other held up an intricate wooden heart that he had just completed, while Mom posed with a hand on his barrel chest, the other tucked around his waist. Their smiles said it all. "My mom—" My voice hit a sharp note.

"My mom loved to garden," I said with a depressing laugh, half sorrowful, half joyful at remembering her enthusiasm when she cut a batch of fresh roses. "Every day she would tell me about a hundred different kinds of flowers, something like how this red gerplanium grew better in the shade compared to those lavender mums." My cheeks were housing a waterfall at that point; I didn't even bother to hide it. "But I never really listened, never took an interest . . . never bothered to learn any of the names or why she cared so much about it . . ." I swallowed, and it felt like a knife peeling my throat. "She always wanted me to go with her to that nursery on Bakerview, you know the one that's the size of a football field." He nodded. It was a landmark, hard to miss if you weren't blind. "She always said she would really enjoy it if I went with her, but I—I never went, not once. And now—" I could barely talk, but I wanted to finish, something compelled me to. "Now I never will." My voice had shrunk to a mumble.

A dismal silence replaced our conversation—if you could call it a conversation. We never looked at each other. Our eyes drained, fixed on the pictures in our hands.

After a while Jacob glanced over. "Shit bro, your dad looks exactly like John Goodman."

"Older people always say that," I said. "How do you know who John Goodman is?"

"My mom," he said. "All she ever watched was the Rerunz Network, and that show 'Roseanne' was one of her favorites. It was constantly blaring at our house."

I gave a small chuckle as I turned to him. "Never saw it, but I IMDBed him since so many people told me about their resemblance. My dad was his doppelgänger, I guess."

"Or his son," he laughed. "You hiding that your family is rich by dressing in those rags?"

"My clothes are old, dude, not rags," I defended. "There's a difference."

"Not much." He nodded at the shotgun. "You want me to show you how to load the shotty?"

I was holding the weapon across my stomach with one hand. "Yeah, unless you want it for yourself."

"No, I found these in the store." He put away the picture of his brother and withdrew a pair of submachine guns from his bag. "I found these OMP2's while you were getting the stove. Probably just a couple of years old."

My mouth gaped. "That's the gun from _Death Squad_." Never imagined seeing one in real life. That was the world now. Aliens and machine guns. Fear and depression. That was survival.

"The Optimum Machine Pistol model two. These will rip those aliens to shreds. They fire at twenty-seven hundred rounds per minute. Neo-plastic, you gotta love it."

"Why did you hide them?" I slid my parents back into their sleeve and stowed it away in my bag's front pocket.

"Not sure, wasn't thinking all too straight. You know, melted brain and all." He wore a silly smirk.

"Right." I smiled and handed him the shotgun. He let me hold the OMP2. It was so light. It probably weighed as much as one of my shoes. "Wow," I whispered.

"Yeah, pretty sweet," he said. "But so is this Remington. It's in great shape for being thirty-five years old." He fiddled around with the firearm. "With the mag extension tube, it holds eight plus one, and it looks like you've used three of the nine cartridges. See the loading port?" He pointed to the bottom of the gun in front of the trigger. "You just pop in your shotshells and slide them forward into the magazine tube, which engages the feed latch."

I nodded, pretending to understand.

He dug through the duffel with all the ammo and pulled out a plastic box. "It's pretty simple." He loaded three in quick succession. "As it is, it will automatically load one into the chamber, so you don't have to worry about that. What you want to keep in mind is to load it after every shot, if you have the opportunity. That way when the shit really hits the fan you'll be as ready as possible." He then went through how to load it from empty, which was a little harder to follow, with a bolt and cartridge release, and a few other terms that I didn't know. "Make sure no one is standing to your immediate right or they'll be blasted with the empty cartridge when it's ejected." He pointed behind the trigger. "Here's your safety. You press it to your left and the red band becomes visible, meaning it's ready to fire. To engage it again, just press the button to your right and the red band disappears. Simple, yeah?"

"You don't have to do any of this shit in video games," I said. "Man, I wish it was as simplistic as that. And screw tinnitus, it like never goes away. Games include the ear ringing, but still, it's over the speakers and not in your head. It's annoying as hell."

"The ringing will stop eventually," he said, "and don't worry, you'll get the hang of firing a real gun. It just takes practice. And FYI, you've been using three-inch magnum cartridges with double-aught buckshot pellets, which I think houses fifteen pellets for a good spread, but I also packed some normal double-aught two-and-three-quarters shells for less recoil, and the store only had so many of the magnums."

"I don't know what any of that means, dude, but thanks. I might have to switch to those, it really kicks." I accepted the shotgun when he offered it back to me. "Was it your mom who taught you so much about guns?"

"Yeah, it was always our thing since I was little. It was fun for her, taking me to the range, getting burgers and shakes afterwards. We did it a lot. She had this old combat shotgun, a Franchi SPAS-12, just an awesome gun that switched from semi-auto to pump action . . ." He stopped when he began to really reflect on his mom.

"Sorry," I said. Not really friends, I didn't know what else to say to him.

"We've all lost, nothing to be sorry about. Nothing you could do, right? Unless you brought them here, unless you ordered them to take all those people and leave a handful . . . unless that was you, I wouldn't be sorry."

"If you don't mind me asking," I said after a pause, "what were you looking for at your mother's desk?"

"A picture," he said bluntly. "It was of the whole family, on our last vacation together before Simon left. It was always on her desk before that." He looked over at me, knowing what I was about to say. "Don't say sorry. Don't do it, man."

"I wasn't gonna," I lied. "I was gonna ask if you thought your dad is really alive?"

"I don't know what to think, but the plan gave us something, a direction, and that's better than waiting around to die . . ."

The waiting stretched on in uncomfortable quiet. Without background noise, the world felt so empty, so small. I hated it. "If you know how to shoot," I interrupted the stillness. "How come you told us you don't know how to hunt?"

"There's more to hunting than just shooting," he said.

About to ask what he meant, I whipped my neck north, where a police SUV sped along the road about twenty meters away, the road that led to the freeway. "Look!" I flung out my hand and pointed.

"Other survivors?" Jacob asked.

It didn't take long for the answer to his question. Maggy skidded to a stop next to us with the window down, smiling. "You bums need a lift?"

"Yeah, and a drink," Jacob said.

"A lift is all I've got. Take it or leave it."

"I suppose I'll take it."

They jumped out and loaded up the car. I opened the hood so Jacob could disable the fake engine noise, then helped him into the back seat on the passenger's side. His fatigue showed in how he walked, slowly, gingerly. After he was settled, I went around to the other side. "Nice ride. The back seat is made of plastic though."

"Yeah, sorry about that. Figured a police car would be best to bump cars out of the way, you know, able to withstand it a few dozen times, and I didn't think you'd mind the sacrifice." Wrong. Of course I minded. It was super uncomfortable. Never said as much though.

"Adun Toridas," I joked before we began our daunting expedition.

Jacob brought his eyebrows together, lost.

Félix turned around, splayed his fingers in a Vulcan salute and, with a grin, said, "Live long and prosper."

Maggy laughed, then rounded off the battle of phrases with, "May the force be with us." She pressed the GO pedal and we were off.

#

"THE BATTERIES ARE at seventy-two percent," Maggy said, "so we have a ways before we have to recharge, or find another cruiser. I wish we had that rectenna on this bad boy."

"Yeah, or at least some solar panels," I said. A neo-plastic mesh cage separated the front and back seats. Never thought I'd see this view. There was a joke about prison on the tip of my tongue, but I left it there.

Félix hadn't said much, and I didn't think he was going to, bearing an awkward expression. He knew that I'd seen them, or at least that I had some idea of what was going on between them. It was hard to sit there, mute. But I didn't know what to say to him either. Maggy on the other hand was great at pretending everything was cool, she always had been.

We rode along for a long while, nothing but the song of tires rolling on pavement. No birds yet. How strange life was without the caw of crows. The freeway wasn't far away. We reached the second level of I-5, one of three tiers of the newly expanded interstate, built to ease traffic conditions of a swelling population.

I contemplated saying something more about _StarCraft_ to elicit a discussion on which sci-fi franchise held the title as "the best," which we had debated over a hundred times in the last three years, yet the topic never staled. After further consideration, I decided not to instigate an argument on a subject that could potentially put us in an even worse mood. But the silence killed me. A question from the morning popped into my mind, so I went with it instead. "Do you think we'll see other people?"

"What?" Maggy asked, focused on the freeway, driving mostly in the shoulder.

"Along the road, do you think we'll come across others?"

"We saw people in Bellingham, so I bet we'll see others," Maggy replied. "I just hope they're not crazy." She slowed and nudged a '42 Sun Charger out of the way. It was a slick ride, but impractical on these dead, overcrowded roads. She accelerated when we passed.

"What's the time?" Jacob asked. He had been staring out the window with tired eyes. He needed some rest, that was certain.

"Two thirty," Maggy responded. "It'll be slow going. Hopefully we can get to Seattle before sunset. There might be a lot more people there since it's so much larger."

He didn't say anything more to her, and she didn't press him.

I looked over at him. "Why did you wanna know the time?"

He shifted in his seat, sighing in pain. "I didn't really, just a habit I guess." He returned his gaze to the landscape outside.

A discouraging thought: habits wouldn't die easily. I had a habit of eating, and I was hungry. Just a slice of Coconut Kenny's Waikiki pizza. Would that be too much to ask for? Or a taste of Casa Que Pasa's Rancho Deluxe burrito. Or half a Cajun Inferno Burger from Boomer's?

I put the urge down before it overwhelmed me. Vices, oh how they scarred. And weakened. And ruined.

Time crept by. Maggy pushed hundreds of cars out of the way. At least it seemed like hundreds. After every twenty minutes, I glanced at the clock on the console. It was torture, absolute torture. Every so often Félix and I rolled cars out of the way, but that did little to disrupt the tedium.

The Seattle skyline came into view around five thirty, and by six thirty we had a great panorama of the city. And then we saw it: a monstrous spaceship floating over the high-rises, poised for possible destruction. Five black and red ovals, like a bee's abdomen the size of skyscrapers, circled a moderately larger oval, connected by support beams that curved at peculiar angles, as if made for aesthetics instead of reinforcement purposes. A strange red light radiated at the aft of the five, emitting trace amounts of a crimson gas that disappeared soon after it encountered the firmament.

"No way," I muttered, staggered by the inconceivable sight.

"That can't be real," Jacob commented, now awake after sleeping the entire trip.

Maggy pulled over to the shoulder, so that we could study the spaceship better, and eat our delicious jerky and granola bars. What a wonderful end-of-the-world meal. Though I guessed I had little to complain about, it was actual food after all. Could've had to find a mouthful of worms instead. If there were any worms left, of course.

"So everyone sees it, right?" Maggy said. "It's not a delusion?"

Félix snapped his jaw shut. "I feel delusional."

"Maybe we're all sharing the same one," I said. Under the setting sun, the orange sky was fading into a soft red glow. The buildings shined with lights, lit up as if a normal Tuesday night. A normal night with a spaceship looming above the city. No one spoke for a long while. We all just sat there, dumbfounded.

"Why are the lights still on?" Maggy broke the silence. She peeked out the window at the Space Needle and all of the super towers that shadowed it.

"Did you turn the lights off in your house?" I asked, observing the beautiful horizon and the enormous buildings.

"You got me there, bromigo." She understood. Everyone was taken in the blink of an eye, and people had a habit of leaving on lights. "But why haven't they used an EMP to knock out the electricity?"

"Why would they?" Félix disputed. "There's no one left. What does it matter if the electricity is still going?"

Maggy repositioned herself to sit cross-legged. "But not everyone has been taken. You'd think they wouldn't want us using cars and other electronics."

"Or maybe that's exactly what they want," I said. "It make sense if they're hunting us for sport. Electronics are what make us a harder prey. It gives them more of a challenge."

"Maybe that's it," Félix said. "Or maybe they just don't care."

The conversation faded as we all stared at the ship. Nothing in the world seemed to move as it hovered, suspended in the skyline like a volcanic mountain, dark and ominous, waiting to lash its destruction on the land. It was almost as if we were looking at a 3D picture.

"What do you think they're doing up there?" Maggy asked.

"I don't want to think about it," Félix replied. "It can't be anything good."

"Boy, what I'd give for some nukes right about now. I bet there's a mothership in orbit pulling all the strings. If we could take it out . . ."

Maggy stuffed a wrapper in a cupholder. "Nukes don't work in space. Not like they do down here. Without an atmosphere, there's no blast wave, which is most of the destructive force behind a nuke."

"Never trust a TV sci-fi show to follow real science," Félix laughed.

"Well damn," Jacob said. "Lesson learned too late."

"There'd still be a lot of radiation," Maggy continued, "but there's already a lot of radiation in space, and to fly through it their ship has to be heavily shielded, so that's a bust. That's what makes _Star Wars_ so great. High-energy lasers really would vaporize. Maybe not exactly like in the movies, since you can't actually see laser beams traveling through space." Félix and I understood what she was doing, how she slipped in the remark on _Star Wars_ , but neither of us took the bait. She retrieved a pair of binoculars raided from the sports store and began scanning the skyline.

"Hey, you guys see that? By the ship." Jacob pointed to a dot moving across the darkening sky.

"It's moving fast. Too fast to be a bird," Maggy noted.

"It could be a fighter jet, here to blow that big bastard up," Jacob said, hopeful.

The dot grew into the triangular shape of their fighter craft. It flew low, closing in on us, deadly quiet.

"Duck!" Félix yelled.

We all kissed the floor. A minute or two went by. Nothing. Félix investigated the scene. "It's still out there, but now it's circling the city." We resumed our perches, watching the ship orbit the skyscrapers. Then I saw two yellow spheres launch from the alion fighter. They rocketed right for the Space Needle. Each exploded where the beams converged to form V-shapes. The iconic flying saucer descended to the city streets below. Upon impact, it burst apart, as small infernos flew up like fireworks, and a thunderous echo ran through the city.

I sat there, stunned beyond dismay. Debris soared higher as the ship continued to circle the city. The bag with inhalers rested between Jacob and me, so I seized one and started shaking it. I shook and shook and shook. Then I pumped it into my mouth. A second. And a third. And a fourth.

"Blue, stop," Maggy yelled.

And a fifth.

"Grab the inhaler!"

Jacob snatched the inhaler from my clutch.

I let out a breath, woozy. "We're not—gonna—make it . . ."

_Man up, Darrel,_ Dad bellowed in my head. But how could I when the world was a flaming bag of scat?

Félix and Maggy turned their attention to the back window. I rotated around and spied . . .  _people_. People were fleeing, running down I-5, trying to escape the madness. Another group of four, they sprinted right past our windows.

Maggy sprang out of the SUV. "Wait!" she cried. "Wait!"

Clad in warmer clothes, and burdened with bags, they all turned, shocked to hear human voices. Two looked about the same age as us, and the other two were young, probably not even in their teens. They were all carrying kitchen knives.

The oldest-looking of them, a man of late teens, maybe early twenties, squinted at us as if he believed his eyes were lying to him. "Are you real?"

"Real, and well-armed," Maggy replied. Her words were a test, to see if he played _Our Descent_.

"The well-armed take advantage," the older girl spoke up.

She had passed. Maggy grinned. "That's certain. Is the company of eight better than four?"

The girl appraised us, wary. "It could be, but people aren't the same. Some have flipped the switch to mental, out for their own survival, or their last pleasure before they die. You touch my sisters and I'll knock a crater into your head."

Maggy eyed her, amazed. "Hey, we're on the same side here, so relax. We're going south to Pasadena, to see if we can find answers and safety down there."

The girl gave an uneasy smile, her thick luscious lips stupefying my brain. "I'm Penelope." She was a bit taller than Maggy, maybe by five centimeters or so, putting her at about seventeen decimeters.

Maggy let me out of the car, the backdoors safety-locked so criminals couldn't go running off. Félix got out too. I stared at Penelope, and her beauty melted my body . . . brain, stomach, and heart . . . all of it. Copperish hair that verged on rufous (I did pick up a few words, if not anything else, studying for the SAT's) flowed mid-back, thick and layered, but greasy from sweat mixed with product, combined with no shower. On the edge of total collapse, her shoulders stooped, and her face sagged with exhaustion. Despite this, her deep brown eyes possessed an endurance that a rare few could claim, burning fiercely with defiance.

She was the complete package of hotness. Not a single flaw. One word: perfection. Was I drooling? _Close your mouth, Darrel. You'll look like a fool._ I audibly closed my mouth. Thanks, Brain.

"I'm Maggy." Maggy shook Penelope's hand. "This is Félix, Darrel, and the one still in the car is Jacob, he's a little out of it." Thankfully, she didn't use our nicknames. Using them around strangers weirded me out. Like they knew something really personal about me.

"This is my cousin, Mike, and these two little ones are my sisters, Jane and Amanda."

"Little ones, I'm not little. I'm a centimeter taller than her," one of the girls exclaimed, pointing at the sister of equal age. They were black-haired twins with blue eyes.

"Still shorter than me, which makes you little," Penelope said.

"Why do you think Pasadena is safe?" Mike asked, abrupt. He was tall and fit, with dirty blond hair. His green eyes burned holes through us.

"Jacob's father works down there for the IPDA. We think they were working on something to fight the invaders." Maggy hoisted her axe onto her shoulder. "Where are you going?"

"South, out of Seattle," Mike answered. "That's as far as we got in our planning. We just gotta get out of here."

"Well, you're welcome to come with us," I said, regarding Penelope. Was it ogling? I hoped not. That would make me seem like a perv. _Look away. Look at the others. Act normal, Darrel. Play it cool._

Smooth. Something I'd never been.

"We'll be fine on our own," Mike declared. "Just fine on our own."

"Mike, what are you talking about? It's been horrible on our own. We'd be glad to join you, honestly. We don't have a plan, and it sounds like you do. Something we could use."

"No," Mike objected, openly distrustful of us. "It's safer with just the four of us. We don't know them."

"Look at them, they're not killers. Right? You're not killers?" Penelope asked, directing her attention on to me.

"Just of alions," I replied, not thinking that they wouldn't have a clue what I meant.

"Alions?" Her voice inflected to a curious high.

Maggy smiled at her. "Well, if you've seen them, they look like lionesses. So we've been calling them alions instead of aliens."

"We've seen them all right. A lot of them," Penelope said. "Alions is pretty clever though. I like it."

"We're not killers," Félix expressed with a defensive flare. "That's all we can say for you to trust us."

"Which is good enough a reason not to," Mike said. "Come on, Penny, let's get out of here." He motioned with his thumb southward.

Repeated taps on glass caught my ear, and I spun back. "Guys! Guys! The fighter is coming this way!" Jacob shouted.

My eyes darted to the city. The aircraft flew right for us.

"Get the guns," Maggy ordered.

I had left the shotgun resting on the seat cushion. Scooping it up, I ran to the other side of the car, in front of Jacob, cracking his door in case we needed to get away on foot in a hurry. Stupid jailbird-proof locks. Maggy and Félix lined up beside me, as if to protect the SUV. I was swallowing, all dry, painful swallows.

Just as the aircraft was about to fly over I-5, the bottom unlatched and dropped down like a mouth opening for a bite. Sliding, the alion shot through the air, descending like a cannonball, with a trajectory aimed at our level. By the time it reached the height of the third level, it uncurled. Immediately its four paws lit up with tiny spurts of white flames. Within a short, stifled breath it landed on a car, skidding across its roof.

I stared at the alion, rigid. _Man up, Darrel_. My father's voice again.

A strange black metal covered the alion's paws like gloves. Through slits in the metal, five claws sunk into the neo-plastic of the car, a death grip by any standard. I had watched a nature show on lions a few years before, and I remembered that the forepaw of a lion was strong enough to break a zebra's back in one swipe. What did that mean this beast was capable of? Probably strong enough to break an elephant's back.

It pounced onto a car two lanes over from ours, quick as a lizard's tongue catching a fly. The shotgun rattled in my grip. I couldn't steady it to save my life—and I needed to.

The alion was beyond intelligent. It garnered that we sported projectiles while the four newcomers fought with knives, and it came straight for us first.

Félix fired off a round and missed. The alion dashed out of the way, as if sensing the bullet coming. With the axe in her left and a handgun in her right, Maggy aimed and pulled the trigger, much to the same effect.

I couldn't do it. My finger hesitated on the trigger. I could hear Dad yelling, screaming in the back of my mind. _Man up! Do it!_ _Pull the goddamn trigger!_

It sprung from the car to the one behind ours. I stepped back, terrified. No air was going down my throat, and my lungs were starving as I wheezed.

Do it, Son!

Suddenly it leapt at me, jaws wide, about to rip off my head.

And I pulled the trigger.

#

THE BUCKSHOT, redirected by my ruffled nerves, missed.

Just then, Jacob exploded out of the car, knocking me back with the car door. With the two OMP2's clenched between his fingers, he shot off four rounds in burst fire, the sequence like a tongue rolling, _RRRR,_ but mechanical, precise. The bullets and the alion greeted each other in a mortal embrace, the bullets passing through the beast's muscular chest without care of their quick meeting. In complete indifference, they continued on, out the sturdy back of the monstrous cat. Jacob spun out of the way. Maggy yanked me back, to the front of the SUV's hood. It struck the open door, breaking it from the hinges, landing on the shoulder of the freeway. Blood pooled like a puddle forming in a rainstorm.

Struggling to breathe, I pumped two shots of sweet relief into my mouth. Draxair. The only medicine for this druggie.

"Let's go," Jacob said. He walked up next to the alion and smirked. "Gotcha, dickweed."

Without warning, the alion swung a humanlike hand up at his legs, but missed, tapping the bottom of the SUV. Its last attempt to kill one of us drained what remaining energy it possessed. It lay there, motionless, eyes open and glazed over. The alion's aircraft had flown on by, and now it circled around, heading for the main ship that clouded the city.

Maggy ran around to the driver's seat, tossed her axe to the side of the console between the seats. "You coming?" She eyed the four newcomers.

Penelope looked at Mike, then turned back. "Yeah, we're coming."

Mike grumbled about it, but after the attack he seemed too scared to make any decisions and complied with a nod.

I helped Jacob into the front passenger's seat, as he could barely move, expending all his strength on the wild, life-saving maneuver. "You—you saved my life, man . . . Thanks." _And sorry, Dad. Another check mark to add to your List of Disappointments._

Jacob nodded. "Just trying to help."

Félix and I crawled into the trunk, moving the bags aside. Mike climbed in after us, shutting the hatch. It was a tight squeeze. Penelope and her sisters sat in the three back seats, the right door gone.

"Buckle up for safety," I joked. No one replied.

Maggy powered on the electric motors and began bumping cars out of the way. From that moment, I knew it was going to be a long, sleepless night. Our last night on this world. We worried that the alions would spot the brightness of the low beams, so Maggy did her best to navigate the road without headlights, relying on the city lamps.

Mike stared at Félix and me for a while, disgruntled. He looked as if there was something he wanted to say, but he never spoke a word, just narrowed his irritated eyes at us.

Penelope calmed her sisters, who had been screaming and crying since the alion landed on the car, even more so once it was dead. Now they just wept, clinging to their older sister, one to each side of Penelope, getting snot on her purple U-Dub jacket.

Maggy pulled off I-5 after we passed the sign for Sea-Tac Airport. She parked in a driveway to a skinny three-story duplex, shut off the motor, and sighed heavily. "We shouldn't go too far in the dark, it's too hard to see them coming. We can try to sleep here." The neighborhood was dirty, like most were in the Seattle-Tacoma area, and other cities of equal size. Many were slums of narrow multiple-story buildings, made tall to keep costs down and to accommodate overcrowded populations, pressed together without yards or parking spaces.

"You want to sleep here?" Mike asked sharply.

"That's what I said." Maggy hopped out, grabbing her axe. She split the door by the handle, shoving the door backwards, motioning everyone through. I couldn't believe how resilient she was; she just kept going and going, always under control.

When I passed the door, I noticed the marking with three lines, and my body trembled at the portent. The living room was spacious, with a long, three-cushion sofa, a love seat, and an inviting recliner. Everything inside was worn and stained. Chips, dents, and fist-sized holes riddled the walls. Maggy and Félix inspected the house for people and alions.

"Nothing here," Maggy reported, taking a spot on the loveseat next to Félix.

I wanted to plant myself in the recliner but conceded it to Jacob, who sorely needed it. Instead, I found one of those rocking game-chairs, and scooted it from upstairs to join the circle. I stared at Maggy and Félix, who were not openly cuddling, but pretty damn close, their shoulders grazing. My fists clenched, an unconscious act. Turning to Penelope, who was probably even more out of my league than Maggy, I sighed before I asked, "So, what happened to you guys? How were you not taken?"

The newcomers sat together on the long sofa, Mike on one end and Penelope on the other, with the twins in the middle. Penelope looked at me with hard, tired eyes and swallowed. "Have you seen the symbols with two lines on the doors?"

"Yeah, we have. Why?" My voice cracked like I was back in middle school. Mike glared at me, hatred in his eyes, which confirmed I was ogling this time. I tried to stop, but it was a problem I had, a big one, eyes that lingered. Was that pervy? Every guy did it to some extent, so how could it be? The difference: they didn't feel bad for doing it. Her jacket was halfway unzipped, and the v-cut shirt underneath showed off her rack. Not in a slutty way, but she wasn't a practicing Mormon by the looks of it.

_Peek, then look away, man. Don't stare. You'll look pathetic._ _Be cool. Be smooth. Eye contact, eye contact, eye contact._ Ugh! Hormones, how they plagued me.

Penelope's face drooped, awake by a fraying thread. "Have you figured out what they mean?"

"We think so," Maggy said. "From what we've seen, the houses with the two-line symbol have had survivors, so we've a pretty good guess that they leave the people whose house has that mark."

"Exactly," Penelope replied. "We were the only house on our block that had one, everyone else had three lines, and they were all taken. All of my family was in the house, we all survived. But Sunday night . . ." she stammered. Broke into a sob.

"Sunday night was bad," Mike said. "I'd been staying there for the week, looking for an apartment, luckily, I guess." He paused and swallowed a long, sour gulp of bile. "That night three of them came for us . . . to hunt us."

Félix choked on a mouthful of water, like this was new information.

Mike glared at Félix, his jaw tight. "So yeah, they leave the people with the two lines alone, so that they can come back and hunt them. We figured out what the two lines meant for sure when we met a couple who had the same symbol on their door. They managed to kill a few of them, and they fled down to the minimart we were staying in. This was last night. They didn't make it today . . . Anyway, they told us the same story. They went through the same hell we did, so it fits."

"How did you survive the attack, did you kill them?" Félix fidgeted on the cushions, uncomfortable.

"Yeah, my uncle did. He had a classic revolver from World War I, a family heirloom. I don't know anything about guns, but I know it was a Smith and Wesson M1917. They displayed it in a glass case above their mantle and he—well, he had to use it. It only had six rounds, you know, only six. He used two on each one. After that, we had nothing but kitchen utensils. About two klicks from us was a pawnshop, so all six of us broke for it together yesterday morning. There were no guns there, all taken, I guess. We went to a grocery store, but all the food was taken, and with nowhere else to go, we decided that the fire station a block away would be safer. This was last night, and they came for us again, as if they knew we had gone there. My uncle fended them off with one of those giant axes, while we escaped out the . . ." Tears were starting to slide down his cheeks. "We made it to the minimart where we met that couple, but by this morning, it was just the four of us . . ."

All four of the newcomers were crying. It was hard for them, a lot harder since they'd watched their loved ones murdered. It was somewhat easier to cope, for me, not knowing what had actually happened to my parents. I assumed the worst. But maybe it wasn't the worst. For them it was different.

"I'm sorry," I said, my head hung, looking at the floor. "That's really awful." I wanted to comfort them, but there was nothing for me to do, nothing to say that would make it better, especially not from a stranger's mouth.

No one said anything for a long, long time. The family needed time to collect their emotions. To cry it out. "So how did you guys make it?" Penelope asked over an hour later.

Félix pointed at Maggy. "Our little genius saved us with a machine that interfered with their beaming tech. Show them."

Maggy, her cheeks growing redder by the second, unzipped her backpack and extracted the SIM. "I call it a Spy Interference Machine, or SIM, but I didn't make it for anything like this. It was just for fun, really, to prevent people from listening in on our conversations. I made one for each of us, so we all had them hanging in our rooms."

"Not me," Jacob said. "I had two lines just like you. Then these bozos came along and saved my ass. I'd be sure as dead without them."

"This stops them from abducting us?" Amanda, the slightly taller of the twins—though they sure seemed the same height—looked straight at Maggy for elaboration. Both of the little girls had bright, wide eyes.

"That's right," Maggy said. "We can't be taken so long as we have it."

"That doesn't matter," Mike snarled. "They don't want to take us, they want to kill us."

"Stop it, Mike!" Penelope shouted. "Stop talking like that."

"We have to be realistic, Penny—"

She put up a hand that said _no more,_ which quelled him for now. "Tell me the rest," she invited Maggy to relate our journey.

Maggy, in a calm, hushed voice, told our story. "We've had a lot of luck," she added at the end of the narrative.

"Yeah, and hopefully it'll keep on saving us," I said.

Jacob laughed. "Luck isn't going to save us, bro." He slid out of the recliner and dragged a duffel bag to the center of the circle. " _These_ are going to save us." He unzipped it. Six handguns, a quiver full of arrows, boxes of bullets, ten Pacifiers with extra tranquilizers, and knives galore stared back at us, disapproving of our ineptness, our inexperience, our complete lack of control to handle such deadly devices. Or maybe that was just what I saw. He turned his attention to the newcomers. "If you want to join us and survive, you'll need these, but if you plan on leaving . . . well, we need these."

"We all need each other," Penelope spoke up.

"Sounds about right," Maggy said.

Jacob snatched up a handgun. "Then take this." He offered Penelope the gun.

She debated with herself whether or not to accept the weapon, and by her slow-reaching hand, it looked as if her desperate, scared-out-of-her-mind side was winning. "All right." She finally gave in and took the pistol.

"It's loaded with nineteen rounds, so don't waste them. I'll show you how to load it, and how to put the safety on and all of that." Jacob went through the steps with her, though it appeared she already knew how to handle the weapon and was just being polite, then he repeated the process with Mike when he chose a gun.

"Another thing you should know," Penelope started, staring at the gun in her hand. "These things don't hunt with their technology. All the ones we've encountered never used any projectiles or advanced weaponry, or anything like in the movies, except the one on I-5 with the rocket boots, that one was the first. The rest were just hunting us with what they were born with."

"I've noticed that too," Maggy said. "As if they're training." Glancing over at her, I saw her eyes light up, the idea blooming into something solid, something more than just a guess. A fact. "That's it!" she blurted. "That's why we're here. That's what they're doing with us, they're using us to train."

"Training?" Mike yelled. "You call killing us one by one training?" He jumped off the couch, pissed.

"For them I would," Maggy defended. "Think about it. How they track us with nothing but their senses, how they let us run, escape even, despite the fact that we all know they could just make us disappear in an instant."

"What you're saying doesn't make sense," he contended.

Not wanting to listen to them argue, I shuffled into the kitchen to see what the prior occupants had left in the way of edibles. The cupboards: barren of food. I investigated the fridge with no luck, and when I closed it, there was Penelope just standing there. "Jesus," I said, startled.

"Sorry. I thought you heard me come in, it's a creaky place." She set a can of chili on the counter.

"It's all right," I assured her, my voice cracking again. My cheeks swelled with heat. "I'm okay. It's just, well, you know. Don't think my nerves will ever calm down."

"Mine either." She looked at me as if to find solace, or maybe just a regular conversation. "What do you think about all that?"

Dragged into the argument anyway. Not even the kitchen was a safe zone. "I think Maggy's right," I answered reluctantly.

"Me too," she said.

"You do?" Skepticism rang loud.

"Just because my cousin isn't thinking straight, doesn't mean I'm not. It _does_ make sense. It's a reasonable conclusion at least. We'll probably never know for certain why they didn't take us too, but them hunting us to train, that's something I can wrap my mind around."

I cleared my throat and smiled, unable to think with her, this beautiful girl, just standing there, casually chitchatting. With _me_. Alone. That never happened. Holding my breath, afraid my tic would go into overdrive if I didn't, I gave no reply.

She swept the room as if looking for something to talk about. "What's with the bizarro green shotgun?"

"Oh, right." _She's just a girl, Darrel. You got this. Be cool. Be smooth._ I laid it against the corner cupboards. "I don't know, it's just what was left behind at the sports store we raided. I feel like I should be shooting at zombies though, not giant cats from space." She gave me a sweet, honest laugh. My heart cracked my chest, literally breaking bones. Nah, not literally. But close. I tilted my head at the chili can, attempting to play it cool while thinking, _Oh God, she's gonna notice that I'm sweating like crazy_. "From home?"

"We managed to pack a few goods," she replied. "Not much though, and if the grocery stores are all like the one we visited—"

"Empty?"

"Yeah, empty. You saw that, too?"

Quickly nodded. "Guess they came here for everything. Even me Lucky Charms," I said with a horribly fake Irish brogue.

She burst out laughing, but then brought back her serious face. "The animals . . . they're all gone too. How will we survive if there's nothing left to eat?"

"There's still chili," I said. What was she fishing for? Comfort? Validation? A measure of both? I chose a different path. Slash, ignore. "Speaking of which, do you want me to heat that up for you?"

"Sure, thanks."

Scouring the drawers for a can opener, I finally found one in the drawer farthest away. It was a piece of crap, but I didn't expect much else from the looks of the place. I grunted as I twisted. Before I got halfway, the part that held the crank and the cutter together popped out and rolled under the fridge.

She laughed before I could react. "That kind of day, huh?"

I grinned at her in disbelief. "I guess R.E.M. got it right."

"You feel fine?"

"Wow, you know that song?"

"'Course. You know Manic Street Preachers?" she asked.

"Definitely not a fan of them," I answered with disgust. _Please don't be one either._

"Me either. You listen to a lot of oldie alternative?"

I nodded. "Normally you wouldn't see me without my headphones, but my phone is dead and I forgot my charger back at home. I have about a hundred gigs of mostly '90's through '20's." I found a fork and pried the lid up. "Early Matchbox Twenty, Jimmy Eat World, some Death Cab, stuff along those lines. You?"

"I was really into Bush for a while, then I found old indie stuff, like Augustana, The Exit, and Nada Surf." She found a pot and I poured the chili into it.

"Never heard of Nada Surf." I washed down the fork, a routine programmed by Mom.

"Most of their music is calmer, similar to Death Cab's 'Transatlanticism' album."

"Sounds like something I could get into." With a spatula I began to stir the chili. "So, you played _Our Descent_. Did you play online?" This was a _real_ conversation, happening with a _really_ gorgeous chick, at the end of the world, while stirring chili in a house of a person I'd never met. Go figure.

"I was a one-star general, until the release of _Death Squad_."

I smiled at her. "You're kidding, a general, that's crazy. I only made it to colonel. You must play a bazillion hours a day to have gotten so high."

"No, not really," she said innocently. "Eighty-five percent of my kills are headshots with a sniper rifle."

"Damn, eighty-five percent?" My jaw probably dropped then. "I played one game where I had ninety-one percent, but that was only one game. You play _Death Squad_ , too?" I didn't let her answer, but continued. "That's awesome. IQ—I mean Maggy," I corrected, uncomfortable using our nicknames around the newcomers, "is the only girl I've met who plays on a regular basis."

She laughed. "Now you've met two. It's hard to pry me away unless it's basketball season. I'm in the 'Tough as Hell' squad on DS. What about you, are you in any well-known faction?"

I was still smiling. "No. We're in a ten-person squad called Divinity. We would've been famous on Saturday if we'd taken down Doomgunner in reality mode, since we would've been the first, but we wiped."

"That's a shame," she said. "You get bonus gear for being the first squad to take down Brains. It was rumored that the first squad this time would all get a special acidthrower."

"Really? That's my specialty, using throwers, though I'm better with a flamethrower."

The chili started to bubble. "You can have some if you want," she offered. She climbed up on the counter and grabbed four bowls from a high shelf.

Maggy walked to the edge of the kitchen. "Blue, can I talk to you for a moment?"

"Sure," I told her. Turned back to Penelope. "No thanks on the chili, but I'll be right back, I wanna know your rank on _Death Squad_." She smiled as I walked away with the shotgun.

"Let's go outside," Maggy said, so we did.

The fresh, cool air hit my lungs like an injection of liquid helium, a stark contrast from the stuffy apartment. "You need something?" I asked, a little brusquer than I intended.

"Yeah, I have to tell you something, something important that's kind of hard to say."

Oh man, I knew what was coming and I didn't want to hear it. Maggy taking the step while Félix couldn't. Pulling a chocolate bar out of my pocket, I began unwrapping it, the shotgun cradled in my elbow. "Now? You wanna do this _now?_ " I laughed, edging on the hysterical side.

"Yes I want to do this now." She pocketed her hands. "Look, I know you know, but I want to clear the air, all right?" She didn't wait for me. "Something happened in the Apocalypse Room, something that was a long time coming, though . . ." A sigh. "Though, I don't think you've noticed."

I bit off a chunk of the chocolate. "Of course I've noticed. Hard not to, you're my two best friends. You guys have been acting funny for the last two months." I paced towards the car. "It's pretty weird. I mean—" I stopped myself, held it in, pushed it down my throat alongside the chocolate. How could I tell her?

We had a pact!

"I'm sorry," she said. "We didn't mean for it to happen, it just sort of did. And then in the Apocalypse Room it skipped ahead a few moves, you know, thinking we were going to die and all. This—this won't break our friendship, will it?"

I wanted to tell her to shove it, honestly. Okay, not really. I just didn't want to deal with it, not with everything else going on. The thought crossed my mind to ask how come not me, but the courage, the boldness just wasn't there, and in the end I knew why. "I—" My sweaty fingers let slip the chocolate bar. As it fell, I tried to grab it, and my foot swung forward, kicking the bar under the SUV.

"I'll turn on the lights." Maggy opened the driver's door and pressed the button for the vehicle's undercarriage lights. Four small white lights illuminated the underside of the SUV.

Resting the shotgun against the door, I crouched by the back tire, but didn't see it, so I lay flat on my stomach and spotted it near the wheel on the other side. I jumped up and ran around, lying flat again, sliding under the car. As I crawled backwards, chocolate bar in hand, I noticed something weird-looking, as if it weren't a part of the car and wasn't supposed to be there. I grabbed at it, tore it loose from its magnetic hold, and brought it up with me.

"What's that?" Maggy asked.

I fingered the sleek black object. It was small, about the length of my pinky, and a shade thinner. "I don't know, it was attached to the car, but it doesn't look like a car part. I'm no mechanic or anything, but doesn't it look strange?"

"Yeah, it does."

I met her eyes. "We should bring it in, maybe Jacob knows what it is, or maybe one of the newcomers knows something about cars."

"Good idea," she said. I started for the duplex's door, scooping up the shotgun with the chocolate bar in my mouth. "Blue, wait. Are we okay? I mean, you didn't say anything, and you haven't been acting like yourself at all today."

The chocolate tasted like dirt and cement, so I spat it out, ten percent eaten. "It's just weird, that's all. I'll get used to it, I suppose. Don't worry about me." Walking off into the duplex, I saw the empty bowls of chili on an end table. My stomach grumbled at the sight. Slash, ignore.

I handed the device to Jacob. "What do you think it is?"

Jacob inspected the tube, trying to pry the ends open. "It's not a car part, I can tell you that much. It's just a round cylinder of nothing, could even be hollow and empty."

Suddenly, one end flashed blue. "What was that?" one of the twins asked, curious.

Jacob scrutinized the end that had blinked. "Don't know."

"I can guess what it is," Mike said, nervous and twitchy. "It's a locator beacon."

I cleared my throat. "What?"

"They're tracking us, I'll bet." Mike snatched the object away from Jacob and waved it around. "Those monsters are tracking us!" His mood shifted drastically, now frantic.

"When would they have put it on the car?" Maggy asked. "We've only come across the one since we've had it, and Jacob killed it. You saw it all happen."

Jacob gasped, open-mouthed. "Yeah, I did kill it, but after I shot it, and it was lying there dying, it took one last swipe at my legs. It was a horrible shot, even bad for a dying animal, but now that I think about it, it clinked its hand against the bottom of the car."

"You think it stuck it to the car?" Félix asked.

"Who's to say, bro? All I know for sure is it's not a car part." Jacob regarded Mike with a look of uncertainty. "Mike, right?" Mike confirmed his name with a nod. "Mike might be onto something. We should ditch it."

Mike was pacing back and forth. "Ditch it," he shouted. "We should just get the hell out of here and leave it behind."

"Nah, it's too dark," Jacob stated.

"We've got to do something with it," Penelope said. "We can't keep it with us."

"What was that?" I said, breathing heavily.

The house went dead. Ears grew sharp.

"Are we going to die?" Jane asked, nestled against her older sister.

Penelope stroked her sister's back. "No, we're not going to die. We're going to find help, it'll be all right . . . it's going to be all right."

"Let's calm down, we're all just a little spooked," Maggy said.

"We have to leave, we have to leave now," Mike argued.

"We just have to get rid of that thing, we don't need to leave," Félix said calmly.

Mike went over to the back window. The blinds were drawn down and closed. He still held the cylinder in his hand. He rested the gun on the windowsill and peeked outside.

I glanced over at him and the cylinder as it flashed blue again.

Without warning, two giant paws broke through the glass, claws digging into Mike's skull. The paws wrenched his body out the window, into the quiet night.

The twins were screaming, and Penelope looked utterly paralyzed.

My throat closed as my head swam with black-and-red streaks before my eyes.

"Get away from the windows! Get away!" Maggy screamed. She bent down and grabbed a second pistol. Félix did the same.

I put the shotgun to my shoulder, since it had bruised my gut earlier. Jacob had never mentioned how to properly fire it, but I should've known from all the video games. For some reason I just didn't think of it when the alions were around. I didn't really think at all, almost as if my brain just shut down, running away, leaving me only with nerves that hated the thought of real confrontation.

I yanked Penelope away from the window. "What are you doing, get away from there!"

Her eyes were glazed over, too foggy to see me even though I stood right in front of her. Her sisters needed her comfort, her strength, but she was gone. Melted.

I knelt beside the sofa. "It's okay. It'll be okay. I'll protect you. Don't worry, I'll protect you." Some instinct inside took over when I saw how fragile they were, how much they needed a soft voice to care for them. "Get down on the floor behind me." They slid off the cushions in a hurry, huddling.

My throat battled with me, not wanting to let any oxygen in, but I popped an inhaler in my mouth and sprayed. God, I was like an addict the last few days, sucking down a mist of Draxair like crack. Narrowing my eyes on the broken window, a sour feeling crawled up from my stomach, a feeling of imminent attack.

Man up, Son!

I bolted upright and fired.

The alion pounced silently through the large window, forepaws outstretched, gliding through the air like a dart. The spatter of shots blew the alion's face right off. The body thudded against the back of the sofa, throwing my legs out from under me. I smacked my head against a cushion, and despite the pillowy nature of the couch, it scrunched up my nose. I flopped over onto my side, holding my face.

Félix crept near the arm of the sofa and peeked over. "It's just a pile of blood."

I got up and checked. All that remained of the alion was its huge body with an enormous hole in its head. Blood was gushing out of its thick neck, bright squirts of blue. "We gotta leave," I said, holding back the urge to puke.

"I'm with ya, bromigo." Félix nodded. He gathered up the duffels.

Maggy went to the front door, axe in one hand, pistol in the other. She threw the door open, scanned. "Nada. Let's go," she whispered.

Félix hustled Penelope over the threshold and into the car. Jacob followed next, while I came up the rear with the twins.

Jacob opened the hatchback and, as I lifted one of the twins into the car, out of the shadows an alion lunged at the second twin. I whipped around, grabbing the shotgun that rested against the car body. This would hurt. A lot. But I didn't have time to bring it up to my shoulder, and I pulled the trigger with the butt stuck in my stomach. Recoil. Another bruise was coming, that was certain. I groaned as the gun dug into me. It felt like it was going to come out the other side.

Jacob had jerked Amanda out of the way. At least I thought it was Amanda, but I'd never been very good with remembering names. The shotgun spray blasted through the alion's chest and legs. It fell in a mangled mess of blood, fur, bone, and organs.

Jacob set Amanda down next to her twin as Penelope scrambled into the trunk with her sisters, ducking low, squeezed together. They were bawling and with good reason.

Félix hopped into the passenger's seat. Jacob, rested up, slammed the back door as I slid into the car across from him, holding on to a ceiling handle so I didn't go flying out the gaping doorless hole. Slapping the mesh partition, I yelled, "Go! Go! Go!"

Maggy had the car fired up, and she slid it into reverse, peeling out of the driveway. The police motor accelerated on par with the Trackster, and she wheeled us down a wide neighborhood street.

"Everyone all right?" she asked, but didn't get much in the way of answers, mostly groans, and some nods out of her sight range.

I cleared my throat. "What the—"

_BAM_.

An alion, its muzzle glistening with red blood, smashed the frame behind where my door used to be. It was trying to run us off the road, like this was a high-speed chase in a movie. After its impact, it maintained a gallop alongside us, by the aperture that left me totally exposed.

"Faster!" I cried.

It bumped us again. The car wobbled.

_The well-armed take advantage_ , I repeated in my pounding head, my heart pumping furiously.

Jacob tapped me on the shoulder. "Here." He handed me an OMP2. "Better than the shotgun."

"Thanks," I shouted, aiming out the breach and just held down on the trigger until the gun clicked. The recoil went into my wrist, less than the bite of hammering a nail into a wall, impossibly smooth. I didn't know how many bullets filled that bastard, but it didn't last much longer.

Maggy drove on.

I exhaled the biggest, longest breath I ever had in my life.

We drove for hours without saying a word to each other. The only noise came from the newcomers in the back. They sobbed until the sun rose. In the morning sunlight, we zoomed along a lifeless road that connected to Tacoma.

Maggy, completely out of it, didn't notice the spike strip across the lanes until it was too late. She slammed on the brakes. _Pop_ —the front tires. _Pop_ —the back tires. Air rushed out, but they were cop tires, extra resistant. Maggy turned the wheel left, then right, then back again, out of control.

Even with my blood screaming in my ears, I could still hear her yell, "Hold on! We're going to crash!"

#

I LOST CONTROL of the SUV. We narrowly missed ramming a pickup, taking off a mirror instead, then spun to a stop.

No one moved, disoriented, and we just sat there, in the silence of the New World. My cheeks were so hot. Searing. And my heart, how could it go so fast? Was it fear feeding my body adrenaline? Nerves? Anticipation?

I rotated my neck towards Habi, and it popped several times, each one a moment of relief, followed by a dull pain.

He looked over at me, his face red and pulsing, his glasses slightly bent, like he hit the dash. "Are you okay?"

I nodded, stared at him, blinked, then opened my mouth to talk, but it was too dry as my words scraped against my throat. "You?"

He was scrunching his face in pain "Yeah, I'm fine. Hit my head, not too hard. I think I'm just a little shaken up, that's all."

"You guys all right?" Blue asked.

"What the hell happened?" Jacob said.

About to check the rearview mirror, I peered out the windshield. Three men stood by three motorcycles, statues in the shadow of the street. "We've got company."

Habi followed my eyes. "You thinking bad news?"

"The worst. Look at the bike tire treads."

"They're red," he whispered. "You don't think—"

"The Red Treads," I finished for him. "Yeah, I do." The Read Treads: the motorcycle club that set a police station on fire and held up a whole town in southern Oregon. I snatched up the pistol in the compartment under the main console, but kept it out of their sightline.

The three men walked into the daylight, boasting assault rifles over their shoulders.

"Bad, bad news," I said. They wore dirty, sweat-stained clothes and leather vests, and had a bearing that hinted at malevolence. I pressed the ON button. Nada. A dead car.

"Get out, princess," the middle one said. "You too, spic." His lanky body looked strung out and aged, with stooped shoulders and a hunched back. A huge, bushy beard hung under his chin, down to his chest; it was a frizzy clump of grayness.

"Stay down," Blue urged in a whisper without turning back.

"What do we do?" Habi asked. He grabbed his two guns, holding them so that they couldn't see them from the outside.

"Don't know. I think they flattened our tires."

"Why would they—"

"Didn't you hear what they called you? We gotta get out of here," I said, trembling.

They lowered their rifles, aimed at the car. "Get out now!" the middle one shouted. When no one moved, he yelled, "Jake!"

The dude to the left of the middle one was tall, thick-muscled, and empty-eyed, as if his mind was nothing but mush. My finger went to the lock controls, but Blue was missing a door, so what good would it do? Too late. The big man opened Habi's door, pointing the rifle in his face. "He said get out. So come on already, get out."

Habi was shaking wildly. The guns slipped from his grip. The guy yanked Habi out by his shirt collar and threw him to the ground. "What—what do you want?" Habi screamed, his voice a few octaves higher than usual.

"The girl," the middle one said.

"What do you mean, the girl?"

"He's not very bright, Chief. Freddy can have him," Jake said. "His kind of boy anyhow."

"Screw you, asswipe. Like a spic is something I want," Freddy said, the short, bald man to the right of the middle one. "Chief, I don't want no spic, ya hear?"

"I never said you had to have him," the middle one said—the one they called "Chief." He looked the most dangerous out of them all. "Get the other two out of the back."

Freddy took point in front of Habi, aiming at him with steady hands. Jake went to the doorless back seat and pulled Blue out with force. He protested by batting the man's hands away. "What are you doing?" he said sharply, fighting off the giant figure. "Stop. What are you doing? Stop it. Put me down." Jake dropped Blue next to Habi, smiling down at them. He went around the car and wrenched Jacob out of his seat and laid him next to Blue.

"Come on, princess," Chief said. "I ain't gonna wait all day for you."

I stared at them, terrified. My heart was near the point of exploding. My body wouldn't move.

"None of them seem all too bright, Chief," Jake commented.

"Looks to be that way," Chief said. "The girl's the only one we need, go grab her."

Jake swept towards me.

I still held the pistol, unbeknownst to them. I steadied my nerves to pull the trigger when the door opened. Waited. Waited. Around the truck, every step closer increasing the tension, and then my finger twinged, like sharp needles poking relentlessly. I aimed right for where his gut would be when he was close enough.

"What are you eyeing?" he barked as he neared.

I jolted, and the gun slipped out of my hand. The gun was my lifeline, my only hope. I bent to grab it, but he knew I had something, and he rushed to open the door.

"What do ya got there?" He clutched my arm and squeezed with his massive hand.

I wiggled, trying to get free. No use. "Stop! You're hurting me."

"I can't hurt a cute little princess like you." He squeezed even harder. "Oh, we're gonna have fun with you, little princess. I like myself a chink."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a hand creep out the trunk window, a gun pointed right at Jake's back. The gun blast rang in my ear. I stared at the man, gulping for air. Blood poured out of his throat. He staggered back and keeled over onto the sidewalk. The other two ducked in reaction. They couldn't see Penelope behind the tinted glass. In an instant she was firing out the opposite window. The bullet blew through a window across the street.

The two men whirled around, crouching. "Where's it coming from?" Chief yelled. Another window broke up the street.

I unbuckled my seatbelt, found the gun under the GO pedal, and slid out of the SUV. Gingerly stepping over the big man, his blood splashing my shoes, I wheeled around the front of the car and fired. Blood splattered around Freddy's left kneecap.

The man flew face first to the road, shouting curses.

Penelope shot off a few more rounds.

Chief twisted around and sighted me. I ducked behind the car, ran to the backend, and when I neared the corner, I saw Chief peering down at Blue.

"Mr. Hammolin?" Blue said, surprised. He coughed twice. Cleared his throat. "What the—"

Chief yanked Freddy out of the road and into the building across the street. I fired at their boots, but every bullet missed its mark. "Get up, get up," I yelled. "We have to move."

Penelope threw open the hatchback, rolled out, and waved her sisters on. "Through the store." She pointed to a jewelry shop to the left of the SUV. The three of them sprinted for safety.

Blue, Habi, and Jacob darted for the store. A spray of gunfire hit the SUV as they crossed over the threshold of the jewelry shop. I stooped down below the main window of the building. Bullets pierced the car and truck and a few flew overhead into the storefront windows. The glass shattered.

"Out the back," I yelled. They nodded.

"The bags," Habi said. "What about the bags?"

"Penelope has the guns."

"We need the food and water. Your axe is in there, too," he reminded me.

"Give me some cover fire," I grunted. He nodded. We said those words all the time over our headsets while gaming. Now they just seemed silly; it wasn't pretend anymore. We bolted out the door, crouched. I grabbed the bag of medical supplies out of the back seat while Habi shot off a few rounds, arms unfolded across the hood. I tossed the bag to Blue, who hunkered down by the doorframe. Creeping across the back seat, my heart racing, I snagged the shotgun and the OMP2's. With the car segregated into the three sections, retrieving all our gear proved slow, but the police vehicle held up under fire. The best shield anyone could've asked for. Last item: Liontamer. I yelled at Habi as I dashed for the jewelry store.

Blue smiled at me when I reached him. "Almost as if we really were trained."

"Yeah, almost," I panted. It was like I was being attacked from two fronts, my heart on the inside, as it hammered against the wall of my chest, and bullets on the outside, threatening to blast a hole through my skull. "We should keep going. Where are Jacob and the sisters?"

"They already headed out the back," Blue replied.

Habi was running so fast, he almost toppled over us as he stopped at my feet. "Go!" The word wasn't a suggestion. He grabbed a few bags and headed for the back. Blue and I followed, loaded with our own duffels and backpacks. I had strapped Liontamer across my back, but it hurt with the weight of the pack compressing the haft into my spine.

Blue whirled. "The bow."

"Leave it," Habi said. "We don't have time, and they have assault rifles, bromigo. A bow doesn't matter."

Convinced, Blue whipped back towards us and hustled out the backdoor. We emerged into a deserted alley, devoid of even recycling dumpsters. "Where do we go?" Blue asked.

I inhaled a deep breath. "South. We keep going south."

Blue squatted next to the twins. "We're okay. It's okay. We won't let them hurt you."

They stared at him, calm, like it was all too much to process and had sent them into an apathetic stupor.

"Let's go." I pointed southwards.

"I don't think I can walk very far," Jacob said. "It hurts everywhere."

"You won't have to, just far enough until we can find our next ride. You can make it," I told him. My lungs were expanding too fast, sucking in hot air, choking on white mucus. Activity-induced asthma my doctor called it. The rare occasion that I needed an inhaler was when I was sick, or at a time like this, when my lungs kicked into overdrive. I ignored the burning call and marched on.

"I could use a drink. Where's that vodka?"

The three of us laughed.

"Dude, you drank all that vodka," Blue said. "It's gone. I told you to make it last."

"Christ, I don't remember drinking any more of it." Jacob released a few more curses at the alley walls, his arm wrapped around Habi for support. "I think something's wrong with me, I keep feeling lightheaded. What could that mean?"

"You're probably just dehydrated." I fell in behind them all and watched our backs. "You need to drink more water."

"You sound like my mom," he laughed, but then immediately grew quiet. No one remarked on that.

"That was some nice shooting," I overheard Blue say to Penelope, clearing his throat. "You—you saved us all."

She was trembling all over, covered in tears. "I had to," she stuttered. "Not for you guys, but for them." She hugged her sisters closer.

Blue gave a faint, awkward smile, but said nothing else.

We came to the end of the alley, to a once-busy street, seven lanes across. "Search the SUV's for fobs. They'll be best," I said, climbing into the driver's seat of a Lincoln. "No starter."

"Nothing in the Honda," Habi reported.

"Yeah, no starter in the Ford," Blue said.

"Here! Found a fob in the Nissan," Penelope shouted. She powered it up. "We're good to go." She slid out of the seat. "You can drive. It's Maggy, right?"

I nodded. "Uh-huh."

"Yeah, I remember you told me yesterday, I just . . ."

"No problem." I didn't have any words of comfort. She'd just killed a man to save us and "thank you" seemed too small, but I said it anyway. I unfastened Liontamer and threw it in the trunk, then jumped into the rig, ready to peel away. Once the car was loaded, I did just that, turning back onto the main street, heading south. The two men didn't show up in the mirrors when I checked, but that didn't mean they were gone.

"I thought I knew one of them," Blue said so quietly I almost didn't pick up his words.

He was sitting behind me, and I looked at him in the rearview mirror. "What? How?"

"You remember me always telling you about my crazy neighbor, the Troll? Well, the one they called 'Chief,' he looked a lot like him."

I scrunched up my face in disgust. "Was it?"

Blue cleared his throat. "No, the odds of that would be insane. Could be a relative, though, or more likely just some guy that looked similar." He fiddled with an inhaler, tempted to use it. "Those men, they were a part of the Red Treads, weren't they?"

"Yup," Habi said. "We got pretty lucky back there."

Blue continued to play with the inhaler, nervous. He began popping off its cover and replacing it. And then he said what we were all thinking, "They're going to come after us, aren't they?"

No one replied for a full minute. "They'll try," I said. "They'll try."

#

EVERYONE BUT HABI was asleep when I pulled into a driveway of a four-story home at sunset. The neighborhood was a bit better than the last, not so visibly affected by the high unemployment rate. The homes were still cheap, tall, and skinny, but they certainly had more charm, with little fenced-in yards and bright paint. We had weaved through Tacoma, full of great towers and plagued by an unimaginable aroma, and made it to Olympia by late afternoon. Habi and I had inspected the entire SUV at lunch, finding no trace of a locator beacon. Hopefully the alions didn't have more than one design. Unfortunately the space cats weren't our only problem.

"You did good today," Habi said before we got out. "You must've zigzagged a few hundred klicks, so there's no way they can find us."

I couldn't help but laugh. "It's the end of the world, Habi, there's a chance for anything to happen." My eyes were barely open, burning on fumes, up for well over thirty-six hours. Long story short: I was ready to crash. If I never woke up, well, that'd be that.

He grabbed his gun. "If they do, we'll be ready for them. We can handle two melted bastards."

"Potty mouth," I said while pinching him. "Maybe we should start you a jar."

He batted away my nipping fingers. "I was a little sad you banned yours. I thought it was pretty fun."

"I couldn't do it anymore, not with my mom gone."

He rubbed my forearm. "I know . . . You haven't been too bad in the profanity department, given our circumstances. I'd say even mild, with a few lapses."

We smiled at each other. "Let's check out the inside," I said. The house was vacant and without a scrap of food. The streets were quiet. Eerie. I grew restless from the lack of noise. So many lights were still on in the neighborhood that we didn't bother trying to hide in one room with one soft light for all of us. We did stay away from the windows. That memory was too fresh and real, too sickening to even consider looking outside. Once we were in, we were in.

Penelope heated up a few cans of beef with vegetables. It was nice to have something hot in the stomach. We walked on our knees, out of sight from anything searching the interior from the outside, though our shadows were a problem, and everyone tried to stay still after we ate.

Jacob slept in a recliner, out minutes after he'd finished his meal. Blue and Penelope whispered in a corner, possibly discussing video games, but I wasn't sure. The twins were asleep on a nice leather couch a few meters away from their big sister. Penelope giggled quite a bit; it was slightly irritating because we were trying to make as little noise as possible. Yet it was also good because she had virtually shut down for a few hours after the incident. After taking that sicko's life. Now she was smiling. Not happy, but smiling.

"You all right, bramiga?" Habi asked. His glasses were funny to look at, all bent to hell.

I was tinkering with a Pacifier at the kitchen table, examining how it functioned, seeing if I could modify it to use against the alions. "I've been better, that's certain." Like when we kissed yesterday for the first time on the lips and all my nerves lit up, like they'd never worked for the last sixteen years until that moment.

"You should be happy that she's here and talking to Darrel," he said. He scooted up on a nice dining chair with a tall back.

"Oh I am. She's just new, that's all. I don't know her. I think that's why I'm a little uncomfortable."

He leaned forward, gazing at me. "Well, she sounds pretty cool. She plays _Death Squad_ after all. I think it'll be good for him, and it'll help us . . . he won't feel like the third wheel." He rubbed my leg, gentle and with care. Those nerves came to life again at his touch and I melted with desire. "Speaking of which, I should go talk to him about that. I know you sorta did last night, but I should too, you know, so we can get back to normal."

I stared at him. "Normal?"

"Okay, not normal, but you get it."

"I get it."

He got up and snuck over to their corner, uttered some words, then he and Blue left the room. Penelope glanced over at me for a second before she turned her attention to her sisters. Grabbing two waters and the Pacifier, I crawled over to her, and sat against the wall. Offered her a bottle.

Neither of us spoke for a long beat. "You did the right thing today," I said in a hushed voice.

Not looking at me. "I know." A heavy, pain-laden sigh. "And I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I'd do it a thousand times over to save my sisters. I just can't believe this is the world now."

"It's hard to imagine. It was easy to watch on TV, but I never actually believed something like this would happen. And you know, in the stories there are always bad people doing bad things, but I always thought it was for tension, for drama, not because it actually _was._ You know what I mean?"

"You always believed the best in people?" Her voice told me that she did.

"Not necessarily the best," I admitted. "But not the worst. There were lots of jerkwads and whizdicks at school, but I never believed any of them would be murderers if society broke down. I'm not sure what I believe now."

"Do you believe in God?"

That question. No one had asked me that in a long time. That question always made me think of Pops. My old man. "My father believed in God," I told her, my words soft, breathless. "Just after I was born he was diagnosed with cancer. They removed one of his testicles and he beat it, and I never even really knew about it until I was like eight. Then in sixth grade, doctors found another tumor in his colon. He used to play board games with me a lot, and one night, a couple days after he found out, he said to me in that deep voice he had, 'It's not God's fault, my little sunflower. Don't blame Him.'

"And I looked him straight in the eye and asked why not, and he said, 'Because He's got a plan for us all, and even though we don't always like it or even understand it, you just have to have faith that He knows what's best for us. Life is a test, Maggy, and He's testing me right now to see if I'm worthy.' He died three weeks later."

Penelope looked over at me then, eyes wide. "Oh—"

"I don't know if God exists," I continued over her, before she gave me her sympathies like everyone else did when they learned Pops was dead. Besides, I should've been giving out sympathies at that point, not her, with what happened to Mike less than twenty-four hours ago. "I don't get the 'Life is a test because we have free will,' and I sure as hell don't see how they"—I pointed at the ceiling and the ship over Seattle—"factor into any divine plan. Taking all the people and all the animals. How does that make sense?" I snickered. "I used to hear, 'God loves us all,' but I don't see any love in that . . . Why'd you ask anyway?"

"I dunno," she sighed again. "I guess because I thought I believed . . ."

"But now. . . ?"

"But now . . . I dunno . . ."

I gathered that she wanted to tell me something but wasn't going to. "Yeah, I get it."

"That man I killed," she said slowly, tears beginning to stream. "You probably think he was the first, but he wasn't."

It took a moment to process that. She had killed before. _When?_ I wondered. _How?_ _Why?_

"When we first met on I-5, I told you people are different, that they're melted, but I didn't tell you how I knew that. It wasn't just some random saying because it's the end of the world. I said it because I knew it firsthand. You remember that I told you we were with a couple at a minimart?" I nodded, holding my breath. The room grew twenty degrees warmer. "Well, it wasn't just them who we were with. There was another man. He seemed so normal at first, just this dude trying to survive like the rest of us. He talked about his family, how he lost them, and he empathized with the rest of us as we sat around, pretty much waiting to die.

"Well, I must've fallen asleep at some point, because I woke up just as daylight was coming on, and I heard this noise coming from the back of the store. So I took my knife and went to investigate. There was this office down a hallway, and I could hear muffled screams on the other side of the door. At first I thought I was just imagining it, but it kept happening, and then it clicked and I knew what it was. I knew what was going on.

"I panicked at first. Debating, hesitating, but then I opened the door, and you know what I saw?" We made eye contact and I could see the torment in her soul. "Blood—that's what I saw. So much blood I thought a few cans of paint had spilled, but then I spotted the body of the husband, and beside him, the other man raping the woman." Tears and tears and tears fell to the ground. And I didn't know why exactly but her tears brought on tears of my own, listening to such horror in vivid detail, and the emotions surfaced with such force I just let them go. "He had his back to me and hadn't noticed the door open. The woman was screaming and screaming, but he had his hand over her mouth. And I knew—I knew that if I made any noise, he'd be on me in a second.

"But I also knew what I had to do, for the woman, for my sisters, for myself. So I crept towards the man, not daring to breathe, and then when I was finally standing over him, I raised the knife and for some reason it wasn't shaking at all, like my body sensed that if I let it shake I'd be dead. I looked down at the back of his skull, and it was so quick, the blade went in so fast, so easily, that at first I wasn't sure I'd actually done it." She sniggered, equal parts hysteria and relief. "But then his body stopped moving, and blood was draining into his hair, the knife stuck in his head . . ."

In that moment I did something that surprised even me, and pulled Penelope, a complete and total stranger, down to my shoulder and let her weep as I rubbed her back. Exchanging zero words, I comforted her with my body language.

"I'm sorry," she said a few minutes later, blowing her nose with a roll of toilet paper.

"There's nothing to apologize for."

"Not for what I did, for laying it all on you like that and getting your shirt all wet."

"Don't worry about it." Would that be enough? Did she want me to say something more? I wasn't sure I possessed the right words for this situation.

"It's just ever since then, I keep asking myself, how could a God put anyone in a situation like that? What kind of asshole would make someone choose between taking another person's life or letting someone get raped? It doesn't add up to me, and when I asked you, I thought you might give me some perspective. And I don't know, with everything else that's happened, I just felt like I had to tell someone. So I'm sorry that it was you."

"No, I'm glad it was."

She smiled halfheartedly. Her face looked dreadful from all the crying and lack of sleep. "You're just saying that because you don't want it to get awkward."

"Get out of here, awkward? Please?" We both laughed. The funny thing was that I didn't feel the slightest bit awkward, like we'd somehow just bonded in those precious few minutes, and had become lifelong friends by sharing the worst experiences. "Can I ask you something though?"

"Yeah?"

"What happened to the woman?"

"You really want to know?"

I said I did before I actually processed what she'd asked. _Uh-oh, this has to be bad. Really bad._

Eyes downcast. "She hung herself in the bathroom. That's when I got them all out of there, and we headed for the freeway. I didn't tell any of them, not even Mike, so please, don't tell anyone."

"I won't," I promised.

After a brief silence, she nodded at the Pacifier. "What're you working on?"

"It's called a Pacifier—"

"Oh, I've seen those on an episode of 'Weapons of Tomorrow.' They're pretty sweet, how they can scan someone and measure the dosage of tranquilizer to the person's body weight in nanoseconds."

"Yeah, the only problem is the scanner doesn't work on alions, so it's not scaling up the dosage like it should, which makes them futile. I shot five tranks into one and they did nothing to it. I'm trying to rig it so that every dart is at max. I already amped up the electroshock bullets to discharge a much higher current than what they were set at, which will fry each battery, but they were useless otherwise."

"How many bullets does it have?"

Pulling out the cartridge, I handed her an electroshock slug. "Each Pacifier has five bullets and ten darts."

She inspected the four hidden barbs that latch into skin upon contact. "Will it kill them?"

I shrugged. "It should, but we'd have to test one to find out."

"I don't get it, you have all those guns, so why are you working on these?"

"Because the ammo will run out eventually," I said. "And we need everything we can get our hands on if we're going to survive, including tranks and shock bullets. Plus my hands like to be busy, so it's helping me cope, such as it is."

Another minute passed without either of us speaking. "Can I help you modify the rest of the bullets?"

Before I could reply, Habi and Blue returned, obviously in better moods, like they'd gone on an episode of "Hug it out, Bitch" and settled all their problems. "You guys ready to turn in?" Habi asked.

"Sleep sounds like the right idea," Blue said. "Especially for you, Maggy, you've slept the least of us all. I'll take first watch." His eyes watered after he yawned. It went around the room, the contagious yawn.

"No, it's all right, you go ahead," I said. "Penelope and I have some work to do first. I'll wake you in a bit."

Blue frowned at me. "You sure?"

"Positive."

"Don't stay up working on that project too long," Habi said. "You've got to sleep at some point or—"

I waved him off. "I know the effects of sleep deprivation. We'll be fine, don't worry." Blue and Habi, without another word, lay on the floor and closed their eyes. I showed Penelope how I adjusted the bullets, and then returned to tweaking the tranquilizer dart. When I used it next, I planned on pumping someone or something with a lethal dose. And that moment was right around the corner.

#

THE BLARE OF gasoline engines woke us. Penelope, on watch, was slumped over the couch cushions, wiping sleep from her eyes. The chorus of engines grew louder as we all snuck to the window and peeked through the blinds. Men, all dressed in biker gear, sat atop motorcycles with red tire treads, revving their bikes.

"Are you fraking kidding me?" I muttered. "How did they find us?" And then I noticed the trail of brake fluid, invisible in the dark, providing a map to our location.

"How many do you count?" Habi said, scanning the street.

"Fifty at least," Blue answered.

"Maybe we can escape out the back," Penelope suggested. Her sisters squeezed beside her to get a look.

Habi and I ran to the bedroom on the opposite side of the house and checked for exit points. "We're surrounded," I yelled, returning to our room.

The roar died outside. "Mornin', Sunshine!" a man yelled from the driveway. "Thought you could use a little alarm clock on a glorious day like this." The sun, breaking through the clouds, shined brightly on the neighborhood and the biker gang below us. When I surveyed the street again, I found Chief standing atop our SUV, a cigarette in his mouth and an assault rifle on his shoulder. "You have about sixty seconds before we come in and take what we came for: the girls. If you force us to do that, the boys die, otherwise they can live out what little time they have left. We won't touch 'em, you have my word."

"Options?" Habi clicked a button on his wristwatch.

Jacob shook his head. "I don't think sixty seconds was literal."

"There are fewer of them if we go out the back," I said, bulldozing past Jacob's remark. "But we don't have a rig, and those bikes can maneuver around the block in an instant. It'll be a firefight no matter what."

"The path of least resistance," Penelope whispered. "Girls, get your stuff." The rest of us followed her command and collected our gear.

"We could knock out the players from the roof," Blue proposed. "Then climb down and hop the fence. We've all done that a thousand times in the VR room."

"Players?" Habi raised an eyebrow at him.

"You told me to think of this like it's a game, so I am, all right?" Blue held up the shotgun. "The VR minus the V."

"It's a better plan than running at them from downstairs," I said. "We can use the darts, they're quiet enough that the bikers won't hear them over the racket they're making."

Habi led the way to the other bedroom as I distributed the Pacifiers. "Won't these kill them?" he asked.

I switched from electroshock to tranquilizer. "It's us or them, right? That's what this is coming down to."

Penelope, her arms stretched before her with the Pacifier aimed out the open window, pulled the trigger. Even in the small room the shot was inaudible. The dart sunk into the neck of a man ten meters away; he managed to swat at the mark before he collapsed to the ground. "There's no time for a moral debate. This is about survival. We kill them all if we have to." She trained the Pacifier on the next man a few meters to the left and dropped him. "Let's go."

One by one we crawled through the window onto the roof. Crouched, I walked to the edge, lined up a target, and fired. The five of us spread out and took down men left and right, all without making any noise.

The front door crashed to the floor downstairs. "That was only fifty-four seconds," Habi griped.

"Shocker, the dude's a liar," I whispered, before flattening out on my belly. I leaned over the lip to shoot a guy on the backyard deck. Penelope was doing the same thing on the south side. The sounds of men ransacking the house carried to our position on the blue-gray shingles. Feet were stomping up the stairs. "Jump into the bushes. Now!" I tossed several duffels onto the grass before dangling my body above the ground. When I saw a face appear at the bedroom window I let go of the gutter. Landing in a hedge that framed the deck, I rolled onto the damp grass, and exploded to my feet.

A different man, much skinnier in the cheeks and neck, approached the eaves; he held a walkie and a pistol. Before he could bring the walkie to his lips, Jacob shot him square in the forehead with a tranquilizer dart. The man's eyes crossed, and then his feet gave out. He met the yard with a thud, followed by a sharp crack.

Penelope was already boosting Amanda over the fence. Blue interlocked his hands and helped Jane over with a lift. Habi and I did the same for Blue and Jacob as Penny scaled the wood. Scrambling over the fence, I could hear shouting and squealing tires. Penelope, leading the way, unlatched the gate and waved us through to the next street over.

We never had a chance, surrounded in an instant, motorcycles circling us, penning us in like a sheepdog would its flock. I stuffed the Pacifier between my pants and unclipped Liontamer from my back. If this was going to be the end, then I wanted to go out with my axe in my hands, swinging hard and fast. None of the Red Treads attacked, and neither did any of us, caught in a stalemate—once the bullets started flying it'd be over.

The stalemate ended when a yellow-brown blur swiped a man off his wheels. The alion pushed off a car like a ninja off a wall, rebounding into another biker, ripping off an arm in the process. Gunfire and screams added to the cacophony. The trap broken, I led the others to the sidewalk, out of the fray and bloodshed. We dashed south along the concrete. "We have to find a ride!" I bellowed.

"Over here!" Blue shouted, pointing at a white SUV. As he opened the driver's door, an alion leapt over the hood and cleared the vehicle, pouncing on a biker behind me. "No fob," Blue reported, and we moved on.

"HERE! HERE!" Habi called, waving us over to a silver pickup parked in a driveway. He jumped in and powered up the motor. In the chaos, I never heard the motorcycle behind me until it zipped by, and I watched as a hand yanked Jane off her feet. Chief, recognizable by his leather jacket with a tusked human skull on the back, swung Jane in front of him and leveled a gun to her head.

Penelope and I both fired shots but missed. The motorcycle accelerated and reached the end of the street in seconds, turning right. Five more bikers followed their leader. "Get in! Hurry!" Habi strained to get out. Jacob was already in the front seat; Amanda and Blue waited for us in the pickup bed. We hopped in and Habi sped after the Red Treads.

Behind us: a scene of gore. Alions were sweeping through the men and carving them to pieces with their claws and teeth. It was a slaughter. The ferocity and malice of the attack made me choke as I swallowed. I spat over the side of the bed and turned back. An alion raced after the truck, its eyes focused on mine, and I could feel its hunger—its irrepressible desire to spill my blood.

Blue stood in the middle of the bed, shotgun to his shoulder, and aimed at the chasing cat. The alion dodged the first buckshot spray, and the second, but on the third it miscalculated Blue's lead, a costly mistake. It rammed into a car, immobile, blue blood gushing out of it like a fountain.

My brain caught up when the alion disappeared in the distance, and I clapped Blue on the back as I returned my attention to the road ahead. The bikers reappeared after we rounded the corner, but our shots missed yet again. "Get closer!" Penelope roared.

"I'm trying," Habi said. He slammed his foot on the GO pedal, but the truck couldn't maneuver in the street like the bikes, and the creepy red tires continued to pull away.

And then they were out of sight for good.

I looked over at Penelope, and the concoction of emotions brewing inside her gripped her fiercely, shocking her into an open-mouthed stare. "She's gone," she murmured. "She's really gone . . ."

"Wait!" I pulled out my phone. "We can track her."

"Track her? How?" Penelope asked, blocking out my view of the screen. Amanda budged in as well, but the app hadn't powered up yet.

"Well, this might sound a little odd, but I implanted locator chips in all of you last night."

Penelope's face darkened to a deep red. "You did _what?"_

"Now before you blow a fuse, let me show you." I loaded the app, zeroing in on our location. Seven dots pulsed on the screen, one of them separated from the others. Without GPS, the map overlay didn't work, and the background remained a solid black. "This is Jane, see?"

The sisters fought for position, but Penelope easily won, taking the screen for herself. She knelt in front of the back window and knocked wildly. Jacob unlatched the glass and slid it open. "Turn west! Turn west!" she ordered vehemently. "Maggy can track her. She's not gone." The last part was obviously more for herself than any of us, an assertion that a chance existed, and hope kindled rage in her eyes.

Habi spun the wheel and headed west.

"We'll get her back," Penelope told Amanda.

"You don't know that," Amanda retorted, anger and frustration throttling the words. "You don't know shit."

"You have to trust me," Penelope said. "There's some shit I do know, all right? We're going to get Jane back, you understand?"

"Whatever," was all Amanda said.

With Penelope giving Habi directions, we maintained our hot pursuit, but never seemed to gain any distance on the Red Treads. Too many cars blocked the road to speed up, which made the going slower than any of us could bear, and with each passing minute the atmosphere around the truck grew all the more tense.

The towers of Olympia disappeared as we entered another residential area. "How close are we?" I asked an hour later.

"A few blocks away, I think," Penelope answered. "It looks like they've stopped in there." She pointed left at a wall of trees.

Habi circled the forest and eventually turned down a dead end street. Black chain-link blocked our passage at the street's terminus. Penelope sprang out of the truck, Amanda right behind her. "I'm going to kill them all," the older sister said, fuming.

"Wait a second," Habi said. "I think I know where we are."

After setting the duffel filled with weapons on the asphalt, I vaulted over the bed's lip. "How?"

"You remember that armed group who occupied that wildlife refuge a few months back?"

"Yeah, it was all over the news." Then the spark zapped my cerebrum. "You think this is that refuge?"

"Yup."

"But the Red Treads weren't a part of the group that occupied it," Blue said, easing himself to the ground.

Habi got out and reloaded his pistol. "Those guns came from someone, and a motorcycle club was rumored to be involved, funding the operation. It was never proven, you're right, but the Red Treads are thought to be the largest arms dealer in the US, and the evidence is pretty compelling from where I stand."

I grasped the chain-link, the breeze rocking the metal. The overcast promised a storm later. The chilly air made my hackles rise. So I told myself anyway. _You're not afraid, Maggy. You can do this. For them._ "So what's the plan?" I asked, hiding any resemblance of fear.

"This obviously isn't the main entrance," Penelope said. "So we'll have some element of surprise, especially since they have no idea we were tracking them. All we have to do is catch them off-guard, use the darts if we can, find my sister and break her free."

"All right, so pretend this is a Tom Clancy game." Blue shook out his nerves. "I can do that."

"Does no one want to talk about what just happened back there?" Jacob raised his voice from the cab, still nursing his injuries. "How the aliens showed up out of thin air and slaughtered—"

"We don't have time to talk about that now," Penelope snapped. "We have to rescue my sister." She bent down next to Amanda. "Sorry, sis, you have to stay and keep Jacob company. We can't leave him out here alone."

"I don't care about him," Amanda blurted. "I'm going with you. I want to help."

"You can't. I'll get Jane back, I promise. But you have to promise me that you won't go in there. Those men, they'll kill you, you understand? You can't go in there."

"We won't let anything happen to Jane," Blue added.

"She's my fucking sister too, Penny," Amanda growled.

Penelope grabbed her sister's shoulder. "Whoa, what's with the rotten mouth?"

"It's no worse than yours," the twin spat. "You're not Mom, Penny. You can't tell me what to do."

Penelope hung her head, her eyes misting. "I—I need you to stay in here. I know I'm not Mom, and I know you're not a little kid anymore, but I need you out here where it's safe. Please, can you do that for me?"

Amanda narrowed her eyes as she bit her lip, twirled on a heel, and stamped off to the open tailgate. Blue walked over to Jacob's window and said something to him in a hushed voice. Jacob rubbed his forehead in indecision, but relinquished the OMP2's. "Our insurance policy," Blue said when I gave him a perplexed look.

I nodded. Besides the Pacifiers, we all carried insurance policies. With two black-and-crimson pistols, I felt like Lara Croft from _Tomb Raider: Dawn of the Forsaken_ —minus the flattering apparel—and I hoped to live up to her badass attitude. Habi, at my side, held two handguns, and Penelope was packing Blue's ooze-green shotgun.

She smiled at us. "I know how to use it. I've hunted pheasants before with my grandfather. Granted, this shotgun is older than mine, but I'll be all right."

Blue handed Jacob a sidearm. "Take care of her, all right?"

"I will, don't worry," he said. "Good luck."

Blue nodded at him. We all approached the fence. "Give me a boost?" Habi and I helped Blue over, and the three of us clambered after him, jogging to the tree line. There were no trails into the refuge from here, so we fought through the brush until we hit a pond. Circumventing the water, we left the thick undergrowth behind and entered an area crowded with pines. Ten minutes later we reached the edge of a clearing, where eight or nine wooden buildings were clumped together at the center, each one tilting in some manner. The six Red Tread motorcycles were propped up by kickstands near the western perimeter. In full recon mode, we crouched behind shrubs, studying the layout.

"I thought they dismantled the shelters?" Penelope asked, keeping her voice low.

"That's what they reported on the news," Habi said. "No one's been allowed in since the state police and FBI raided the place last month, so I guess they hadn't gotten around to it yet."

"Look, there's a guard by the second building in," Blue reported. A second, younger man joined the first. Both stood out of range of the darts.

"It's the end of the world, man," the second biker shouted, "and this is what we're doing? I didn't mind following Chief before the shit hit the fan, back when he could bring the girls he wanted and leave us out of it, but now? There are so many better things to do with the time we've got left. Come on, you saw those things, man. Let's get out of here before those beasts find us. Let's blow something up like we always talked about, something _big_ , like the capitol building."

"You just wanna bolt?" The first biker matched his companion's volume. "You wanna leave the Chief hangin'? That's not us, that's not who we are!" He shoved the second man in the chest.

I turned away from the scene. No one wanted to think about what Chief was doing with Jane. Nothing, with any luck. But were we lucky? "Let's stop wasting time," I said. "We can take them out while they argue. I saw two more enter that shack"—I directed a finger to the south—"so that leaves only two. Where's Jane showing up on the app?"

Penelope smiled at me, grateful. After last night the two of us got each other. We'd have each other's backs no matter what. She consulted the phone and pointed at the shelter on the far side of the clearing. "It's hard to tell, but I think she's in that one."

"Okay, we've got this," I pepped them up the same way I did when we battled a boss. "We've done stuff exactly like this, the only difference is if you get shot, you die. But none of us are going to die today. Penelope and I will take lead. Darrel, you watch left. Félix, the right. Guns up." I double-checked the Pacifier to ensure it read TQ and not ES. The electroshock bullets would work, but they made a lot more noise than the tranquilizer darts, and stealth meant life or death. "Let's roll."

They all nodded, scat-stains scared.

Squatting, Penelope and I sidled up to the closest building. To our advantage, none of them had any windows, and as long as we remained silent, the Red Treads would have no idea we were there until it was too late. We crept up to the edge, the two bikers arguing around the corner. I made eye contact with Penelope, pointed at her, then the ground. I pointed at me, then the sky. _You go low, I go high._ Hopefully she understood; she signaled that she did with a nod. In position, we whipped around the corner.

Two darts sunk into the older biker's neck.

_Frak!_ We'd hit the same guy.

The younger man watched his companion drop. A word was about to part his lips when a dart plunged into his temple. He fell next to his partner in crime. Penelope's reaction was as quick as a cat's, rehearsed, like it was something she'd practiced a hundred times before, trained beyond video games. I made a mental note to ask her about it later. I nodded a _thank you_ to her.

"Hey, Joe, the bomb's finished," someone called out, ambling around the opposite corner. "Oh, shit," the man rasped as he spotted us. This time I reacted first. The dart pierced his exposed chest, the leather jacket zipped only halfway, though the result would've been the same had it covered his flesh.

Habi held up three fingers and flashed three again. _Three down, three to go._

I led the way to the shack housing the two I spied entering it. The door was simple, cheap, and to my surprise, bore no alion marks. Conversation slipped through the thin walls. Another argument? The muffled speech made it hard to tell, but it provided a distraction nonetheless. I placed my free hand on the doorknob, and Penelope counted down from three. We barged into the room on zero.

Two darts, two dead bikers. I raised five fingers. Habi answered with one. One tango to go. I stumbled outside and leaned against the wall, trembling uncontrollably. My stomach rebelled from the repulsive stench of the tiny hovel. It was difficult to hold the acids in. The bomb in the center of the room added to the nausea. _What's happening to me? Why am I shaking like this?_

"Let's go," Penelope said.

"Wait, look at her, she needs a second," Habi whispered, rubbing my back. My hero. My lovable, squeezable, tenderhearted hero who I wanted to kiss a thousand times over. He always had my back.

I sucked in a deep breath. _You're stronger than this, Maggy. That girl needs you, so shake it off._ _Now_. "I'm okay," I said as I blew out the air. Rubbed his hand on my shoulder. "Honest."

Penelope took the lead, and in rash impatience, scurried towards the shelter where the tracker told us she was being held hostage. If others roamed the clearing, they'd take us down in a heartbeat. We reached the largest shack unimpeded. Whimpers pierced the walls. It sounded like Jane was crying with a taped mouth.

Blue opened the door, and Penelope dashed in, the rest of us on her heels. We halted, staring at Jane tied to a chair on the opposite side of the room. The twin's face, redder than a cherry, was dripping with tears. She screamed into the tape sealing her mouth shut.

Movement in my peripherals. "Move, and little princess here dies _right_ now," Chief threatened. His gravelly voice hurt my ears. "Drop your guns, all of you." I turned and saw the biker holding an assault rifle to Penelope's skull. He'd been hiding behind the door, though how he knew we were coming remained a mystery.

With our backs to him, there wasn't much else we could do but stall for time, for a chance when he'd slip up, lower his guard just enough. Blue put his weapons down first, then Habi, then I decided I would be too slow to get the best of him. Penelope kept her Pacifier raised, resolute and defiant, aimed at the wall. Something about the way she'd maneuvered before said she could pull it off. All she had to do was whip around and sink one into his flesh.

"Come on, princess. You know you can't shoot me before I shoot you. Put it down. NOW!"

Penelope flinched at his shout. She released the gun, tears streaming in a torrent. Our hands automatically went behind our heads, like on cop shows. It was instinct to place them like that, too much TV.

Chief took the shotgun strapped to her back and set it against the wall. He kicked the Pacifier out of reach. "I don't know what you expected to accomplish, bargin' in here like you did. Now we've got a few options how this can go. One, I can do you quick and easy, right here, right now. Two, we can have a little fun first. Any votes?"

_All right, be calm, be careful. Stall him. I can do that._ "Why?" I stammered. "Why are you going to kill us?"

He laughed a sadistic, rough laugh, consistent with his harsh voice. "Little princess, it's the end of the fuckin' world. I know where I'm headin' after, so this is all I've got left, one last pleasure before I'm bathin' in fire."

"But why _us?"_ I asked.

"My lucky day, your _un_ lucky day."

I swiveled to meet his cold eyes. "It can't just be about luck."

"I see you're votin' for the former," he said. "A shame, but I will oblige. NOW ON YOUR KNEES!"

Blue knelt first, then Habi, then both Penelope and me, but as she lowered to the ground, she spun in a blur and threw out her right leg to trip the man. With an athletic build, quick reflexes, and sheer will, it seemed like she could do it—she could save us in that instant of distraction. Chief hopped back a step, dodging the attack, and brought down the butt of his rifle on her temple.

The blow knocked her out.

"Oh, sweet, sweet princess. That was the wrong move." He kicked her in the stomach several times before our pleas stopped him. "Why would she do somethin' so stupid?" He crouched beside her, unsheathing a knife at his belt. "You can't be saved, surely y'all can see that?" He smiled at us, the blade resting flat against Penelope's neck. "Ready to see some blood?" He lifted the knife high, his eyes crazed and bloodshot; he gripped the weapon, knuckles white, preparing to impale.

PAHWKkk.

I turned and spotted Amanda in the doorway, holding up two shaky arms, a pistol cupped in her hands. Chief fell to the soil, a hole through his cranium.

"Amanda!" Jane cried into the tape.

I dashed to the man's body, stealing his rifle and knife from his limp grip. "Check Penelope."

Blue rushed to her side, his fingers pressed against her neck. "She's just unconscious," he reported. "Is he?"

"I don't want to touch him," I said.

"If we leave him and he survives, he'll hunt us," Blue remarked.

"Habi, take the twins. Blue, carry Penelope, get them out."

Blue shook his head, obstinate. "No, you get out. I'll do it."

Habi ripped off the tape and untied Jane, who was bawling like a toddler, then gathered up Amanda and rushed them out of the shack. I went to the door and watched as Blue picked up his OMP2's, aiming his right pistol at Chief's unmoving body. The guns rattled in his unsteady hands. Seconds ticked by. Would he do it? I stepped towards him to do the deed and he fired. The bullets penetrated the biker's head, almost in a single hole. Blue stumbled away, hunched over, with the look that he was about to puke. He cleared his throat and lifted Penelope off the ground, and I went in to collect our weapons, grabbing a box of ammunition for the assault rifle that lay stacked in the corner. "There are enough guns and ammo here to last a lifetime."

"We'll have to come back for them," he said.

"That's certain. You okay?" I asked.

He nodded with a flushed face.

Sounds of gasoline engines spiked our BPM's, my heart slamming against my bones. It became clear that a few of the bikers did survive the alion onslaught _._ "Get her back to the truck!"

"What about you?"

"There's something I have to do first." I pushed him out the door and scampered to the shelter housing the bomb. If it proved half as easy as it was in the movies, it'd be a win. The bomb, about the length of my forearm but five times as thick, activated by the push of a green call button on a smartphone. I checked that off in the win column. Suddenly the phone's display lit up with a sixty-second countdown. Panic punched my throat at the alarmingly short allowance of time; obviously the Red Treads who planned on carrying out the act of terrorism didn't intend to survive.

I hauled ass back to the truck, never looking back, the thunder of the motorcycles growing ever louder. The black fence came into view. I'd lost track of the timer in my head, but I knew I wouldn't make it over the fence in time, so I dove to the ground. The concussive blast rumbled through the earth, which I felt in my entire body, and I covered my head to protect it from flying debris. After counting to twenty, I checked the sky, where a plume of red and black soared upwards like a gassy arm stretching to reach the stars.

"Maggy!" Habi screamed. "Maggy!"

I pushed myself up and ran for the fence, not bothering to verify the damage until I was on the other side. The shock wave had toppled trees up to about ten meters from where I took cover. We couldn't see it because of the smoke, but none of us doubted that a crater now existed where the shelters had once stood.

Jacob had the truck powered on, in the driver's seat, yelling for us to jump into the bed. "Are you hurt?" Habi asked as Jacob made a U-ey.

Adrenaline answered for me. "I'm fine." My brain struggled to comprehend all that had transpired in the last few hours. Instead of processing the events, I laid Liontamer in a safe place, gave Habi a kiss on the cheek, and climbed through the back window into the passenger's seat. "I saw signs for a mall on the way here," I told Jacob.

"My thoughts exactly," he replied. "And before you go yelling at me about Amanda—"

"There was nothing you could do to stop her," I said. "We can talk about what happened later. For now, just drive."

And so he did. My thoughts drifted. An eleven-year-old girl had just saved my life—all our lives—by killing a man. Picturing Amanda pulling the trigger boggled my mind to the point that I had to let it go for a while and focus on the blacktop.

The mall parking lot was empty except at Warp Speed Daily Deals—the twenty-four seven warehouse that sold everything one could imagine. Jacob pulled up to the barred doors of the north entrance, scratched his chin in frustration, and navigated the walkway to Warp Speed. "I guess this is our only way in," he said.

"Yeah, I forgot everything would be locked up since it all happened at three in the morning." I affixed Liontamer to my back. "Hopefully we can get into the rest of the mall. If there's a Luxury Mattress Town inside, we can sleep there." We all needed a decent night's sleep.

Habi gave me a crooked smile. "Not a fan of Warp Speed?"

"It's too big, too cluttered," I said. "You can't see most of the store. I'd rather have eyes on every corner. Plus their bargain beds are scat."

"I think that's where my bed is from," Blue said jokingly.

Penelope was coming around as we unloaded the truck. "What's going on? Where are we?"

"At a mall, south of Olympia somewhere," Blue informed her. "You okay? You took a pretty bad hit."

"I'm fine." Penelope brushed aside his concern. "Where's Jane?"

"Here," Jane called, walking back from inside the store, hands interlocked with her twin. "Amanda saved us!"

"What?"

"He was going to kill you, and Amanda saved us!" Jane shouted happily.

Penelope looked at Blue. He nodded that her sister was telling the truth. "Amanda did what no little girl should ever have to do, but she did it. She saved us." Blue explained everything as we made our way inside, and to our jubilation and relief, the mall had a Luxury Mattress Town. Someone already had the same idea to stay at the mall: all the stores were unlocked and junk was scattered around like they had the time of their life. The building was too big to check every square centimeter, but we never found the culprits.

We all sat in the middle of the mattress store, a clear line of sight on all four corners and the main entrance. "What you did back there—" Penelope started, heating up another can of chili on the portable stove.

"It was reckless, I know," I said, tinkering with a quadcopter toy I'd looted from Warp Speed.

She dished out the meat and beans. "I was going to say incredibly brave. Those men would've come after us."

Blue popped my shoulder. "It was smart thinking. You always come up with something to save our asses."

"It was a team effort," I downplayed the exploit. "It took all of us to make it through that hell."

Penelope acknowledged the minimization. "I just wanted to say thanks, to all of you, for helping me get my sister back." She wrapped her arm around Jane and squeezed. "I couldn't have done it without you."

"We'd all do it again," Blue said. "If it came to it."

"I'll cheers to that." Habi raised his water bottle. I raised mine, too, and the others followed. We all clinked our containers together.

"How's your head feeling?" I asked Penelope.

"It's just a minor bump." She rubbed the sore spot. "No big deal. I feel fine. Could use some sleep, though." No one spoke much after that. Maybe they were all trying to wrap their heads around what happened like I was. After an entire afternoon I still couldn't fathom it.

Habi approached as I prepared my bed half an hour later. He'd found an eyeglass shop and fixed his spectacles with rubber-tipped pliers. "Crazy day, bramiga."

I grinned. "And I thought yesterday was crazy. And the day before, and the one before that."

He smiled back at me. "You want me to . . . uh . . . sleep with you?"

My heartbeat skyrocketed, happy and confused. "Well, it's just . . ." I peeped over at Blue and Penelope, who were making their beds next to each other. Blue stopped Penelope and hugged her tightly, tears burning both their faces. I looked back at Habi. "Yeah . . . okay."

"We don't have to if you don't want—"

"I want to, Habi. I want to. I guess he's fine with it. With us."

"He said he was, last night when I talked to him," Habi said. "He told me it's uncomfortable for him, but he understands where it's coming from, and has known for a while but didn't want to acknowledge it before."

"You think he can handle it?" I asked. I could feel the worry lines forming on my forehead. "We've all been close friends for so long."

He held me against his chest. "I think he can. Having Penelope here sure helps."

I nestled into his shoulder. "I don't want to hurt him, you know."

"It's too late for that. We just have to soften the blow."

"Sleeping in the same bed won't accomplish that," I contended.

"You're right." His upper lip curled to the right, the way it always did when he disliked something. It was even worse when his temper flared, which I had first noticed over a year ago after a confrontation with Greg Stewart—one of the biggest assholes on the planet—who loved to steal Habi's glasses. Habi would never get the chance to stand up to him now, but at least he was gone. Probably. Hopefully.

We slept in separate beds. I snuggled up in the thick down comforter. Habi mouthed _sweet dream_ s, and I replied with an unspoken goodnight. I lay awake, rolling back and forth for hours, and eventually conceded that I wasn't going to get any sleep. I joined Jacob, who designated himself the first watch. "Don't believe me about the quadcopters?" I spoke barely above a whisper. Two of the toy drones flew along the walls on programmed surveillance routes.

"I do," he said. "I'm sure they'll detect anything that moves, but I wasn't going to sleep anyway, and after today, after my failure—"

"You didn't fail, Jacob," I stopped him. "You're not a hundred percent, and she was determined to help. None of us could've prevented Amanda from trying to save her sister."

"I know you're trying to make me feel better, but it's not working. I don't think I'll ever feel better about it. I slipped up, and that's on me." He was staring at the main entrance, but turned to me. "Did you put one of those trackers in me, too?"

I nodded. "Last night."

He permitted a small grin. "Thanks. I would've thought you'd say good riddance and be done with me if I went missing."

"We may not have been friends before this, but we're in it together now. All of us."

After a long silence, he asked: "You know what really freaks me out?"

I shook my head.

"The aliens, they left those guys for a reason. They wanted that fight. And if they left the Red Treads behind to pick off, it makes you wonder who else they left."

Of all the terrible thoughts of the day, I'd pushed that one so deep down it would've never resurfaced on its own. Jacob, however, met it head on. "Maybe we'll be lucky enough to never find out."

That prompted a laugh. "Luck is dead. But maybe we'll be smart enough to survive what comes. Besides, you've got mega brains and an axe, and I'd take that combo over luck any day."

And the moment the words left his mouth, the alarm went off.

#

GLASS SHATTERED AS two giant paws plucked Mike from the floor and out the window.

I sat up in the bed, sweating. It was cold and nasty, my hairs clinging to my legs. My lungs pattered in high gear. _Just a dream. It was just a dream._

The knocking on my chest never calmed though. The alarm blaring from the quadcopter made sure of it.

In the dim lighting, I could make out Maggy and Jacob standing in the aisle between our beds, sweeping all the entrances for movement. Félix lightly snored in a separate bed beside Maggy's, oblivious to the siren. I turned my vision to Penelope and her sisters all bundled up together, rousing from sleep in panic, springing to life from under the covers.

I climbed out of bed, wearing all new clothes that I'd found the night before. I shook Félix awake, who slowly came to his senses. "What is it?" I asked Maggy.

"I don't see anything," she answered.

"Neither do I," Jacob said.

"It could be a false a—" Maggy began, but the appearance of three alions halted the words in her throat. The black grating at the main entrance denied them passage. All three started swatting at the metal. Each hit dented a cross bar.

Penelope snagged the shotgun. "That won't hold for long."

"Blue, take the assault rifle," Maggy suggested emphatically.

"I don't think I can handle it."

Jacob grinned. "Bro, it's made so practically a baby can handle it. Trust me, it'll be easier on you than the shotgun."

"Then I should take the shotgun." I looked at Penelope. "Don't you think?"

"No offense, Darrel, but I know how to use it," Penelope said. "You keep putting it in your gut."

She was right. The bruises on my stomach ached worse than any from the bus crash. "All right, fine." I picked up the assault rifle Maggy had taken from Chief, and the weapon was peculiarly lighter than the shotgun. "Let's get going, before . . ."

The alions rammed the barrier and burst into the store.

"Run to the backroom!" Maggy ordered.

Penelope pushed her sisters towards the back, screaming at them to keep running when she suddenly stopped. She whipped around and fired a booming shot.

The cats dodged the spray.

Félix spun on his heels, bags across his shoulders, and followed behind the twins. Jacob, OMP2's in hand, led an alion skipping from bed to bed, and riddled it full of holes. Maggy fired her Tomb Raider pistols but missed. She twirled, falling in line behind Félix, Jacob running to catch up.

Penelope and I backed away slowly, each of us eyeing only one of the remaining beasts. I kept sight of the left one, and she tracked the movements of the one to our right. "Go," I yelled.

"These bastards are mine," she said, overjoyed by the confrontation. "I'll kill 'em all!" Her voice was deep and strident. It sounded as if the weight of death and responsibility had melted her brain.

I fired the rifle. Jacob had switched it to burst-fire mode. The rounds exploded out of the barrel in smooth grace, each bullet flying perfectly for its target, ripping the alion apart. Blood splattered in all directions. Fur misted the air. Its humanlike limbs fell to the floor, blown right off. After witnessing the destruction the rifle inflicted, I turned tail and sprinted for the door leading to the backroom. I stopped at the doorframe and scanned for Penelope.

She fired blast after blast, hitting only air and bedding, screaming curses at the alion the entire time. Finally, the beast maneuvered around her, running directly at me. Its right humanlike hand pulled out something strapped around its right foreleg.

I fell back with a shock to my left leg. A bizarre tingle crawled up my shin to my spine, then to my head. It was cold and nauseating. I dropped the rifle, crying out in pain.

The alion spun a hundred and eighty degrees and shot the same thing at Penelope, who was chasing it down, shotgun raised. She fired as the object struck her.

The scattered pellets pierced the alion all over, blowing off its right shoulder. It collapsed, twitching and gulping for air.

Penelope gasped in agony, releasing the shotgun. "Are you all right, Darrel?"

"Yeah, I'm okay. You?"

"I feel cold. I was hit by something."

"Me too. I feel dizzy and sick, but I'm not bleeding or anything." I reached for my leg where the iciness emanated. "There's a silver device in my leg." I tried removing it, pinching into my skin. "I can't get it out."

"Neither can I."

Then, all of a sudden, a brilliant blue flash engulfed the room.

Then darkness.

#

THRUMMING, LOW AND soothing, woke me. It filled me with tranquility and terror. Tranquility because it sounded so peaceful. Terror because I couldn't stop it. I opened my eyes, and across from me in a black shiny pod with a transparent white door, lay Penelope, suspended. Sending a signal to my arms, they didn't respond, unable to move. Nothing responded, except for my thoughts that continued to spring out of nothingness, and my eyes shifting slowly in their sockets. The thrumming relaxed me as I attempted to fight against it. But the harder I fought, the more relaxed I became, as if drugged into submission. Then it occurred to me: I felt absolutely nothing.

I scrutinized Penelope's pod in semi-awareness. The black material reminded me of obsidian, polished and without rough edges, ground faultlessly. Three lights lit up her cage in a soft blue glow, two at her temples, and one above her head. Her eyes shifted around, as if examining my pod.

Without warning, an alarm, harsh and deep, boomed in my ears: RAWRK . . . RAWRK . . . RAWRK. The lights inside Penelope's pod started flashing, as if malfunctioning. Then the door unlatched with a pressurized click. A blue fog drifted out of her pod and into the room. She fell forward and landed on the black grating between the pods. She lay there for a while, though time eluded me, and it was impossible to measure just how long.

She clambered to her feet, using my pod as a prop. Pounding against the door, she yelled, "Can you hear me?"

I blinked twice, hoping she got the message.

"Good. I'll get you out of there." She fiddled with something off to the side of the pod, out of my sight range. She darted her head to her right, and her eyes popped in horror. "No!" She backed up a step, spun around, then sprinted away.

A moment later, a big blurry patch of fur ran by, heading for Penelope. A scream echoed. Followed by a clang.

Silence overtook the curious room.

She staggered back into my view, fighting for breath. Wobbling, she plonked herself on the grating, her back resting against the pod she had emerged from. After a moment collecting herself, she stood, staring at me. "I'm okay—I'm okay," she panted. "There are some buttons over here that I think open these, so hold on, I'll be right back."

I blinked placidly. No big deal to me, I was doing just fine. Just fine indeed.

She disappeared.

A depressurized noise, like gas escaping, hissed in my ear as the door abruptly unlatched. The same blue cloud engulfed the area as it floated out of the pod. Penelope stood in front of me, lugged me over her shoulders, then she gently planted my butt on the black grating.

"How do you feel?" she asked.

I smiled sleepily, my eyes half closed, my head swimming. "Groggy."

"That's certain." She shut both of the pod doors and ran over to a station with blinking lights. She pressed buttons at random.

"You know what you're doing?" I asked, my voice grinding.

"'Course not." The doors resealed, pressurizing. "I just hit the same button that I did to open it. I thought mine might be the button next to yours and it was." She beamed in triumph.

"Why didn't the other doors open?"

"Don't know, dude. They seem to be locked. None of the others will unlatch." She walked back over and helped me stand.

"How did you open your door?"

"I didn't. I guess it was an error. I don't think they intended it, especially that alien I killed." She bobbed her head at the carcass ten meters away.

"Alion," I corrected, joking. I blamed the blue mist for the mild hysteria.

"Right, alion, whatever." She punched my arm, playful. "Anyway, it seemed pretty surprised that I was out and about."

I eyed her, exhausted. "How did you kill it?"

She drew a Pacifier from a thigh holster. "They took our bags, but not this or my knife. Hope you don't mind that I swiped the Pacifier from your stockpile."

"I surely don't." I cleared my throat, the frog in it scratching my vocal cords. "What about these?" I pointed to the object stuck in my leg. "I can't get it out."

"I think we have to dig it out with the knife," she said.

"What? Are you melted? I can't take a knife to my own leg."

"We'll have to do each other's," she said, serious. She opened her jacket and revealed a well-hidden knife tucked under her bra strap; she slid the blade from its protective leather sleeve. The fact that I was staring at her bra didn't register until I felt the blood draining from my head. _Don't stare, dude. Whatever you do, don't stare._ And then it was gone.

I cleared my throat again, this time for a completely different reason, the image of her bra, pink and beaded, burned into my mind. The sight of her bra and the thought of a blade digging into my leg issued conflicting feelings. The knife suddenly won the battle as she brought it closer to my leg. "No way. Won't do it."

"You have a better idea?" Her face looked as bad as I felt, tired beyond recuperation.

I hung my head. "I don't think I can do it." Dad's voice: _Always a disappointment, Darrel._

"You have to, Darrel. These things allowed them to take us even though we had the SIM, and who knows what else they can do. They're probably tracers . . . and the way they stung at first, maybe they can be used to paralyze us at the click of a button. So we can't leave them in. I'll take yours out first, okay?"

I sighed. Nodded. We sat down on the grating. Below it was a solid bronze floor and, fleetingly, I wondered if my blood would stain it . . .

"You have to lie still, though. Don't shake on me, I don't want to cut more than I have to." She rested the blade's tip to the side of the object. The cold steel against my skin produced a shiver throughout my body. "Ready?" Before I could react, she dug the knife into my leg, underneath the object, and flipped it out, blood flying with it.

I screamed a terrible scream that would make a four-year-old proud. As my scream faded I began to wheeze uncontrollably. "You—didn't—wait—for—me."

"And you can't wait for me."

"I—can't—do—it." I was breathing far too fast. Red spots started appearing in my eyes, then large black gaps, then I was out.

#

I CAME TO as Penelope belted out a cry of her own.

"You're much braver than I am," I told her. The hole in my leg was barely even a wound, oozing a tiny amount of blood. "I'm a coward."

"I don't believe that for a second."

"Oh really? Let's see, that's two times that I've fainted in the last few days. How pathetic is that?"

She punched my arm again in the same playful manner. "Pretty pathetic." But then she grew somber, shaking her head. "But honestly, you're braver than you give yourself credit. You saved my sisters, on more than one occasion. You stared out that broken window, knowing that one of those beasts was going to pounce right through it. You didn't faint then. You stood your ground." Her warm voice consoled me.

"We should get going," she said after a short pause.

"And go where?" I asked, her words lifting my spirits, boosting my confidence. Maybe my dad had been wrong about me. Maybe I wasn't a disappointment. Maybe I'd find the courage and rescue him and Mom after all.

"Do you want to stay here?"

I shook my head. "Obviously not, but I don't know where else to go."

"Neither do I, but I think we should look for a hangar bay, you know, for smaller ships."

I squinted at her, dizzy. "You wanna fly off of here?"

"Yeah, dude. We're probably on the ship above Seattle, so if we find one of those smaller craft, we can land it in the Sound. I have to get back to my sisters, they need me."

I nodded in understanding. "Why in the water?"

"Do you know how to land an alien craft?"

"Good point." I surmised that it would probably be better to crash in water than on land. "What if we don't make it that far?"

"I'd rather crash and burn than die aboard here," she said. "Wouldn't you?"

I contemplated that for a moment. "I suppose so. Which way do you wanna go?" I looked around for the first time. Two columns of pods lined the bronze walls, facing each other, where various colored pipes ran from end to end above the obsidian cages. A metallic blue door blocked the end of the room with the dead alion. The other end connected to an open walkway.

"That door looks sealed, so let's go this way." She pointed to the walkway.

Rising to our feet, I noticed the hole in her leg, and it was even bigger than mine. She was tough. Goddamn was she tough. Analyzing the closest pod, it occurred to me that neither of us had brought up releasing the prisoners by force. "Do you think we should try and open one of these pods?"

"What if we did and it killed them?" She shook her head. "We might come across an alion taking someone out and see how they do it first. I'd rather do that before we try breaking one."

"Unless we find someone we know," I said. Suddenly the entire hall shook as if struck by a shock wave, sending us to our stomachs. Smaller waves followed, each one less intense than the next. "What the hell was that?"

"Dunno," she said after the ripples dissipated. "It felt like an explosion. Maybe someone else escaped the pods and set off a bomb, or maybe someone's attacking the ship from the outside."

"I don't think we're that lucky."

We waited for a second blast but it never came.

"The plan is still the same," she said, upright, offering me a hand.

I took it.

We entered a room so large it had neither an end nor beginning in any direction. The hall continued after another door, but we took a moment to examine our surroundings, in awe at the sheer immensity of space. That was when I noticed the familiar blue glow and the polished black gleam and the giant tubes that resembled the accordion arm of a Shop-Vac. I leaned against a railing, scanning down, then up. Square columns of stasis pods layered the room from floor to ceiling, if the room even had a floor and ceiling, and each column spanned fifty meters across with an equal depth, each row containing hundreds, possibly thousands of pods. It was impossible to gauge how many columns lined up behind the first towers, unable to make out the other side of the room, but I pictured them going on for kilometers and kilometers, as near endless as one could get with an end. Not a single millimeter of space was wasted. In the tiers of stasis pods, faces stared blankly beyond us, without perception or consciousness—the faces of men, women, teenagers, little boys and little girls. It was like a city of trapped people, who were awake but didn't know it, all imprisoned in a cell barely larger than the width and height of their bodies, and each completely powerless to escape. But the alions took it a step further, a step beyond impotence, by adding a level of satisfaction, a drug-induced serenity that stomped on the will to fight. It amounted to a comfortable, forgettable ride to wherever it was they were going.

"I don't see any infants," Penelope observed.

"I hope we don't."

"I hope we don't see a lot of things I think we'll see up here." Penelope surveyed up and down. "But I don't have any good feelings crawling up my spine."

"You think my parents are up here?"

"If they are, it would be impossible to find them," she answered.

I didn't like her response. "Don't you think we should try?"

"If I knew where to start looking, I would say let's give it a go, but look at all of those people. It would probably take weeks to inspect every one. And on top of that, how do we even get to them?"

Inspecting the walkway, I nodded at a row of rectangular metal boxes, which gave the impression of a cross between a hoverboard and the buckets linemen worked in while repairing overhead power lines. "Maybe we can use one of those."

She wore a face that said: _you can't be serious_. "Maybe . . ."

"Well, we should at least try to release them, right?" I searched her eyes for approval. Motion in the still background made us both turn. An alion, in one of the hoverboard boxes, was patrolling the stasis-pod column in front of us; in half a second, it caught sight of us, and a deep roar echoed in the cavernous room. It redirected the hoverbox and zoomed our way.

"Run!" Penelope shouted. She headed in the direction we had come from, leaping over the dead alion she'd shot, until we stopped at the sealed door. "Do you see anything that looks like it opens it?"

To the side of the door, dozens of colored buttons buzzed, waiting to be pressed. "Green means open, right?" I smacked the green one. A _kee-kee-kee_ signaled our incorrect answer.

"It's probably a combination," she said.

I cleared my throat. "That could take years to figure out." In a panic, I began to press every one down the strip of colors. Once that failed, I tried combinations. The roar neared with every second wasted.

"This is insane," Penelope said in frustration. She unholstered the Pacifier, turned, and prepared herself for the coming attack.

"I'm not smart enough for this shit," I confessed.

She snorted. "Who is?" Her eyes locked with mine, and a flood of warmth pulsed in my body, blood rushing to my crotch. _Boner drama, now? Really? FML._ Where was a textbook when you needed one? I tried to put the feeling down. _You're about to die, Darrel. You're about to die with a semi in front of the coolest, prettiest girl in the world. Pathetic._

I blushed and turned back to the strip of colors. My thoughts were consumed with panic and lust, colliding in a painful ache that sought to end my life. Then I wheeled around and spotted the alion corpse. A silver disk hung around its neck. A red orb glowed at its center. I examined the strip again, and below it, I found a small port that looked about the same size and shape of the disk.

I ran and detached it from the alion's neck, then shoved it into the port like a CD in my grandpa's old car stereo, the entire device disappearing. The red button lit up on the panel but the door still didn't open.

Work, damn you, work!

A roar boomed down the hall, a call of death, full of fury and hostility, all aimed at us. They were so fast, so incredibly fast. The alion approached on acrobatic paws, spread wide for perfect weight distribution.

Penelope fired a dart. The alion stumbled but momentum pushed it forward. A second dart noticeably impaired it. The third dart made it lose its footing, but it recovered quickly.

Twitching, I punched the red button. The door slid to the side, withdrawing into a darkness meant only for lifeless objects. The port ejected the disk. I grabbed it, yanked on Penelope's shoulder, and bolted over the threshold. When I spun around, I saw the alion flying through the air. I slammed the disk into the port with my right and pounded the red button again.

As quick as the OMP2 could fire a bullet, the door sealed shut. A sudden _pang_ reverberated down the hall that we now stood in.

Panting hard, Penelope gave me a _did-that-really-just-happen_ look, about to fall over in relief. "I think it cracked its skull."

"I hope so," I said, removing the disk from the port and sliding it into my pocket. "We'll probably need this."

She bent over, arms on her knees, breathing rapidly. "We—need to—go."

"We need to recover our breaths." I placed my hand on her back, and I thought about rubbing it, but then inexperience in such situations complicated the action in my head, so I just gently patted her. "Keep breathing."

We composed ourselves, slowly taking back control of our lungs.

I studied the room. It was identical to the one with our pods, except at the other end were two doors instead of one. One of the doors went off in a different direction. "You wanna take this, see where it goes?" I asked.

She nodded. "Sure, dude." She lost her balance, legs shaking, but I steadied her before she fell over. "I didn't want to waste the ammo. It took three darts to take down the first one, and Maggy told me the gun stores ten, which means we have only enough for one more kill. And we still haven't tested the electroshock bullets . . ."

I gave her another comforting pat. "You did what you had to. We're alive, that's what counts, right?"

She wiped sweat from her face, then stepped forward. "I don't know what counts anymore." Her voice simmered with frustration.

The door connected to another similar room, which connected to another similar room, and it was the same after every new door, endless. We passed face after face, all frozen, all with calm eyes following our movements.

Finally, after several twists and turns, we crossed over a threshold into a room without pods. The shape of the hall resembled all the previous ones, but instead of pods along the sides, giant clear panes surrounded us.

Penelope gasped, stunned. "No," she whispered.

My tic went into overdrive at the sight before us. "Are we—are we really in space?" I gazed down and pointed, dumbfounded.

"No—no—no—no—no!" she cried. She collapsed to her knees. An eruption of tears followed.

I knelt down and rubbed her back, deeming the situation appropriate; she needed the stronger form of comfort. I didn't say a word. Nothing that came to mind sounded right. No words existed that would make it better.

I stared down at the bright blue oceans of Earth. The shapes of the continents really did resemble giant puzzle pieces from above. Brilliant white clouds blocked out sections of the globe. The planet looked so serene, so bright with the billions of lights in all the cities, expansive clusters of illumination.

Her tears stopped after a few moments lost in a realm of devastation. We sat there in silence, observing the world and all its wonders. I'd dreamed of seeing Earth from space, but this felt twisted, toxic. A nightmare.

"You see that?" Penelope pointed at a hole in the ship the size of Lake Whatcom.

"That must've been the explosion," I said. "From the way the edges point outward, it looks like it happened from the inside. Hopefully that's good news for us."

"You think it was an accident or sabotage?"

"Don't know, but it's a blow to them either way."

"Hey, look, there's a ship!" she exclaimed.

I followed her finger to a black-and-red dot traveling swiftly into an open bay across from us. The craft vanished a second later. "Now we know for certain that they have smaller ships docked," I remarked.

"We just have to get over there," she said, sighing. "It looks like a long, long way, impossible for us not to be spotted."

My nerves were trembling. "Yeah."

Collected, she stared at me with her bold brown eyes. "Break me down." She offered me her hand.

The familiar _Death Squad_ motto caught my attention. "Build me up," I finished the saying. The words, in the same vein as _what doesn't kill you makes you stronger,_ brightened our mood like a shot of coffee. I cupped my hand into hers and we lifted each other up.

"We should search for a weapons depot along the way," she proposed.

"I was just thinking that." I kept smiling at her. I didn't know why, but everything about her made me want to smile—her lips, her eyes, her soft, pleasant voice. "Before we get moving, you sure you're okay? That was a big blow. I mean, we're on the mothership, in space, and everything's going to be that much harder. We can take some more time to gather ourselves."

"I'm fine, promise. I don't know why I cried like that. Shock, I guess. But I'm ready now."

"What about what happened right before we were taken? You went a little crazy there, remember? Screaming at the alions and all."

"That was stress boiling over," she admitted. "What happened at the wildlife refuge, it was a lot, and then we barely got a break before the aliens showed up at the mall. Something snapped, and I had to release some pent-up rage. But I'm all good, or least as good as I'm going to get. We can do this—we _have_ to do this, and there's no point wasting time. Here, take my knife so we both have a weapon." She retrieved the concealed blade.

There it was again: her bra. I made a conscious effort not to gawk at it, and glanced at the ceiling before I started drooling. "Thanks," I said, taking the knife. "I'm sorry about everything, about your sisters, what you've had to go through." We tiptoed along the clear walk, nervous we'd break the glass and get sucked into space. The view also mesmerized.

"I'm glad we met you guys when we did," she said. "I don't think we would've lasted much longer on our own."

I used the disk to get us through another secured door. An alion stood at the far end of the room, clicking buttons on a huge display with its humanlike fingers. It ignored the retraction of the door like background noise, probably something it heard a thousand times a day.

"Here," Penelope whispered, yanking my shirt to the left. "Hurry, use the key."

I fumbled with the disk. My slippery hands lost hold.

_Clink_.

Penelope scooped it up and locked it into the port, pressed the red button, and snatched the disk, pushing me over the threshold. She shut the door. "Run."

A command.

I ran for the door at the end of the hall. Five halls later, we stopped to catch our breath. I needed an inhaler, on the verge of breaking down, mentally at least. Hopefully I didn't have an acute attack, a very real possibility given the hostile environment and level of anxiety it triggered, and asthma was impossible to control with just mental exertion.

"This place is a labyrinth," I said. "We'll never make it to that hangar."

"Talking like that won't help any."

"I know, it's just . . . never mind. You're right. I know you're right . . ."

After that we agreed to keep our conversations to a minimum. We eventually came to a door the disk failed to open, but the handicap didn't slow us down. An hour or so later we found a square room unlike all the rest, with stacks of large white cases, and a tall ceiling with parallel runners spaced every few meters, a robotic arm sliding from end to end in seconds. Sidling through the towers, checking around corners for anything dangerous, I caught sight of an alion facing the opposite direction, at work pressing foreign icons on a small touchscreen, presumably controlling the robotic arm. The arm set a case on the high table beside the alion, which the cat opened, appraising the contents.

"Back," I whispered.

She caught my sleeve, tugged, and pointed at what the alion was holding, then at her sidearm. Her mouth formed a word, but I couldn't read it. She gesticulated knocking over the tower of cases onto the beast. With a wink, she turned, off to do the deed. She was fearless, utterly fearless, a big contrast from the night I had met her, when her cousin was torn from the duplex. Maybe confronting the Red Treads like she had changed her down deep, brought out the warrior in her, or maybe that first night had been a lapse in character and she was always this way.

Picking up speed from three meters away, she shouldered the white pile. Instantly the cases fell on top of the alion, crushing it under the weight of the mysterious containers. A feeble cry escaped the alion before it died. The final exclamation almost made me feel sorry for the beast. One of the cases broke open by Penelope's feet. Thick black foam lined the inside and, set within ten perfect cutouts, what looked like weapons.

"Are those guns?" I asked. The purpose of the room became quite clear: it was an armory. There must have been thousands of the crates, all neatly stacked, their contents ready for distribution. I squatted next to her and felt the surface.

She grasped one of the weapons, jerking it from the foam, holding it up in front of us. They weren't fitted to our hands, and it didn't resemble our pistols exactly, more like two pistols glued together at the bottom of the handgrips to create one giant handgrip with two horizontal triggers instead of vertical. I could only compare it to shooting gangsta style. The objects sparkled blue like a new car in the bright lighting of the room.

I seized one for myself, gripping it with both hands crossed over each other in an X, one index finger on each trigger. The weapon was surprisingly lightweight for how big it was. "It's awkward as hell, but I think you hold it like this. They have two thumbs, remember."

"That makes sense." She tried it my way. "Yeah, much easier to hold."

Just after the large handgrip were two black canisters that reminded me of pop cans. A fifteen-centimeter barrel protruded from the outer end of each canister. A crossbar connected the barrels with another crossbar forming a T between the trigger guards. "This is the funkiest looking gun I've ever seen," I laughed.

"They're like tommy guns," she said, spinning one of the cylinders. "With drum magazines."

I spun one of my own. "You think these are the magazines?"

"Only one way to find out." She fiddled with hers for a while, trying to snap one of the cans from its hold. "There must be a release somewhere."

I played around with mine as well, but I couldn't find any buttons or switches, or anything that resembled such. _Click_. With the back of the canister angled up, Penelope slid it out of the gun, raising it to eye level for inspection.

I stared at her, amazed, and probably looked like a geeky fool for it. Maggy entered my mind. I knew I had to let her go and move on, but it was hard to just say goodbye to all those times and feelings. _Unreciprocated feelings_ , I reminded myself. Penelope was standing right in front of me, listening to me . . .  _talking_ to me . . . but then again, who else was there? I put all that aside, too self-loathing. "How did you do that?"

"Hold on, I'll show you in a second." From the middle of the cylinder, she pressed a button that swiveled the cap open, revealing the contents within. She dumped out a small black globe into her palm. "It looks like a shotgun shot but _huge_. Like a musket round." After her examination, she taught me how to eject the cartridge. "There's one thing I don't get though."

"Just one? There's about a million things I don't get."

"Ha-ha, Darrel," she said, unimpressed, though not entirely without a grin. "I don't understand how they'll fire." She dropped the marble-sized bullet into my hand.

I closed one eye and pretended to study it. "What do you mean?"

"Well, have you ever seen a bullet before it's been shot?"

She knew that I had, since she'd watched me load the shotty and the OMP2's. Then it dawned on me. "There's no propellant."

"Exactly." She held up a second bullet. "So how does the bullet leave the barrel?"

I ran the bullet the short distance down the barrel. "A bullet without a propellant . . ." And then it hit me with a big _duh_ right in the forehead. "You really don't know?" She shook her head. "Think of a much longer barrel." The hint prompted nothing. "It's a coilgun!"

My outburst made her jerk back, but instead of getting upset, she punched my arm for a third time. "Of course! How did I miss that? Just like the Thetatox Sniper Rifle in _Our Descent._ But the barrel is so short."

"Well, they are aliens," I pointed out.

"Or alions," she said, laughing. "Let's go through more of these cases, maybe there's other gear in here." With nimble fingers, she began to comb through the cases, heavy as they were, piling the useless containers in the corner by the dead alion.

"Can I ask you something?"

"No," she joked.

"The way you shot at the bikers, it was like you knew how to aim and everything, more than simply learning from video games. How'd you do that? I mean, even after using a gun remote for years, I'm still a sucky shot."

"Remember how I told you my grandpa taught me how to hunt pheasant?" I answered with a nod. "Well, he also took me to the shooting range. He was a detective, and he wanted me to know how to defend myself. He also taught me survival training on our camping trips, though those lessons never really stuck."

"So that's why you have an eighty-five percent headshot rate on _Our Descent?_ "

"Accuracy and precision, my grandpa always said," Penelope chuckled. "Having one without the other is like having a nose without a sense of smell—useless."

I dropped a crate in the pile. "Maybe you can teach me how to shoot sometime?"

"Sometime, yeah." The despondency in her voice said sometime would never come. "My grandpa actually gave me that knife, so don't lose it, or I'd have to cut off your balls."

"How could you without a knife?"

"I'd find a way," she teased, but with a hint of sincerity.

The hasps keeping the cases fastened didn't want to budge. Each one took a few minutes to finally snap open. When I unlatched my fourth case, my jaw dropped. "Come look at this."

Penelope rushed over. "Is it a harness?"

"I think it's an ammunition carrier. See, it has dozens of ports for spare ammo." I pointed to the globe-sized holes along the crossing straps of the accessory. It was made from the same blue metal as the doors and the guns. "There's two in the case, do you want one?"

"Looks too heavy for me," she replied.

Already holding one, I secured it around my chest and waist, tightening up the straps that were made from a matte black material that wouldn't give when squeezed, but was flexible enough to bend through several buckles. "It's not heavy at all," I said. "How do I look?" Flashed my _I'm-so-sexy_ smile like guys at school did to pick up chicks.

She smiled, understanding I wasn't serious in any way. "I wonder what an alion would think if it saw you. You're pretty goofy."

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" I asked, my heart pounding, and not from the thought of an alion spying on us.

"I haven't decided quite yet," she answered.

"Others have called it immaturity instead of goofy."

"You don't seem immature to me," she said.

"To be fair, you don't know me that well. My teachers call me a slacker, that I'm not living up to my true potential, and others our age think I'm only a fat-ass who has an annoying throat-clearing tic."

"Sounds like they're the immature ones if that's all they think," she said. "It doesn't bother me any. And it's true, I haven't known you long, but I already know a lot about you."

"Like what?" I asked nervously. What positives could she say?

"I know you like alternative music, you play video games, and you're a loyal friend," she listed. "And you're goofy," she said with a giggle. It was nice to hear her laugh. It was sweet, high, and musical.

"Goofy, eh? I kinda like the sound of that." We were sharing a moment when my hand slipped over one of the buttons on the belt portion of the harness. A sharp pain zipped from my finger to my shoulder. I stopped. Penelope was looking at me, horror written across her face. I spun around, expecting to see a crouched alion, waiting to pounce on us in its great stealth. But nothing was there. The pile of cases was the only thing I could see. "What is it?"

"Darrel?"

"Yeah?"

"Darrel! Darrel!" She started cursing after that.

"What's wrong? Why are you yelling?"

She began searching the room in a blind panic, around towers, through piles, everywhere. Cursing to herself, and every once in a while, she yelled out my name.

I tapped her on her shoulder.

She jumped half a meter in the air, spinning frantically. As she landed, she stuck out her alion weapon, aimed directly at me. "Whoa! What the hell are you doing?" She scanned the room again. Her eyes went right through me. _As if I'm not even here._ "Penelope, are you all right?"

She made no reply. Her arms shook and shook. I didn't know if I'd ever seen someone so afraid. She backed up until she stood against the wall. Tears began to fall to the grating.

Then I thought about what I'd done. The belt contained a dozen buttons of various, meaningless symbols, so I pressed each one in turn without any luck, until I smacked one that resembled a K with an L halfway through it.

Startled, Penelope gasped. "Jesus frigging Christ, Darrel!" She punched my chest, but not in the playful way she'd been doing. "Where the hell did you go? I thought they took you, just plucked you away from me like they did Mike." She collapsed. The weapon fell in a _clink_. "I thought—I—I—gone . . ."

I knelt beside her. "It's okay. It's cool. They didn't take me, I'm right here. I've been right here the whole time. I accidentally hit a button on the belt, and I guess it made me invisible to you. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

Her crying waned into sniffling. She stared at me, full of joy. She took my hand. "I don't think I could survive on this ship alone."

I gently squeezed her fingers. "You won't have to . . . we'll get out of here, together. You'll see your sisters again." A promise.

Irritation filled her eyes. "Why do people say things like that? In movies and TV shows, people always say things like that, but it's not true."

"In our case it is. The harnesses can make us invisible. Invisible, Penelope!"

It took a moment for the information to sink in. "Invisible?"

"You couldn't see me. I pressed this K-L button." I repeated the action.

She jerked back.

I pressed the same button and reappeared. "See. Invisible."

Her face pulled a one-eighty in emotion, lighting up with unbreakable hope. "We're going to make it . . . we're going to make it off of here, aren't we?"

"Hell yeah we are. Now put one on, and let's get to that hangar," I said, energized. "It's time for us to leave."

#

PENELOPE FITTED THE blue metal around her, adjusting the foreign straps. Tapping the button, she became invisible to me. I hit the button on mine, and she appeared in full clarity. I nodded at her. We found a case with spare black globes and snapped them into the ports along the chest bands.

"Can you hear me?" I asked.

"Loud and clear," she answered. "I wonder how this all works?" It wasn't really a question for me to answer.

But that didn't stop me from doing so. "It's probably like some phase-shift technology. We're probably between realities right now."

"If that's true, shouldn't we be seeing the world in different colors?"

"You know that's just a TV device, right? To show the difference in realities."

She waved me off. "It was a joke, Darrel."

"Oh, yeah, I knew that," I fibbed, and pretended like I'd been kidding around.

"It doesn't make much sense for these bullets to be stored along the straps," she said. "There are way fewer compared to how many are in one magazine can."

"What are you saying, they're for aesthetics?"

She shrugged. "Just saying it's not as practical as whole magazines would be."

"You should bring that up with one of their engineers." I bent down and secured my shoelaces. "Ready?"

"Ready."

"Remember, if we bump into things, things such as alions, they'll know we're there. So don't do it."

She smiled. "I think you're a little clumsier than I am, but I'll keep it in mind." Before we crossed the door's threshold, she halted. "They won't be able to hear us, right?"

"Could you hear me?"

"No."

"Then probably not. But they're catlike, so who knows what they can hear." I stepped into the hall and turned right.

"Wait!"

I stopped.

"Can we pick up stuff? We should test out what exactly we can do while invisible."

I whirled around on a heel. "That's not a bad idea." After some tests, we learned that the cloak masked sight, sound, and smells, but not touch—we didn't try tasting, but assumed it fell into the tactile category. We also learned that if we picked up objects with the cloak on, the object didn't cloak, unless we decloaked then recloaked. We had to cloak with anything we wanted to hide, which was a nice heads-up.

The weapons were another story, afraid if we practiced firing off a shot, we'd be swarmed within seconds. They either worked or they didn't. Fingers crossed, we hoped we'd never find out with the cloaks—all we had to do was avoid bumping into any of them. No sweat!

We crept down a few halls before our first live assessment of the cloaks, staring down our enemies. An alion stood at a console, tapping the screen in a hurry. We stood motionless to the side of it, weapons up and primed to kill. At least we hoped. If it proved to have a safety beyond a firm grip, then our guts would probably be thrown all over the place, blood dripping through the grating. The image flashed in my mind. Horrible. Shuddering, I wanted to puke. The fear of being heard kept the roiling of my stomach at bay.

The alion finished its work, turned towards us, and walked past as we parted for the beast. It didn't notice we stood within an arm's reach.

I cleared my throat a dozen times after the alion vanished out of sight.

"That went well," Penelope said. She saw my sick face. "It could've gone a lot worse."

I nodded at her. "I know. It's just . . . it walked right past us, you know?"

"Oh, I know. Come on, it's probably not a good idea to dawdle." She opened the next door with the access disk. An alion stared right through us, scanning from side to side, skeptical of its senses, expecting to see another alion on the other side of the shifting door. It crouched down, its head level with my crotch. Circumspect, it slinked by us. We jogged to the next hall, shaking.

"Every time I see one—"

"I feel like I'm about to die," I finished for her.

The disk in her hand was shaking so much I thought she was about to fling it right at me. "Well, don't piss your pants yet, wait till we're out of here." She steadied her nerves.

She had a weird sense of humor, kind of like mine, and it was growing on me.

In the few hours that we wandered around the ship, we passed surprisingly few alions, which left me to ponder the purpose of the vessel. The design of the ship began to feel circular, with ramps going up and down like a parking garage, and appeared to lack elevators. Maybe they wanted to keep active to maintain their trim muscular physiques.

After seven or eight different levels, we finally stumbled on a storehouse with water supplies. I saw no food, but the H2O was inviting enough. Three alions typed at touchscreens thinner than any iMac, even the three-millimeter model; it was as though they had turned a sheet of paper into a computer.

"How are we gonna steal the water without them noticing?" I asked. The water would be visible without uncloaking and recloaking, and in full sight of three alions, the idea sounded ludicrous.

Beside the alion closest to us, a bin full of silver canteens, of which Penelope eyed with desire, waited for our desperate hands to come and snatch one. "We'll just have to kill them all." Deadpan. No emotion in her voice whatsoever. If she were joking, I couldn't tell.

I finally decided she wasn't. "Are you melted? What if they have sensors on the ship that can pick us up, we don't wanna give them any _more_ reasons to search for us. If we're lucky, it could be a while before they find out we've killed any of them, let's just try to keep it that way."

In the back of my mind, I knew what I was saying didn't add up: how could they _not_ know? Of course they had sensors. But then how come they weren't on us ten seconds after we escaped the pods?

She shrugged. "We need this water. What's your plan?"

"I'll create a diversion so that you can steal a bottle and fill it. Once you're done, cloak, then meet me back in the hall."

"That's actually a decent plan."

"Thanks. Sometimes I get them, sometimes I don't. I'll decloak outside the room and knock on the door."

"It will have to be a bigger diversion than that to draw all three of them," she said. "There's a terminal out there. I bet if you break it, they'll all check it out."

"All right, I'll give it a try. Be ready."

"Use the knife," she advised.

"Good idea." I unsheathed the blade and jogged off around the corner. The giant display, paper-thin and with brilliant colors, looked like it could project holographic images, a step beyond our technology, but it wasn't strikingly more developed than our TV's, which probably said something about our obsession with movies and video games more than their lack of innovation. The screen was connected to the wall by a few thick silver poles, linked together by pivoting ball sockets, rotating in all directions. My pulse picked up when I decloaked. I grabbed the display and lowered it. _Well, there's nothing for it._ I raised the knife and slid the blade across the glossy surface. The scratches screeched worse than fingernails on a chalkboard. Ten scores marred the display before I called it good, retreated a step, and cloaked. My finger found the button the moment the doors opened, all three alions rushing into the corridor. One stared right at me and I tripped over my own feet, backing right into the wall, tumbling to the floor with a thud. My ankle felt as if it were broken in ten places, burning like a match, and it took all I had to hold in the scream.

One of the alions disappeared back into the other room. The other two trotted off in an unexplored direction. Penelope emerged a second later. She found me on the floor. "Nice work, dude. You okay?"

"I may have busted my ankle."

"Really?" She knelt down. "Can you move it?"

I attempted to rotate it. It popped in a blaze of pain. "Shit . . ." I breathed through the throbbing. Hard footsteps grew louder, coming our way. "You know what, I can hop, it's all right." She helped me stand on one leg. Slowly lowering my foot to the ground, I put pressure on the ankle. It wasn't as bad as my initial diagnosis. Not used to taking damage in real life, my sense of exaggeration played a part in the severity of the injury. That, combined with a low threshold for pain, made a minor ankle roll into broken bones. "I think it was mostly shock."

She eyed me, worried. "Maybe you just need to work it out. I have to do that all the time in basketball. Come on." I pocketed her knife before we hurried off in the opposite direction that the two alions had gone. Limping, the pace was slower than before.

More and more alions started to fill the halls, as if we were traveling to the heart of the operation. On the verge of hysteria, I swallowed my fears, clearing my throat every other second. Eventually we came to a pentagonal room bustling with alions. Consoles encircled a pit in the center of the room, where a low table stood, brimming with electronics. Bright, colorful buttons and switches and displays were everywhere in the room. The wall opposite from where we entered looked like one giant screen.

"It's the Tactical Operations Center," I whispered.

"A real TOC of an alien ship . . ." she said with awe. "We should probably get out of here . . ." Despite the sense of her words, neither of us moved towards the exit, but instead ventured deeper into the action.

Dodging the massive alions, we crept across the room, my ankle better now that the soreness had worked itself out, just like Penelope said it would, and I no longer favored my left leg. The wall display was mostly black, with hundreds of tiny blue dots and tiny green dots near bigger multicolored dots. Almost all of the dots were on the right side of the wall. Foreign symbols marked the screen by the bigger dots.

Penelope's mouth dropped. "It's outer space," she observed. "The multicolored dots must be planets."

A cluster of blue and green dots surrounded a planet. An alion stepped forward and touched the planet. The screen changed, focusing on the cluster. Suddenly, feed from another ship appeared, under fire from other foreign ships. A face of an alion replaced the stream. A jarring growl came from the alion on the display. "Rark kak—" The screen cut out, then reappeared. "Roc—" The screen cut in and out several times, as the alion on the other side communicated with the alions on our ship.

From the pit below, a supremely large alion, with stripped fur patches displaying scarred battle wounds, pressed a button with a humanlike finger and replied to the figure on screen. The growl within its voice hurt my ears. The screen flashed black, then returned to the map of space. The blue dots retreated away from the planet where the two colors grouped.

"What do you think that was about?" Penelope whispered.

"I think they're at war, and those dots are ships. War maps usually have two colors for opposing factions, at least in video games."

"The old red versus blue," she laughed. "Or in this case, green versus blue."

"Right . . . There are so many dots though, so many ships . . ."

Puzzled, she watched the retreating blue dots. "If they're at war, why are they here?"

I shrugged. "Dunno." I appraised the alion down in the pit again. "That must be the admiral of the ship."

Penelope nodded. "Wouldn't surprise me, the ugly beast is huge."

I maneuvered out of the way of an alion as it scurried from the pit over to a console in front of the wall screen. The map shifted to concentrate on the upper left corner. A planet there rotated with two blue dots around it, one of which, the larger of the two, flashed continually. Several smaller, light-blue dots crossed over onto the planet itself, as if they were inside the atmosphere.

Penelope walked over. I pointed up at the planet I was scrutinizing. "I think that planet up there is Earth, with the one really big blue dot and the mass of little dots. I think those blue dots are ships in space and the little ones are the ones under the atmosphere."

"What makes you think it's Earth?" she asked, squinting at the planet.

"The biggest blue dot is the only one flashing, so I assume that's the ship we're on, the mothership."

The alion at the console proved my theory when it selected the flashing dot and brought up footage from outside the outer hull, a live feed of the destruction caused by the explosion. Repair crews worked to mend the damage. The Admiral bellowed orders, and I imagined more crews being deployed from somewhere, doubling their efforts.

Across the room, an alion bellowed. The Admiral in the pit whipped its head towards a scampering subordinate and roared a command. The wall screen changed to a camera in the hall where we had escaped from our pods. Two alion bodies lay motionless on the ground. The one that had charged the door looked like it hit the metal with so much force that it crushed its skull. Another command was shouted from the pit. The screen changed to show a picture of an alion's face, along with several lines of their untranslatable symbols and an orange bar. It reminded me of my driver's license. The image disappeared, replaced with a second face and a red bar.

The furious displeasure of the Admiral permeated the room. The beast growled deep in its throat, then snapped an order. All the alions moved twice as fast as they had been going, their humanlike fingers tapping displays like a computer hacker in a movie attempting to break into the U.S. Defense System in under a minute.

The silver disk hung from Penelope's invisibility belt. The glowing red orb flickered a few times, but then winked out, as if it shut off. "The disk."

Penelope detached it from her belt. "They must've disabled it. The alion with the red bar must've been the disk's owner."

"Well, if they didn't know we were out before, they know now." I cleared my throat. Dodged another alion as it ran by. "We need to find another one of those."

"What we need is a map," she said. "A schematic of the ship. Otherwise it's going to take forever to find that hangar."

"Even if we found one, we'd never be able to read it. We need a disk to get us through security doors."

We scanned the room, the argument won for the meantime. All of the disks hung around the alions' necks; it would be impossible to steal them without notice. The alion at the nearest console changed the wall screen back to the image of Earth, and selected all the dots surrounding it.

The screen suddenly split into fifty or more cat faces. At the center, a large portion showed an alion that resembled the Admiral. The two chief figures discussed something, then all the rest of the alions in attendance roared, as if to answer commands given to them.

The map reappeared, and the alion at the console returned to the pit, speaking with the Admiral. "I think that's the Admiral's assistant," Penelope said.

"Could be," I said. "Though I didn't see it bring the boss any coffee."

She answered with a sarcastic laugh.

The table before the Admiral unexpectedly came alive, shaping into a holographic image of a recognizable city. "That's Toronto," I gasped.

"Maybe the Canadians will have better luck," she said, but not with much optimism.

Above the city: a ship equal to the one hovering over Seattle in a cloud-laden sky. From it, dozens of alion fighters flew in formation, until they met resistance in the air, Canadian fighter jets blasting shots at the alion vessels. The aerial skirmish lasted under a minute before all the jets were blown to smithereens—not a single human was left alive.

The hologram ceased and, strangely enough, it didn't seem like the alions cared one way or another about the victory, for they didn't cheer or celebrate in any fashion. They simply went on with what they were doing and that was that. Then, abruptly, the Assistant left his post, vanishing down a hall. "We should follow him," Penelope suggested.

"Seriously?"

She tugged on my shirt. "Come on."

I stood my ground, but she was already gone, around the corner and into the same hall as the Assistant. That left me with no choice but to follow. The alion sauntered along on the black grating, as if it thought its body untouchable, invulnerable. We tailed a mere meter behind it, weapons raised. We could have killed it if we wanted, and from the look of anguish on Penelope's face, I knew she was on the edge of pulling the triggers.

She resisted, though, her jaws rippling with tension.

"Hard to tell if it's a dude or dudette," I said in an effort to ease the palpable animosity—I didn't want her flying off the handle in the middle of the hallway so close to the TOC.

"What?"

"There's no junk that I can see on any of them. So either they're all females, or their, you know, stuff's on the inside."

"Or maybe they don't have the same parts at all," she said. "They could reproduce asexually."

"Gross."

"Not like that," she laughed. "It doesn't mean they do themselves."

"I know. You're not the only one who can tell jokes."

"I'd keep working at it."

"It's not set material," I admitted with a smile. "So you think there are no males or females?"

She rolled her shoulders with indifference. "Honestly, I don't really care right now. All I want to think about is getting off this ship."

I nodded. "Fair enough." Mission failed: if anything, I'd pushed her in the opposite direction, ratcheting up the tension. Neither of us uttered another word as we shadowed the commander's aide, avoiding other alions that passed, who offered deferential salutations to their superior, mostly in the form of crisp grunts.

Across the ship we went, to the Assistant's quarters. The halls were different from the rest of the ship, with five or six doors along each side, where I assumed other alions slept. The giant door to the Assistant's room closed behind us. The cat had a pillowy bed, shaped twice its size; it looked warm and inviting even to my eyes. The beast poured a glass of a clear amber liquid. It strolled over to a flat bench placed between a desk and the bed, straddling the piece of furniture lengthwise. Using one humanlike hand to type on a screen, it fiddled with the disk around its neck with the other. The orb at the disk's center glowed yellow.

"What are we doing here?" I asked.

"We need that disk," she replied.

"Why that one?"

"Why not that one?" she snapped. I didn't have a good reason not to take it, except that the massive alion scared me senseless. "It will open all the doors, it will have the highest access, next to the Admiral. Who knows what we can do with it, maybe we'll need it to access the hangar bay."

"How are we gonna get it from the alion?"

Penelope extracted the Pacifier from her thigh holster. "There are four darts left. We know that's enough to kill and that they make almost no noise when shot. Seems like it's the best way to spend them."

"I don't know," I said. "Shooting an officer has its downsides, too, like the fact that somebody will come looking for him in a hurry."

She ignored me. The Assistant shifted its head towards her, aware of something, if not our presence. It swiped the air as she jumped back a step. The long, deadly claws struck nothing but empty space. The alion gave a halfhearted growl, then returned its attention back to the screen, sipping from the glass.

One dart: the alion leapt up in surprise. Penelope pumped three more tranquilizers into the beast, emptying the magazine. The Assistant stepped back, teetered, shook its head in confusion and dismay, and after one more step, toppled over.

The door to the chamber slid open. Spinning, I jumped in the air, gun raised. A smaller alion entered. The beast studied the room and its friend as the door shut behind it. The darts, invisible to the newcomer's eyes, conspicuously stuck out of the dead alion. My brain, however, forgot this, and my nerves hit the panic button.

Full of trepidation that the new alion would discover us, I aimed the foreign gun at its enormous head, then squeezed both triggers with all the might in my fingers. The canisters rotated like circular saws; the magnetic coils hurled twenty black globes into the beast within a mere breath. _Fwuhp-fwuhp-fwuhp._ I exhaled, letting go of the triggers. The force from each shot propelled it backwards, until it hit the wall, collapsing in a heap of stinky flesh. Blue poured out like rivers.

The shots from the weapon had been relatively quiet to the rate of fire, but it was still enough to draw attention to any alion walking by, maybe even farther. It was hard to guess what they could pick up with their cat ears. We didn't know how far away their sensitive hearing could detect our ruckus, if they could at all with the weapon cloaked under the invisibility shield.

We didn't wait around to find out. I wrenched the yellow disk from around the Assistant's neck and threw up a little afterwards. "I wasn't made for this kind of stuff." I spat a few times and wiped my mouth clean.

"Surviving?" Penelope asked as she climbed atop the desk and studied the paneled ceiling, which reminded me of a school ceiling, except with bronze sheets between the strips. She began poking the solid material.

My throat was so dry that it scraped when I swallowed, and I swallowed a lot, to the point where it felt like blood-blisters were about to burst along my esophagus. "If that means killing alions, then yeah, surviving. I don't have the stomach to keep doing this, the real thing. Nerves are wringing my gut so much it feels like they're going to split."

"I think it'll get easier," she said. "I hope it'll get easier."

I stared at the puke in the corner of the room, shaking my head.

Every panel she tried to lift defied her. "You're not the only person to throw up after taking a life, human or otherwise."

I sighed. "It's not about killing them, it's about facing them—my heart pounds, my throat constricts, and my nerves go crazy."

She eased off the workstation. "Help me move this." We scooted the desk to the left, and Penelope tested more panels. "The same thing happens to me. You just have to fight through it. You're not quitting on me, are you?"

"'Course not," I said. "I'm with you all the way."

"Good. We can still make it to a hangar. And now we know the guns work—we can take out a few alions if we have to." At the edge of the room, a panel popped up, unsecured. Her arms shook as she slid it to the side.

"Always looking on the bright side of life, eh?" I touched the screen of the Assistant's computer, but I couldn't read anything, which made it impossible to navigate. I quit when I realized it was utterly hopeless.

"Better than the dark side," she said. "Can you boost me up?"

"Sure." The wide desk allowed for both of us to stand comfortably. I wrapped my arms around her legs. "Ready?"

She grabbed hold of the edge of the ceiling. "Yep."

My arms and knees shaking, I hoisted her with all the strength left in me. She pulled herself into the duct, just as my knees buckled. I fell flat on my ass.

"You okay?"

I raised my eyes to her. "I don't know anymore . . ."

"No time for talk like that. Get up here, and toss me the guns." She offered me her slender hands. "I'll help pull you up." Huffing, she strained lifting my weight, her neck muscles popping. Once far enough in, I collapsed, and she fell back, giggling, slightly hysterical.

"What's so funny?" I asked.

"I feel like an assassin from a movie or something," she answered.

"I guess life really is unpredictable." I gave her an exhausted smile. "My mom always said that."

"She was right. We probably never would've met if the alions hadn't come," she mumbled.

My eyes lingered on her jean pockets as she turned around and planted herself against the left wall. I slid forward and pushed up, situating my body next to her. "Well, you never know. Maybe we'd meet at the bank after you ask to borrow my pen?"

"Is that a Cake reference you're pulling out?"

"Indeed it is," I laughed.

"My jacket isn't all that long."

"I think I can live with that."

"You should put the panel back," she said, grinning.

"Good idea." I reached over and slipped the panel into its place. Goddamn it was heavy though. She was strong, that much was clear.

The ducts, made for alions, spanned a meter high, if not taller, and a meter wide. We could move around easy enough. I returned to my spot next to her. "They're gonna find us soon. We've left a trail ten klicks long."

"Yeah," she said with the weight of an anchor pulling her to the depths of the abyss.

We locked eyes for a moment.

I cleared my throat. Damn, stupid, annoying tic. Why wouldn't it stop?

She leaned closer, our shoulders touching.

What's she doing? Is she trying to kiss me? Now?

Nervous, my mouth trembled. I had never kissed anyone before. I didn't want to disappoint her with my cracked and dehydrated lips, not to mention my fetid breath. She really was brave. Or delirious.

_Man up_ , _Son_ , Dad said. But this had nothing to do with manning up and everything to do with dying. Dying a virgin was one thing; dying without kissing a girl, that was another, and this was my chance. Was it a pity kiss? Maybe. But that didn't matter and I kicked those thoughts to the back of my mind.

You can do this. You can kiss her.

And then desire took hold. I leaned over until our dry lips grazed. _Magical_ was all that came to mind, completely magical. No part of me believed the kiss was really happening.

She pressed harder upon me, and I slid against the wall. I threw out an arm to brace myself against the duct floor, but my hand didn't touch what I had expected.

Thick fur tickled my fingers.

At that moment, I knew the end had finally come.

#

IN MY PERIPHERALS: a flash of blue light in the main part of the store.

"Did you see that?" I spun on my heels.

"The blue light?" Habi asked. He halted and turned back.

"Yeah. Where's Blue and Penelope? I thought they were right behind us."

"Guess not." He jogged over to the door leading to the front room.

I followed. Three alion corpses lay on the floor like smelly boulders. I covered my nose and surveyed the room. There was no sign of either one. "They're not here."

"Darrel? Penelope?" Habi yelled. "Where are you guys?" He crept from bed to bed, throwing up sheets as he searched under the frames. Soon he was frantically tossing bedding towards the back of the store as he made his way to the front, shouting their names the entire time. I zipped into the mall, checked both directions. Nada.

When Habi checked under the last bed, I stopped beside him. "Hold on, let me check the trackers." My phone confirmed what I'd already suspected: they were gone. "They're not within forty klicks." I spotted tears rolling down his flushed face.

"I don't understand . . ." He plopped down on the bed. "They killed the alions, and we have the SIM . . ."

"Somehow they bypassed the SIM. I don't know how they did it, but that's the only explanation." I sat beside him and placed a gentle arm around his shoulder. "They're probably up on the ship above Seattle."

His fleeting tears abruptly quit. "Then that's where we have to go."

"How?"

"What's going on? What happened?" Amanda's serious voice echoed in the open expanse.

The sweet voice of Jane followed. "Where's Penny?" The two rushed to our side, eyes seeking their sister as they ran. Without a trace of Penelope, Jane started to sob uncontrollably, devastated by her sister's absence. When we told them they were gone, she broke down, screaming for Penelope.

Blue had been good at comforting them. I on the other hand had no inherent motherly or sisterly tenderness; it was hard for me to console them. Surprisingly, Jacob pushed Jane into his stomach, her tears soaking his shirt. He patted her on the back. "It'll be okay, Jane." His voice was not as soothing as Blue's, but it worked. It was easy to see that Jane needed Penelope most of all, the poor girl a broken mess without her loving presence.

"We should leave," I urged. "No telling how many alions are here."

Jacob lowered his eyes to me. "Not very good with children, are you?"

"She's right," Habi spoke up. "If more are roaming around, it won't take long for them to find us."

I smiled at Habi for defending me. "Look, I'm sorry if I sound like a hardass. I'll try to be a little gentler in the future, but right now, we have to get moving or we'll die here."

Jacob clenched his jaw. He gazed down at the crying twin. "Jane, we have to go now. We'll find your sister, I promise, but right now we have to go." He picked her up with trembling arms and shuffled off towards the back. Amanda strode behind him, as Habi ran ahead, and I tailed them all.

As I passed the shotgun and assault rifle, I noticed the strange weapon in the alion's clutch. Wrestling the gun from the alion's death grip, I inspected the ammunition, which wasn't a bullet but some sort of tracker. It hit me then how the alions took Blue and Penelope despite their proximity to the SIM. I dropped the devices, collected the guns, and hurried after the group.

Habi was holding the exit door open by the time I caught up. Dark rainclouds frowned upon us in the early morning sky, promising to weep beside Jane for the day. Stopping at the edge of the curb, I stashed the guns in the weapons bag, then scanned the lot for more viable rigs than the truck. "There's a bus." I pointed south to a bus with a large banner for Intercity Transit spanning from front to rear.

Habi narrowed his eyes at me. "A bus, really?"

"You're right, bad idea." Examining the lot again, an alternative popped into my head. "The scooters!"

"The what?"

"I remember seeing it on the directory. There's a scooter store on the south side of the mall. They'll be easier to maneuver on the roads. Come on." I waved them down the sidewalk to the south entrance. The front of Wally's Wheeler World, made up of large plate-glass panels, lay in ruins, the panes shattered. Perhaps the same people who unlocked the mall drove away on a brand new scooter, too. We found three perfect rides on the far right end, one red, one teal, and one black. The beautiful two-seaters twinkled even in the dull light. "Look for the fobs."

We spread out behind the counter and into the office, where Jacob eventually located the starters in a locked file cabinet, which Habi pried open with a knife. Yay teamwork. My pulse played its beat in my ears, and I kept glancing up at the front, hoping no alion shadows graced our presence. Once loaded, Amanda climbed on the red scooter behind me, helmet strapped in place, while Jane hopped on behind Jacob, leaving Habi to attend to most of our gear in his spare seat. My chinstrap bugged me, but any looser and the helmet would fall off, so I shoved the irritation to the back of my mind. I powered on the motor and clumsily maneuvered out of the store and into the parking lot. It was going to take some practice to master the steering.

Habi pulled up beside me. "We still going south?"

"I don't know of a better plan. We have no way to help Blue and Penelope, but maybe with Jacob's father's help we can find them and get them back."

He sighed and revved his motor, which wasn't more than a muted whine. "Sounds like a lot of hope."

"Hope is all we have right now."

He grinned. "All right. Back to I-5?"

I nodded. "Second tier." Jacob rolled out first, then Habi followed, and I took the rear, having Amanda watch our backs. Eager for the task, she monitored the streets and sky like a bird of prey.

During a bathroom break, I explained what happened to Blue and Penelope, how the alion had shot them with a device to get around the SIM blocking their abduction technology, and that the machine was still working. This, of course, did little to reassure the twins. In all truthfulness, it did little to reassure my mind as well.

"Why don't we try an airport?" Habi said a few hours later. We'd pulled off to the side of I-5 for lunch. The journey had gone a lot smoother on the scooters, though it was still slow, bypassing the dead vehicles. All in all, it beat the hell out of walking.

I jerked my head to the side and ambled towards a convertible ten meters away, Habi at my hip. "What about the twins, bromigo?" I asked once we'd distanced ourselves enough. "We can't abandon them. And even if we managed to find a pilot at an airport, you really think they would fly us to the ship? And even if they were melted enough to help us, how would that go? Two teenagers against what, a zillion alions? Those are insurmountable odds."

"It's a long time for them to be up there, alone. What if they tor—"

"We don't know what they do to the taken. Let's not assume anything right now. I just want to focus on getting us down to Pasadena."

"We both know it's not anything pleasant. More than likely—"

"I know, Habi. I know."

"Well, do you think we should try a different road?" He didn't wait for me to answer. "We could revisit the one-oh-one idea. We both voted for it."

"I'd rather stay on a route Blue and Penelope have a higher chance of finding us on, you know, should they escape."

He rested his hands on his hips, probing my thoughts with a hard stare. "Yeah, that's the logical option, sure. But I'll be honest, I'm starting to get a little jumpy being on I-5." He dug around in his jean pocket, as if fishing for something. He sighed. "I just wish we could go to the beach and forget about all this shit."

I gave him a sympathetic frown. "I do too, but we can't . . ."

Our conversation died and didn't pick up again for the rest of the day. Mom and Lilly consumed my thoughts. Oh how I missed Mom's criticisms on every little thing I did. I never thought I would, but I did. _A lot._ She'd stand in my bedroom doorway: "You missed a point on your calc test." At dinner: "You missed a few chords when you were practicing today. Your recital is on Saturday, don't forget. I think you should practice another hour tonight." She was always pushing me past my limits, to go further, harder. To be better.

I missed the sound of her soft voice. The way she laughed when Lilly did something silly, like when she'd lie on her back and paw the air for attention, as if she were running upside down. And life before: school, homework, video games, snacks, choosing outfits that fit my mood, worrying about my hair, worrying about grades and slacking off, and about Habi's dad smacking him around. All that was gone now, some of it for the better, but some of it made me bite my lip in anger.

How long could a person hold in all that emotion? Termites were boring through my wall of stoicism, threatening the whole mental structure. I wanted to let it collapse and cry into Habi's shoulder. _Not now. Just keep driving. For them._

When night struck, we didn't pull off into a city, as that hadn't worked so well the last few times. We found a commuter bus and set up camp inside its heavy-duty shell.

I glanced back at Jacob. He was sitting up, staring at the lights outside, shivering. The twins slept, huddled together in the seats across from him.

"You think he's all right?" I asked Habi.

He studied Jacob. "His skin is pretty pale. It looks like he's getting sick."

"That's what I was thinking. I thought he was doing better, but it's obvious he needs more sleep." I grabbed a granola bar from a food pack. The wrapper was noisy as I peeled away the artificial skin. "I hope it doesn't get bad."

He sighed. "And if it does?"

"We find a pharmacy."

"And pray that someone is still there who knows something about medicine?"

I nodded. I had no words. The rest of the night went by without any disturbances. Habi wrapped his arm around me as I leaned against his shoulder. I stared out the window for long gaps, periodically drifting with heavy, heavy eyes.

Sleepless, I lit up Habi's wristwatch, which he never took off. 1:17. _Ugh!_ _This night will never end._

He stirred, squinting in the brightness. It vanished a second later. "Sorry," I said.

"That's okay, I wasn't really sleeping," he lied.

"Your drool says otherwise," I laughed.

He wiped his mouth. "Can't sleep?"

"Not really," I replied. "I just keep replaying everything that's happened. It's just all so unreal. I mean, we crashed a bus, escaped a biker gang, and have been killing cats from space left and right. How fuckin' insane is that?"

"Language, young lady. Language," Mom said, as if she were right beside me, alive and well, parenting as usual. _Sorry, Mom. I'll work on it. I promise._

Habi yawned. "Insane— _and_ lucky."

"I don't know how much more we can take . . . how much _I_ can take."

He dug into his right jean pocket and pulled out an Army Ranger figurine from _Death Squad_. He was always painting figurines and had quite a collection.

"Your lucky charm," I said, surprised. "You brought it."

"This too." He pulled out a flash drive. "When I left my house, I didn't know if I'd ever be back, and I couldn't leave my short stories behind."

"All your horror pieces?"

"Yup," he said. "With a PDF copy of _Dead on the Run_ in _Cemetery Dance Magazine_." He replaced the flash drive, then held out the figurine in front of me. "Take it."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because you need the luck that Colonel Blackwater gives," he answered, pushing the figurine into my palm. "And as long as I'm with you, I'll still have some of it." He kissed my forehead. "You can take more than any of us," he whispered. He stroked my hair as I cried into his chest. Release, at last. I poured it all out and wrung the rag dry. The world was crushing me like a trash compactor and I struggled to breathe. I could only remember crying so hard one other time, a few days after Pops died, but this felt like a step beyond that, my body seized by grief and despair so absolute its end didn't seem possible.

Habi rubbed my back through it all. How long did I cry on his shirt? A decade, at least. Drained, I fell asleep a short time after the waterworks shut off. The sun crawled over the Cascades in the east when I woke. I could see Mount Rainier, clear and snowcapped, dazzling in the morning light.

Habi twitched awake. "Sorry. I didn't mean to jerk like that."

I smiled up at him. "We all twitch these days. I'm sorry I jabbed your stomach during the night." I had really elbowed him in the gut.

"Forgiven. Are you hungry?" He stood up and stretched.

"More than a bear fresh out of hibernation."

He laughed. "I don't know if we have enough food to appease that kind of appetite. We do have delicious turkey jerky, a hearty morning breakfast." After plucking a few pieces for himself, he offered me the bag.

"What else could I want? I certainly don't want nice warm waffles."

"Cockwaffles?"

"Not going to let that one go, are you?"

"Not a chance," he said, smiling.

I wanted to kiss him for lifting my spirits, but the others shifted awake. The twins ran over and seized their own breakfast, munching down peanut butter chocolate bars. Jacob didn't move. He just stared at us, sweating and shivering.

I walked back to give him water and jerky. "Hey, you okay?"

He gently rocked back and forth. "I think I'm getting sick. It feels like I'm getting bronchitis. I've had it before, the doctor said it was asthma-induced bronchitis."

"Yeah, I've had that before, too. You need steroids," I told him. "Which, unfortunately, we don't have, or antibiotics if your lungs get an infection. I don't know when or where, but we lost the bag of medical supplies."

"Guess I'll just have to tough it out. I'll be fine in a few days, no problem." He gave a sliver of a smile and accepted the water but shunned away the food. "I'll eat something later. I'm not in the mood right now."

"All right, but you have to eat," I pressed him. "Even if you don't want to."

He nodded. "Yeah, yeah. Don't worry about me, Mom."

I stared at him, unsure if he was kidding or delirious. Deciding on the former, I laughed it off. "Are you going to be all right to drive?"

"Yeah, but maybe Jane should ride with Félix, you know, in case I keel over." He whipped out a sarcastic smirk.

"Good point, we don't need both of you dying," I joked back. After we ate, we powered on the motors and headed down the highway. The day crept by slowly, irritation getting the better of me. We had to stop half a hundred times to squeeze through gaps too narrow to drive past. At one point I thought it might actually be faster to hike the rest of the way. In the afternoon, Jacob began coughing, softly at first, but then it morphed into a hacking, lung-puncturing cough.

The entire time I couldn't shake how we'd left the med bag behind somewhere. Even if antibiotics were just a precaution for Jacob at this point, you never knew when you'd actually need them, and they were probably the number one required medical drugs for survival in any major catastrophe. An epic fail on our part. On _my_ part. I was determined to not let a slip-up like that happen again.

We hit Vancouver by seven. It was the last major Washington city before the border into Oregon. The lanes grew too dense and unyielding, and no one possessed the energy to battle on. Amanda pointed out another bus to sleep in for the night, and we had dinner huddled over a vent, the heater dispelling the frosty March air.

Out the western windows, I could see lights on for kilometers and kilometers. As the sun drifted lower, more popped into view, the buildings as bright as torches.

Without warning, all the lights flickered.

"What's going on out there?" Habi asked.

An alarm belled from the bus speakers. Then a woman's voice followed. "Power failure. Connection to electrical-relay plants severed. Batteries switched to secondary power source. Check dash for charge levels."

"Look!" Habi pointed out the window. The city's skyscrapers became massive black towers of portending doom. Within a blink, all the lights vanished, and we were drowned in a sea of darkness. "You think it was an EMP?"

"Couldn't be, the heater is still on," I said, letting the hot air blast my hand, then pointed out a few buildings reviving as back-up generators kicked on—temporary power sources that would only last a short time. "They must've shut down the solar stations." I cursed when the realization struck. "That means the electricity stations are dead, too, which means we won't be able to drive the scooters all the way to Pasadena if we can't charge them." I searched for hope in his chocolaty black eyes, but there wasn't any, only misery and ache.

"We'll find a way to get there," Habi said, his voice faint. "If we have to walk, then we have to walk."

Amanda grabbed her sister's hand when the other twin started to cry. "We're going to get Penny back. We'll never give up, I promise you." Somehow, someway, she possessed confidence beyond any of us. A hope also glimmered in her eyes; hope that her sister would be rescued, if not by all of us, then by her boldness alone.

I glanced at the world of shadow beyond the windows, then back at the twins. "She's right, Jane, we're never going to give up."

She looked up at me with tear-soaked cheeks. The word that left her mouth tore at me all night. "How?"

An hour later, alone at the front of the bus, I brooded over the vague line of assurance I'd given her. _How? How can you do the impossible, Maggy?_ Habi sat down beside me but spoke nothing. By his woeful expression, the same question plagued him. In addition to the problem of how to rescue Blue and Penelope, Jacob was becoming progressively sicker, and apart from scolding him to drink water and take NSAID's to lower his fever and reduce the inflammation, there was nothing I could do to help him any more than those abducted. The thought left a boiling bitterness in my stomach that festered in the silence.

"This is going to be a long trip," I shattered the quiet, unable to take it.

"It's already been a long trip, and it just keeps getting longer and longer . . ."

I leaned into his shoulder. "You okay, bromigo?"

He rubbed his face in his hands. "I'm exhausted. And the sad truth of it all, the longer we're out here, it's only going to get worse."

Jacob coughed in the back. "Then let's hope we're not out here much longer." I got up and scooted into the aisle. "I'll go check on Jacob. Try and catch some winks."

He yawned. "Sounds good, bramiga." Neither of us desired to have a serious discussion about survival.

I offered Jacob a green pain pill. "You doing any better?"

His eyes were sunken in and discolored. "No." He swallowed the pill without protest.

"I didn't even know you were sick, and then . . . what happened?"

Jacob continued to shake as he talked. "I've had a cold the whole time, I'm just pretty good at hiding it. This end of the world business hasn't helped, or all that alcohol, and what we're getting, it's not real sleep. I've got one eye half-closed and the other one open, you know?"

The darkness stole my attention, the surrounding void sucking us in like a black hole, and none of us would escape it. _How could anyone sleep when doom is licking its chops out in that?_ I returned my gaze back to Jacob. "It won't always be like this, there's got to be a safe place somewhere, a place where we can actually sleep again."

"Do you honestly believe that?"

I brushed off his pessimism. "We need to get you some medication tomorrow. Do you remember what you took the last time you had this bronchitis?"

"Something 'romycin' . . . and 'pradnisone,' or something close to that. They gave me steroids and antibiotics. Which is which, I don't remember."

"The 'romycin' is the antibiotic," I said confidently. " _Prednisone_ is the steroid."

"Yeah, that's it," he said, as if he remembered all of a sudden.

"We'll get those tomorrow then. Can't let you get pneumonia on us." I thought about patting his leg, but chose to hand him a full water bottle instead. "I'll leave you alone so you can try and get some sleep."

He smiled, then broke out a sharp cough. "Thanks."

I peeked over at the twins. Jane had cried herself to sleep shortly after our glorious dinner, and Amanda slowly trailed her sister into dreamland. They were slumped against each other, warmer than the rest of us.

I sat next to Habi. He was staring out into the blackness that had swallowed the globe. "So do you want to look for a pharmacy?" he asked.

I locked a hand in his. "That hospital on the hill in Portland will be easier to find. We should just go there. It's not too far."

He squeezed my palm. "We shouldn't go into the city."

"It's right off I-5. Trust me, it'll be easier than it sounds." I returned his reassuring gesture.

"All right, but I don't like the idea of it, and it might be harder to get to than you think." Another yawn struck him. "I can't keep my eyes open."

Half a second later his lids were shut, and in the darkness, he was soon out. I peered at his fatigue-worn face and almost burst into tears. The weight of living, of surviving, it pulled and pulled and pulled.

And it would never stop pulling us down.

#

WHEN MORNING BROKE upon my swimming eyes, I crawled out of Habi's comforting embrace, and stretched out my legs, scanning the Vancouver skyline. So many buildings just sat there, cold and monotonous, as if something had stolen all their color during the long night. The solar panels didn't seem so green and alive, but more charcoal and dead, dead without their function to perform for the world.

"The days are growing grayer, or maybe it's just our moods," Habi commented. He stroked my back in a gentle massage.

"The world doesn't look right without lights . . . without electricity."

"The world doesn't look right without people," he responded. "Without animals." His hand froze in the middle of my back. "Are we going to make it, bramiga?"

I shuddered at the fear in his voice. His attitude had flipped a one-eighty since the electricity stopped working. "We have to protect those girls." My shoes squeaked as I spun around to face him.

"You didn't answer my question." He stared at me, still tired even after a night of rest. A kind of rest anyway. Light, fear-soaked, fidgety rest. Did that count?

"As long as we have guns in our hands, we'll survive," I told him.

Habi hung his head. "Darrel and Penelope had guns." His voice quavered, full of despair. "They had guns . . ."

"What do you want me to say? I don't know what answer you're looking to find, but I meant what I said." I grabbed hold of his fingertips. "We have to protect those girls, you understand?"

He nodded. "But what about Darrel and Penelope?"

"They're not dead," I whispered, tearing up. I let them slide down my cheeks. "We both know that." I swallowed back words.

Be strong. For them.

Standing, he pulled me close to his chest, tears dropping into my hair.

Neither of us said another word until Jacob woke up from a painful cough. His coughs were intensifying, increasing in both harshness and rapidity. At times, he even fell over, clutching the seat in front of him, yellow phlegm exploding out his mouth.

We ate breakfast together, gathering around Jacob. No one spoke. Hungry bellies growled fiercely. Done with what meager breakfast we could afford, we headed out on the scooters, the batteries near depletion. The I-5 bridge over the Columbia River proved the most deserted stretch of highway yet. The wide river flowed with life, its majestic beauty undisturbed, a remarkable sight in a world marred by tragedy. Wondering if the alions took all the fish, too, I noticed the flashing red light that warned of imminent power failure. Habi's scooter died first, midway over the bridge, and even though Jane and Amanda could've shared a seat, we decided to continue on foot.

"Can you carry anything, Jacob?" I asked.

He nodded. "I'm not dead."

"But you look pretty tired," Habi responded.

"We need this stuff, all of it." He bent over and grabbed a backpack, inhaler in hand. He'd been puffing a mist into his mouth every half hour, or so it seemed, as it was supposed to help his cough.

He was right though; we needed all of it. We had left so many bags in different places, on the run and out the door in a hurry. "We'll have to consolidate again." I started placing the bags we absolutely needed on the right side of the highway, and digging through others to make sure nothing essential was left behind. We had four duffels and three backpacks full of supplies. Habi handed Jane the duffel with blankets, and I gave Amanda Penelope's backpack with what food remained from their house. Jacob hauled the duffel with weapons and ammo, Habi bore his pack and the duffel of water bottles, which left me carrying the duffel of food from the Apocalypse Room and my own bag.

Portland: a city of bridges. Bridges spanned rivers and roadways everywhere within sight. It was nothing like Seattle or Vancouver, both the Canadian and American cities. The glassy green of the skyscrapers reflected in the sun, blinding glares of warmth. At first glance, it appeared that all of the city's buildings remained intact, which couldn't be said of Seattle. But I didn't know the city skyline at all, and numerous buildings could've layered the ground, scattered as rubble, out of eyeshot.

The Hill, a slope brimming with medical buildings, lay close to I-5, beacons of hope and promise, something we desperately needed. As I studied the view, the clouds hovering above the city drifted, parting for a second to show a glimpse of an alion ship.

"They're here," I reported.

Habi spotted the ship just before a cloud cloaked it again in a gray blanket. "Figures. Darrel and Penelope could've been taken there instead . . ."

I didn't reply. It was too much to think about.

Signs pointed us towards Oregon Health and Science University, and we transferred to I-405, taking the second off-ramp. Turned around, we hooked south on the overpass, past a park and electricity station, until we reached the foot of the Hill. Cars littered the streets at angles, crashing when their drivers were suddenly taken in the early morning.

Jacob coughed, wheezing with the duffel bag strapped across his chest and back. He clutched an inhaler in his left. "I'm okay," he answered in a weak voice when I asked him how he fared.

"Let's rest here." I pointed to a group of chairs surrounding a table outside a café. Jacob said he didn't need it, but no one else argued, so we stopped. The buildings of the hospital campus were close now, viewable above the tall trees that surrounded the Hill.

Jacob sat down and hacked up a glob of yellow.

"That's gross," Jane said.

"You're gross," Amanda taunted.

They started quarreling, poking at each other. "Enough," I said in a tone too intolerant for the dismal mood. They were only having fun.

They ceased their game and sat in silence.

When Jacob's breathing slowed, we started up the Hill again, leaving behind buildings for a long tree-tunnel road. Walking underneath dozens of sky bridges and passing half a dozen buildings, we found an unlocked entrance at the northwest end of campus. It was one of the taller buildings with a million green windows. Inside we found a reception area.

"Shouldn't the backup generators be on?" Habi drew attention to the lack of electricity at the hospital, the one place you'd expect it to be on even after the main grid went down.

"We don't have time to worry about that," I said brusquely. "Look for anything that says 'pharmaceuticals,' that'll be our best bet at finding something."

Habi ran to a desk and began searching through drawers. "Found a directory." I scrambled over to him from a desk across the walkway. "Looks like there's a pharmaceutical storage room on the third floor, and pharmaceutical labs on the tenth and twenty-fifth floor in this tower. There's a pharmaceutical lab on the nineteenth floor in tower J, which is pretty far from here. There are others—"

"Let's try the third floor first," I cut in. "You guys can stay down here; we'll be back in a few minutes."

Jacob was resting in a lobby chair next to Jane. Amanda watched for movement outside through the long rectangular window in the door. "I'll keep them safe," Jacob said.

"So will I," Amanda added. In the last few days, she had taken a liking to carrying around a pistol. She clinked the muzzle against the door, winking.

Habi and I headed up the stairs, cautious, with every nerve on edge. My heart didn't want me to explore, but Jacob required the drugs. I tried thinking positive, happy thoughts, but I kept coming back to Mike and the vision of alion claws pulling him out the window. So gruesome. So unbelievably fast how the night flipped from bad to worse. They could take anyone at any moment without us ever knowing they were close. Their steps were deathly quiet, like smoke floating in the air.

The third floor was as hushed as the first. Guns raised, we crept down a long tiled hall, its white reflective floor shining in the daylight. "Here." Habi pointed his gun at the room numbered 377. A blue PHARMACEUTICAL STORAGE sign hung by the door, directing traffic to the drug contents inside, and a glimmer of hope made my heart flutter as the door swung open.

I started shuffling through white containers. "Look for something that has 'romycin' at the end of its name, and another drug called prednisone." Inspecting each label led to immense disappointment. "I don't know what drugs these are, but what we're looking for isn't here."

Habi jerked up, throwing a bottle high, whipping around to the back. "Did you hear that?" His voice shook. "Did you? _Did you?_ "

My gun was up in an instant. "I didn't hear anything." The room had a dozen shelves three meters tall. With my back against the first shelf, I sidled along until I came to the end. Breathing heavily, I twirled around the edge, expecting to see an alion. I let out a long, long sigh. "Nothing here. Come on, let's try the tenth floor."

He fell in behind me as we ran for the staircase. The spacious Pharmaceutical Lab on the tenth floor stored twenty times more bottles of pills, and I had to employ the services of Liontamer to break in, but the axe made quick work of the door. "This is going to take forever," Habi remarked, staring at the rows upon rows that seemed to never end.

I picked up a container and read the label with vague awareness. "He could develop pneumonia if we don't find those pills."

Habi reluctantly gave in. We piled the inapplicable bottles and pills in the corners, away from the door. Mounds became hills and hills became mountains. "Time?"

"We've been at it for over an hour," Habi said, checking his wristwatch.

I started whispering "romycin" to remind myself what I was looking for, as all the labels jumbled together in my head after a while. Ten minutes later, I threw up my arms with glee. "Found it!"

Habi, rooting through bottles that had fallen on the floor, sat up on his knees. "Found what?"

"Er—Ery—thro—my—cin. Erythromycin. I don't know if that's right, but who cares, probably no one alive knows how to say it." The words hurt us both. They reminded us of the situation of survival more than creeping around the empty hospital campus did. They reminded us that we were on the brink of extinction. "There are tons in here, though, so it should be enough. Now we just need prednisone." Hesitation layered my voice. Slowly, we worked through the remaining bottles.

Near the end of the last row, Habi found a bunch of containers labeled prednisone. He tossed three bottles into his backpack.

A crunch by the door.

"Shh!" I threw out my arms and stopped Habi. We crouched in silence for a minute, listening with sharp ears, focused on the possibility of crushing steps.

Habi stood up. "Christ, this is getting old, bramiga. If they don't kill us, fear will."

I rose, wiped exhaustion away from my eyes, and stared. "Fear might be a better death, though," I said.

"An alion's claws would be faster," he joked.

As we approached the door, Habi scanned out the large windows to our left. He grabbed my elbow. "Down below."

When I peeped out the window, down on the street in front of the facility, I spotted an alion rushing away with something green clutched in its mouth, bleeding from one end, round like a ham with a white bone at its center. "Is that . . . a leg?"

"Looks like it's from an army soldier," he said.

The alion galloped off out of sight.

I turned for the door. "We have to get back to I-5."

"No argument here." Habi fell in behind me.

We were huffing by the time we planted a foot on the first floor. Jacob sat hunched over, elbows on knees, OMP2's against his cheeks, and his eyes dozing. Jane rested against his back, also asleep.

"We have to go!" I shouted. "Get up, we have to go!"

They jolted awake, puzzled and woozy. "You find anything?" Jacob asked, squinting at us. Jane slid off the chair to help Jacob to his feet, but she was small, and her strength did little.

"Yeah, bromigo. We found what you need." Habi rattled the bottles. "We also found what you don't need, an alion outside, running with a human leg in its mouth. We have to get the hell out of here. Now. This way." His severe voice carried a weight to it that bordered on eerie. Habi didn't have much heart for taking charge, but over the last few days he had been, with one or two lapses in his resolve like this morning. Right then, no one could help but comply.

Jacob took the recommended dosage, though we didn't know who the standard was set to. "If it kills me, it kills me," he said as we ran through the halls, heading towards an entrance farther west. "It seems like everything wants to kill me these days . . ."

It did seem that way. There were no breaks for the living, no comfort to be found, no assurances of a better tomorrow, just more fear, running, sweating, puking, and exhaustion waiting at the next sunrise. Sleep, a Catch-22 at the end of the world, was the one thing I wanted to do most so my body wouldn't shut down; but it was also the one thing I wanted to do least, out of terror that someone would catch us off guard. Either way, I was losing the campaign.

Jane's feet became tangled as her worn-out legs clashed. She tumbled elbows first to the linoleum floor.

Amanda offered her sister a steady hand. "No time for weakness now," she whispered to Jane.

"I'm not tough like you . . . I'm tired," Jane whined.

"We share blood, so you're tough enough. Come on!" Amanda yanked her sister up with a sore arm.

We had stopped to catch our breath as the sisters regrouped. Jane was growing paler as Amanda was turning as gray as steel—impervious and unconquerable. The entrance doors fought against our ten arms when we tried to push them apart, but they would not slide.

"Should we break them?" Jacob asked.

"Too loud," Habi responded.

I studied the doors. "There's no power, they should be easier to open . . . I don't understand."

Amanda went up to the seam where the doors met. "It's locked." From her pocket, she pulled out a switchblade with a bright blue handle, jamming it between the doors underneath the lock. Pushing up, the lock unlatched with a click. "See, no problem." Her black hair swished as she heaved the doors open.

What was this girl turning into? No time to contemplate.

The muggy air outside closed in around us as we swept by the doors and out into a parking lot. The sweat pouring down my back made me even more uncomfortable and tense. If only something would go right, just one thing. We found a path that led to the main road and ran down the Hill, resting at a bistro midway, after the tree-tunnel.

The scratch of digging claws echoed in an alley.

"Amanda," Jane cried, nervous. She clutched her sister's arm in torturous, eye-blurring, heart-wrenching fear. Her trepidation coiled in the rest of us, ready to spring in an explosion of screams and tears.

An alion jumped from a balcony three stories up. The beast landed nimbly on four burly legs of corded muscle, coated in silky fur, armored in a thick hide of anger. A roar churned our stomachs, the acid promising to eject in full force.

Jacob fired his OMP2's. The bullets barreled towards the alion in an implacable stream.

Jane shrieked, on the verge of deafening.

A second alion sprung over a fence to the side of the bistro, finding the ground near Habi. He squeezed the triggers in rapid pulses. The beast was a hard target, but finally Amanda and I added a few rounds.

Both of the alions collapsed in an ugly mess of blue blood. A third sprinted down the street, full bore. This one looked different from the others. Reflective black armor protected its chest and back region. A black helmet covered its head, with a yellow-and-red visor across the eyes. In its humanlike hands, it carried two objects that resembled guns, but with two barrels spread apart and large cylinders by the handgrip.

Black dots suddenly peppered the concrete in front of us. Fragments exploded in every direction. No blast of propellant punctuated the air, as if the bullets magically rocketed out of the guns, though the thunder of the supersonic rounds destroyed my eardrums when they passed.

Jacob retaliated with bullets of his own, yet incoming fire forced him and the twins to retreat behind a dead car, and I fell behind a car blocking the road, Habi ducking beside me. Bullets sprayed the area, penetrating everything but our skins, as if the alion meant to scare us instead of kill.

My hands shook, unable to bring myself to shoot under such heavy fire.

The alion focused on the others, giving me a window. I charged around the corner and clenched the triggers. Nada. Both were empty. Shit. In games, all you had to do was press "A" to reload. I dropped the pistols and grabbed the neo-plastic haft resting across my back, running like a lunatic—and I was—Liontamer raised above my shoulder.

The blade dug into the beast's neck but didn't sever it.

The alion wobbled, looking at me in surprise.

Habi took the opportunity to finish it off. "Christ that was close," he rasped. "We should never have come here. We should have stayed on I-5 and found a store south of the city." He scanned downhill. "Oh, frak me."

Two more ran at us.

"Behind the cars," I ordered, withdrawing Liontamer from the corpse. Blood dripped from the blade onto the asphalt.

"Reload," Jacob yelled to me, crouched a few meters away.

I nodded, retrieving my pistols, scrambling to exchange magazines.

Bullets began to bite into the cars again. Endless.

Habi peered over at me with a hopeless stare. _How are we going to get out of this?_ he seemed to ask.

I didn't know, but I wasn't going to sit on my ass to find out. Glancing down at the guns in my hands, the weapons shaking, I determined there was only one option available, one choice that made the most sense in this senseless world. I smirked back at him. _Like this,_ I answered. _Like this._

I popped up and pulled the triggers.

#

DOWN THE HILL, an explosion boomed, and more gunfire echoed in the street. Without warning, the alions burst apart in an array of blood, guts, and metal.

Motionless, I gazed at the scene, shocked to still be on my feet. I'd let it all go, accepted death, even embraced it—in the moment. Nothing remained of the alions. Two black holes marked where they'd stood.

Voices carried past, voices of men and women yelling curses. The clatter of boots filled my ears. Military soldiers, clad in camouflage uniforms and nifty black sunglasses, rushed by us.

"Secure those two points!" a woman shouted. Four soldiers ran off.

I was studying them when, with a start, I whipped to my left and saw a woman standing tall before us, her hair tucked cleanly under her helmet.

"You kids okay?" she asked, gazing down at us with brilliant blue eyes. Her smooth, milky skin was attractive, but toughness emanated from her austere appearance, with a straight back and chiseled jaw.

No one answered.

She knelt down. "Are you okay?" Her question, directed more at Jane and Amanda, earned the same results, until Amanda nodded.

"Are you here to save us?" The twin's eyes gleamed with renewed hope.

"That's right, kiddo. I am. We have to move, there are more of those things in the city. Can you run?" She stood, hefting up a long rifle.

We all nodded.

The woman who had shouted orders ran up beside us. "Private Burnhammer, are we ready to move out?"

Burnhammer nodded. "Yes, ma'am. All civvies are capable."

A man bolted up the Hill and halted at the commander's side. "Ma'am, we have multiple targets heading this way."

She nodded. "Assistant, move the squad out, we'll head up the Hill and cross west at Gibbs Street." The man took his leave, ordering others to their positions. As we stood up, she examined us. "I see that you're armed, that's good. Military code aside, you've got the right to defend yourselves, and I won't deny you that. If you need new weapons, just ask someone in the squad and we'll do our best to give you one."

So strange, a soldier telling us they'd give us weapons. Us, untrained teenagers—younger in the twins' case—who could blow one of their faces off on accident if one of our nerves tweaked at the wrong time. But that showed our reality, how perilous and precarious it was, determined by the ability to keep a level head.

Keep it together. Soldiers or no soldiers, we're not saved yet.

Amanda stuck out her hand. "I'm Amanda."

The woman smiled and took Amanda's hand in hers. "Hello, Amanda. I'm Staff Sergeant Henderson. It's nice to meet you all, but we have to get you out of here. If I seem harsh, I apologize in advance; it's just how it is. I want all of you to stick to Burnhammer here. She'll protect you and get you to where you need to be." She locked eyes with Burnhammer. "Private, congratulations, you've been field-promoted to corporal. Keep them in sight at all times. Got it?"

"Yes, ma'am!" Burnhammer said, saluting. "Thank you, Sergeant."

"Let's get the hell out of here." At that, Henderson went to the head of the squad as we started up the Hill again, and what authority or weight my voice once carried was stripped in a flash. Back to being a teen, right? Wrong. This Burnhammer might have been put on babysitting duty, but it was up to me to protect the group, to make sure they survived. Two men filed in after us. They glanced back constantly. One of them almost seemed to run backwards, and he did it as well as running forwards.

The road leveled out. An excited voice shouted over the radio attached to Burnhammer's arm. "Three tangos on approach. Check your six." A beep, then static.

"Inside! Inside!" Burnhammer shoved us into a medical building to our right.

Six soldiers took up positions within. More set up outside. I scanned and counted four. Then a fifth ran up behind an SUV.

Henderson spied the Hill, then she grabbed her radio. "Engage, engage." Her voice was twice as sharp as it had been just minutes ago.

The soldiers outside let loose a shower of death. The guns kicked out bullets at amazing speeds. A soldier hand-signaled to Henderson, who replied by making a loop with her index. The man dashed inside, breathing heavily, almost gasping. He whisked an inhaler from one of his many pockets. After, he reloaded his rifle.

The firing ceased and the rest joined us in the building. "They retreated, ma'am," a man, tall and lanky, reported.

Henderson gave a small, closed-mouth smile, pleased. "So they have some sense after all. All right, let's get our legs going, mine are getting stiff just looking at your idle asses. Move, move, move."

As Burnhammer pushed us out the door, I turned to Jacob, who was plodding along, with a face even more exhausted than he had shown over the last few days. "We're going to make it, see. Those pills will kick in and you'll feel better," I encouraged him.

He gave me the weakest smile. His lungs struggled to suck in air as he wheezed and wheezed. "I might faint."

His inhaler missing, I gave him mine. "Use it."

He complied.

The road curved right and finally we hit Gibbs Street. Henderson, on point, threw back her hand for us to stop as we came to a cross street. "The Connor Trail is at the end of this road, we can sweep back to the city through the woods."

North we went, along Southwest Ninth Street.

My legs grew tighter with every step, but the sergeant wouldn't let us rest. These soldiers had even more endurance than the ones I pretended to be online. It astonished me how they worked as a team, moving around, positioning themselves without voice commands. At the end of the road a narrow dirt path continued on, part of a giant maze of trails, mapped out on a signpost. Henderson raised her hand and curled two fingers as if doing air quotes and waved side to side. The squad entered the forest two abreast. Dense clusters of trees protected our sides, or so I hoped.

Yelling came over the radios and the squad halted. "Requesting backup—dent—high—terra—drive." Static overtook the line.

Henderson pressed a button on the side of her radio. "Repeat transmission. I say again, repeat transmission." She released the button and a beep followed.

"This is Sergeant Loritz requesting backup from anyone near Southwest Terrace Drive. We are pinned down in a dentist office. Crossroad is Southwest High Street. We have civilians. Repeat, we have civilians." A beep came a second later.

"Sergeant Loritz, this is Sergeant Henderson, we're a few klicks south of there. Hold on tight, we're coming for ya." She released the button. "Let's move."

"Candy bar waiting," Sergeant Loritz said, static cutting out a significant portion of his words.

"God only knows what that means," Burnhammer commented under her breath.

The trail was soggy, too slippery for my shoes to do much for stability.

The wide, thick-treaded boots of the soldiers dug into the wet earth, giving them superior traction and maneuverability. They kept us going at a quick pace, even after Jane fell several times. She hadn't said a word since the soldiers' arrival. Her eyes seemed distant. She fell again. Burnhammer clutched Jane by her arms and yanked her to her feet, guiding her forward.

The quiet of the woodland disturbed me even more than the quiet of the city. Complete, overwhelming silence that engulfed my senses. My head swam, unable to focus on anything in particular.

"You all right?" Habi touched my hand. "You're not looking so hot."

"Are you dizzy?" I asked him, sucking in a huge breath. Liontamer was starting to weigh me down, as if the axe were all of the sudden made of steel.

"A little," he replied. "We're just tired. These _real_ soldiers will get us to safety, and we'll sleep tonight."

Instead of sharing my doubts, I nodded. "You hear Jacob?"

Jacob slogged along at the rear, panting violently. Two soldiers kept our tails safe at his heels.

Habi glanced over his shoulder and eyed Jacob's stumbling steps. "Hard not to. You worried about him?"

"Aren't you? He's on the verge of collapse." I focused harder on the trail. Large stones occasionally rocked my ankles if I didn't keep a close eye on the ground.

"He'll be all right, we got him the medicine. Everything will be okay now."

His words sounded awful in my head. A threatening shadow lay hidden in them, too good to be true, but maybe that was just my skeptic nature. I swallowed, my throat dry and roasting. The air changed the farther into the trees. It grew hot and moist, and sweat dampened my entire body, my forehead worst of all. Trudging on, I reflected on the long journey from Bellingham, such a short distance expanded into a few lengthy, miserable days. My mind wandered and my thoughts fell upon Blue. My gut twisted in agonizing concern.

A couple of the soldiers talked amongst themselves in hushed voices as we slowed for a breather. I walked up to Burnhammer. "Hi, I'm Maggy." I stuck out my hand. I had never met a soldier, though I had imitated them enough from movie scenes.

"Hi, Maggy." She gripped my hand and shook. "Burnhammer." She let go and grinned. "That's quite an axe you have there. You must be pretty strong to lug that around."

"It's made from neo-plastic," I explained.

"Neo-plastic, that must have cost an arm and a leg," she replied.

"It was a birthday gift from my mom, and I imagine it was two legs."

Burnhammer laughed.

"Its name is Liontamer," I told her.

"Nice. Very apt. I see that it's seen some action."

The blue blood dripping off the blade left a trail behind us. "A few times, yeah," I said. "Can I ask you a question?"

She nodded. "Go for it."

"Who are you guys and what are you doing here?"

"We are Third Squad of the Second Platoon, most often called Shadow Stalkers. Our blood runs in the Charlie Company, Nine Hundred and Ninth Infantry Regiment, Second Brigade Combat Team of the Fifty-sixth Infantry Division, United States Army."

I gawked at her. "That's a mouthful."

"No shit, but don't worry, I write it more than I say it, and then it's all shorthand. But that's who we are, the Shadow Stalkers. Right, Stalkers?"

"HOOAH," the squad said in unison, keeping their voices under control. Even Henderson, the Squad Leader, had responded to the call.

"Been thinking of renaming ourselves the Cat Killers, though," a tall, barrel-chested man said, whose skin was as dark as night. He grinned, displaying luminous white teeth. "I'm going for the record. I'm guessing I'll have a million by the time the war is over." His voice was the lowest bass I had ever heard before, rattling my body.

"We'll see about that, Park," Burnhammer said, laughing.

"Were you out to rescue us?" I asked. I found their presence both welcoming and overwhelming, glad to be surrounded by them, but also nervous. I didn't want them to think of me as just a defenseless child, though that was probably what I amounted to in their eyes.

"We were ordered to collect medical supplies, and to bring back any civilians. You're lucky we found you when we did—twenty of those monsters were on their way up that hill."

"Twenty?" My voice cracked. I contemplated the outcome of twenty alions encircling us. It was not a pretty scene.

"You'll be all right now. Five thousand of the Fifty-sixth are waiting for us back across Skyline, secured at the White Water Tower. We'll get ya there before the sun goes down." Something about her voice made me believe her, made me trust her. "We'll kill every last one of these alien bastards."

"I call them alions," I said.

"What was that?"

"We've been calling them alions because they look like lions," I explained.

"Slick," Park chimed in, his voice shaking my chest. "We should report that to command. You'll be as famous as me for that one." He grinned again. "Though I like Pussy Cats from Hell, too."

"It's a pretty clever name," Burnhammer said. "Alions." She repeated the word a few times to let it ring in our ears.

"Toughen your tongues," Henderson ordered.

I looked up at Burnhammer, lost.

"She means we have to shut up and listen."

I nodded, focusing on the silence that encompassed us.

The noise of our feet in the muck grew. The heavy breathing of tired bodies was loud and noticeable.

My eyes fell upon Habi. He still looked lively despite the dark circles around his eyes. I had always thought him determined, and now it showed in his thin body, trudging on the squishy soil. He would keep me safe, and I would protect him at all costs—our unspoken oath to each other. For an instant, I daydreamed about life after the alions, a life with just the two of us living on the coast, reading books as we listened to the crashing waves. But the fairy tale disappeared as the squad hunkered down at Henderson's hand signal.

We halted.

A roar flew through the trees. Immediately Jane began shaking. Several more of the gut-wrenching roars hit our ears.

The soldiers were scanning every angle, vigilant.

From atop a small cliff, an alion pounced, claws out and jaws wide with the intent to kill. A woman jerked her rifle up and launched a stream of destruction that tore the beast apart. With the soldiers distracted, another beast sprung out of the trees, grabbing hold of a man in a tumble. He fired into the woods as they rolled off the path. Henderson took aim and blasted a hole right through the alion's ear. The soldier pushed the soon-to-be corpse away, the body twitching as it slumped down into a thicket of bushes. He raised a hand formed into an OK.

Ahead of the column, another alion attacked, firing its twin-barrel handgun. A soldier went down, pierced a dozen times. The alion never stopped, running right for me. I lifted one of my pistols and braced with my hand around my knuckles. The bullet shattered a tooth as it sunk into the back of its throat and out its neck. Fear nudged me to pull the trigger again. Its body failed at my feet, buckling to the mud, which splattered all over my dirty clothes.

"Well shit," a woman near the end of the column said. "I think we found another soldier to enlist."

Henderson and Burnhammer ran to the corpse of their fallen comrade. Henderson cursed. "Oh, Deter. Goddamnit. God _damn_ it." She tore off one of his dog tags hanging around his neck. She scanned the vicinity, cautious. "Specialist Deter is the last to die today, is that understood?"

"Yes, ma'am!" the squad returned in unison.

"Good. Now move your asses."

Amanda had a hand wrapped around Jane's stomach, and another across her mouth to mute her screaming. "It's okay . . . it's okay," Amanda soothed her sister. "They're dead now."

Jane struggled against her sister's strength, yelling furiously into Amanda's hand until she calmed.

Amanda let go. "I'm here for you."

Jane nodded, streams of tears wetting her clothes.

The soldiers moved us on. The path wound back and forth, meandering like a river. Soon our path met up with the Shelter Loop Trail, where we took a right, which then led us to the Sunnyside Trail.

"Nice aiming back there," said the same woman who remarked on my shots before. "I'm Corporal Fox."

I smiled at her, but I was too tired to talk.

"We're gonna need your ability to shoot in the future," Fox said. With a pat on the back, she sped up and left me alone.

Habi beamed with pride and gave me a thumbs up.

The minutes slowly passed. Finally, the trail ended and we emptied onto Southwest Broadway Drive. Henderson ordered the squad across the street and up a flight of stairs that cut across to Southwest Gerald Avenue. "The dentist office should be just a few blocks up." She regarded us with stern eyes. "Whatever you do, don't panic. Stay close to Burnhammer."

We halted at the bend in the road. Henderson snatched her radio. "Sergeant Loritz, state your situation."

"Roadway clear along Terrace. No tangos in sight."

"We're coming in from the west on Gerald. Repeat: golf, echo, romeo, alpha, lima, delta."

"Copy position, Sergeant. Soldiers are holding ground."

"All right, we're clear. Move out." Henderson began hand signaling.

Four soldiers crossed the road to the north side. Old houses lined both sides of the street. Burnhammer pointed to where she wanted us to cross Terrace Drive. "Go fast and low to the ground. Make yourself a small target."

Habi and I helped Jacob, and Amanda pulled Jane along, ducking, shielding their faces in fear.

I glanced up as a yellow ball, glowing like a million sparks glued together, streaked across the sky. The top of the three-story building exploded in a wall of yellow flame. Old red brick particles flew through the air, little comets of death that sought to pierce a thousand holes in our skin. Sections of the front broke off and fell to the road.

Above, five alion ships buzzed past, yellow balls destroying buildings, cars, trees, everything and anything. All that I could see was set afire. In the distance, skyscrapers—pillars of achievement that stood as a testament to the ends humans could engineer—collapsed into ruins, as though the alions were playing dominoes with some of the greatest architectural designs in the world. The ground shook with earthquake force. Plumes of debris gathered together to create one massive cloud that expanded in all directions.

Burnhammer yelled for us to stop as men poured out of the building.

"Back, back, back!" someone boomed, but I could barely understand the words as they became lost in the pollution of noise that swept by in an ear-penetrating rumble. Burnhammer yanked hard at my elbow. She threw Habi and me back towards Gerald. Within moments, the debris cloud surrounded us like the shocking desert sandstorms that occasionally showed up on the news.

Someone pushed me into the house across from where the dentist office had stood, down a staircase, and into a corner. A hand put a cloth across my mouth. I took hold of it and gasped in air. At times, when the dust parted enough, I could see a dozen or more bodies, all crowded together. Someone bumped me, possibly Habi, but I couldn't make him out for sure.

Boom after thunderous boom struck the world, louder than the cannon fired during Bellingham's Fourth of July celebration. I sat and waited, listening to the horrific noise, frozen in the most excruciating fear I had ever known.

#

HOURS PASSED. A wind slowly stole away the debris. Eventually the world of sight returned, and Henderson made sure everyone was okay and accounted for. Third Squad huddled around us, and encircling them were the survivors of First Squad and the other civilians, all packed together as tightly as we could manage.

Flashlights clicked on, blinding in the darkness of the basement. Henderson saluted a man with an austere face, sharp-jawed and stony-eyed. "Sergeant Loritz."

"Sergeant Henderson," Loritz replied with a salute of his own. "We've got three civilians. I've lost six soldiers to get this far, only four of us remain."

"We have to get back across Skyline," she told him. "And we've gotta move quickly. Wounded?"

Henderson's assistant walked up. "Nothing too serious, ma'am. No broken bones. We're good to move."

The Leaders discussed routes and their advantages and disadvantages. At Henderson's command, the squad made ready, prepared to defend each other to their graves. There was no time to talk to Habi or any of the others, as Burnhammer hustled us out of the house, motioning to the left.

My mouth gaped at the empty skyline. Instead of cloud-reaching towers, mounds of rubble lay before my eyes, misted in finer particles.

Habi rubbed my back. "Do you think we'll live through today?"

I didn't want to answer that question; there was nothing positive left in me. Burnhammer ordered us along. Habi jogged beside me. I turned to him, reaching for his hand. "I hope so." My faint, weak voice barely carried to his ears.

He squeezed my hand, a comforting squeeze that I thought I could've been all right dying in. I glanced around at the soldiers. They were tough, their faces afire with determination, almost as if unaffected by the annihilation of the city. But their eyes revealed that it did get to them—that they were human. Yet, they put it aside, composed themselves, summoned up strength and courage, and they carried on with perseverance.

I whirled around and saw Jacob laboring to keep stride, inhaler in hand. The next time Burnhammer motioned us down, while soldiers secured the area ahead, I tugged on her arm and got her attention. "How much farther? My friend"—I pointed at Jacob—"he's not doing so well."

"I've noticed. It's about four klicks until Skyline with the route we're taking. I'll keep him alive, don't you worry." She ran back and gave Jacob a water bottle. A minute later, an order circulated through the unit, and we ran on.

Four klicks? Four klicks was forever on foot. _You can do this, Maggy. For them. Be strong for them._

Broadway came under our feet once more, a wider two-lane road. My soles grew hot with each step on the blacktop. Blisters. Hurray. It felt like half the day went by before, at an intersection, Burnhammer motioned us up Southwest Humphrey, surrounded by trees. The streets were silent again, undisturbed by the racket of living creatures. I couldn't hear the footsteps of the soldiers. I couldn't even hear my own steps, and for a moment I thought I might have gone deaf again, but when I asked Habi, his voice assured me I hadn't.

We ran and ran and ran, and then we ran some more. My toes were bleeding for certain. A two-tiered highway appeared to our right, still intact, but dead and motionless. It chilled my blood to look at it, though I wasn't sure why it frightened me so much.

Sweeping the highway past a line of tall trees partitioning the roads, I noticed light-brown dots running along the top tier. "Alions!" I cried.

Burnhammer regarded the highway and spotted the beasts. She radioed Henderson, who was ahead of the column, out of earshot, unless she wanted to yell.

An army barricade came into view, standing between a massive intersection, where on- and off-ramps connected to the highway. Tanks, jeeps, and other vehicles waited behind the barricade. The highway curved towards Broadway, and on mighty legs, alions sprang from the raised road.

Both squads opened fire on the beasts. More jumped. They just kept coming. Enough of them survived the rain of bullets, regrouping, forming a line between the barricade and us. A scream informed the squads that more advanced from the rear.

We were trapped.

Habi and the twins huddled close to me. Jacob crouched a few meters down from us. I waved him closer, but he didn't move, rigid.

More soldiers opened fire on the alions in front of us. I wasn't sure, but I thought I heard gunfire from behind the barricade, and I hoped reinforcements saw our situation.

Burnhammer waved us on. I took Jane's hand, and Habi grabbed Amanda who, despite her fearlessness, was on the verge of tears, in the thick of battle, death all around, bodies dropping like flies at the onset of winter. The Third Squad pressed towards the barricade. Blood sprayed and splattered everything like a Red versus Blue paintball match.

Small bright yellow balls jetted from alion tube-weapons. Buildings and soldiers exploded. Cars erupted in fire.

From behind the barricade, soldiers approached, and crossfire became a threat. Within seconds, all of the beasts that had blocked our way had perished.

Threat eliminated.

"Go, go, go!" Burnhammer shouted.

For them, for them, for them!

I pulled on Jane but her legs were frozen. A car near us exploded in yellow fire, and I yanked so hard on Jane's arm that I thought it might break off from her scrawny body. I lifted her up and she wrapped her arms around my neck, squeezing. Habi and Amanda raced beside us. The world became heat and more heat, like my skin was abruptly set on fire, and someone was pouring gasoline over my head. Suffocating. Dizzying. Everything was happening so fast. Too fast to fully understand.

As we neared the barricade, I glimpsed behind as soldiers fired from behind whatever cover they could manage to come by.

Jacob had fallen even farther behind, close to where we had run from, ducking at the center of a group of soldiers.

_He's safe with them,_ I told myself. _Keep Jane safe. That's what I have to do. Keep going and get her to safety._

All of the soldiers had refocused their attention on the alions advancing up Humphrey. A soldier to the right of Jacob fell over, blood misting Jacob's clothes. I yelled for Jacob to run, but he made no reaction. The gunfire drowned out my feeble voice.

A soldier motioned Jacob to make for the barricade. Three soldiers covered him as he struggled to run.

When the twins were safely beyond the barricade, I turned again to watch the battle. Dozens upon dozens of alions charged up the road. _She's safe. Now go to him!_

Roars quaked the earth. Jane clung to my chest like a vise, her grip only tightening. I couldn't go back for Jacob with her sticking to me. The soldiers would have to save him. The first alion with a scraggly mane, resembling an adolescent male lion, galloped forth, holding a sleek silver tube above its head with its humanlike hands. It reminded me of a bazooka. Taller and wider than the other alions, it instilled a fear so deep my body would never stop trembling. It shot a blue orb from the tube, one that resembled the yellow balls, sparkling as it flew.

The blue orb struck Jacob in an instant. He froze as a field of brilliant blue light encircled him. He stood motionless. Veins of light blue crept towards his body from the surface of the barrier. The veins pulsed, as if shocking him, keeping him in place. Blue orbs hit the three soldiers defending Jacob. All of them paused in suspension, as if frozen in time.

In a surge of speed, other alions bolted for the four. As the beasts came within striking distance, the field vanished, returning Jacob to his normal state. By then, a paw clobbered his back, and five sharp claws pierced through his chest.

I blinked, unsure of reality.

Soldiers were suddenly everywhere. Screaming. Shouting. Firing weapons. How did the world go from sickening silence to eardrum-rupturing tumult? A soldier tried to steer me away from the chaos, and at first I fought, struggling to get across the barricade, to get to Jacob, but then someone twirled my body around. By Habi or a soldier, I didn't know, but we were running in the opposite direction, away from the gunfire, a burly man at my back, pushing me forwards.

All the events happened as though someone had hit the fast-forward button on my life, and one action led to another, then another, all without thinking, without control.

Before I knew it we were at the back of a heavy-duty truck far behind the barricade. Jane wasn't strapped to me like a vest anymore, and my knuckles were popping as I held Liontamer, screaming like a banshee. "Take me back! Take me back!"

The burly soldier ignored me.

The words were coming without restraint. Sorry, Mom, not this time. "What. The. Fuck." My voice, a furious stream of defiance, broke upon a stolid face and resistant ears. "Take me back!"

"I'm not the enemy, girl. Now get your ass in the truck."

"IQ, what are you doing?" Habi jumped to the ground from the truck's bed. "Stop! Stop!"

"Jacob's dead, Habi. Murdered. We have to go back!"

"What can we do that the soldiers can't?" He pointed at the twins, his cheeks flushed, his eyes pink and puffy. "We have to worry about Jane and Amanda. Remember?"

The soldier stared at me. "Revenge will come for us all, girl. Store your anger for when the time comes, and lash out then. Now is not the time."

His words struck me down. I fell to my knees, dropping Liontamer. I couldn't stop the tears.

The next thing I knew, I was in the bed of the truck, and we were driving away. I looked up with blurry eyes. Jeeps and tanks were following. Hundreds of them.

Habi wrapped an arm around me. I leaned into his chest, and his tears fell, soaking my hair.

I had never felt so fragile, so weak, so helpless.

At that moment, all hope vanished within me, and darkness swept my mind away in a tide of agony.

#

MY HAND SLIPPED over an alion paw.

I saw Penelope's eyes grow wide with terror.

Pushing me down, she snagged the alion gun resting against her left thigh. Awkwardly, she pulled down on one of the triggers and let loose a dozen deadly black globes.

The alion had nowhere to go. Trapped, its blood splattered the duct walls, ceiling, and floor, along with both of us. Blue smeared everything within sight.

I shuddered, dripping blood onto the floor. It ran down into my eyes and stung. The taste of copper filled my mouth. The foul tang mixed with foul thoughts of what swam between my teeth. I spat. Gagged. Stomach acid pushed up my throat. Before it ejected out my mouth it changed its mind.

Shaking, Penelope dropped the gun. "Everywhere . . ." Her faint and broken whisper barely reached my ears.

The alion twitched, struggling to breathe. A moment later, it lay dead, eyes open and staring intentionally at me. My stomach disliked the eerie gaze, so I crawled away, down to the end of the duct, where it branched off in a T-junction. "Come on," I choked. Cleared my throat. I really needed an inhaler, but since we didn't have one, my only option to calm my breathing was to get far, far away from the corpse.

Was it a corpse if it wasn't human? Dead animals were called carcasses, but the alions weren't mere sentient beings, they were capable of reasoning and possessed a high intelligence, so did that make them corpses . . .? How did my mind drift to that topic?

Penelope grabbed our gear and followed. "That was . . . unpleasant."

Her words pulled me back to reality. "You can say that again." I took the right at the T, and the section of duct went on out of sight, straight. "We should decloak and cloak again, just in case the blood can be seen."

After we recloaked, she said, "Did you see the tools it had in its belt? It looked like a technician." Her throat was dry and raspy. "It didn't even know we were there until it was too late."

"I didn't notice anything but the blood. Great reflexes by the way," I complimented. "I would've frozen up."

"No you wouldn't," she argued. "I've seen you under heat, you would've done the same thing."

I didn't even have the heart to give her a weak smile. We spoke no more as we continued on, without a clue where we were going, except that it was away from the corpse. Or carcass. The dead thing.

We crawled and crawled and crawled.

Scratches on my hands started to bleed. We finally stopped when I thought I was about to keel over.

I rested my back against the duct wall. Penelope sat across from me. "We should get some sleep," she said.

"Sleep?" I chuckled.

"Adrenaline will only take us so far."

I shook my head. "They'll be scouring the ship by now. It won't be long before they find us."

"You're probably right, but we've been up for who knows how long, and if we don't get some rest, we'll drop from exhaustion before we find a hangar."

"I'm not sure that I _can_ sleep. I'm not sure that I wanna even try." I looked over at her. She was covered in bright blue blood, now dry and peeling. "I think I'll keep watch while you sleep."

She laughed. "You won't last five more minutes."

I was panting, my eyelids were drooping, and my head was as heavy as a sack of potatoes. I knew she was right. "We'll see," was all I said.

#

I JERKED AWAKE. My own snoring startled me. I didn't know when I finally passed out, but Penelope probably had been pretty close in her estimate. With blurry eyes, I straightened up, squinting at her as she slept away, undisturbed by my roaring snores. My stomach growled. For a brief second I considered going back to cut a flank from the dead alion, but getting lost and separated from Penelope didn't score high on my survival list, and after further review, the idea of choking down a piece of rotting flesh churned my stomach.

Studying the duct, I noticed the ceiling differed from the flooring, the block panels welded into long solid strips, whereas the flooring was cut into squares, some of which were removable. Thick cables and thin wires ran the length of the duct, mechanical nerves giving life to the ship. So far it'd been hospital-clean, not a trace of dust or hair, which I kind of figured would've been everywhere, given all the fur.

My mind wandered. So many questions: what were we doing up here? How would we make it to the hangar? How would we be able to fly a ship if we got there? Would we starve to death?

I eyed my fingers, my mouth salivating. My stomach growled again and a burp exploded up my throat and into the close quarters of the duct. I needed to find food, and fast, as I didn't foresee myself lasting too much longer, staring at each digit of my hand.

I cleared my throat and snapped out of the trance that had taken hold of me.

Penelope raised her head. "What?" she said abruptly.

I tucked my hands between my thighs and cleared my throat. "I didn't say anything." We made eye contact. Her oak-colored irises swept me away into a different land and time, but only for a second, when they first locked together.

"You were snoring," she snickered. "Did you know that?"

I returned her cheerful smile. "Yeah, I know." I shifted to my knees. "We need to find some food before I die."

"Oh, don't be so dramatic. It's only been a day or so."

I stared at her. "Dramatic? When was the last time you went without food for a day? I don't think I ever have."

"I'm not saying I have, I'm just saying we're far from dead."

"Maybe . . . and maybe not. It could be just around the corner." I nodded to yet another T ahead of us. "That's not very far."

"Well then, hold your gun up and make sure to give 'em hell." She giggled and punched my shoulder. "Come on." When we made it to the T, she decided to go right, and her shoe caught my wrist.

I barely saved myself, dropping the alion gun in a _clang_ that resounded throughout the entire duct system. We froze for a full minute. Neither of us dared to breathe.

"Sorry," Penelope said once our senses returned.

"It's not your fault. I was too close." I picked up the gun and we moved on.

Once we passed the next fork, she chose to take a peek into a room, quietly removing a panel. "Looks like more quarters. Should we go down and search for food?"

I nodded emphatically. "I'm hungry enough to try anything. I might even wait for the alion to return, just so I can roast it."

"Roast it, eh? Well, knowing our good luck, maybe we'll find some special seasoning for you, too." She dipped her head down into the room again. "Ready?"

"Yep."

She turned around and hung her feet over the edge of the hole. The design seemed terribly flawed, having the entrance into the duct from the ceiling, which probably meant there were access points from the ground somewhere. But then what were these removable ceiling panels for? Emergency escapes?

"Lower me down."

I gripped her forearms, then dropped her as gently as I could, but my arms shook out of control, and by the time her feet touched the ground, they had turned to mush.

"I'm gonna rest a second. Go ahead and look without me."

"Are you that scared?" she asked.

I showed her my shaking hands. "Not scared, exhausted. I'm not that strong. Just hold on a second and I'll be down." Recuperating with my feet dangling in the hole, I took some deep breaths, relaxed, prepared. In my head I could hear Penelope's taunt: _Bok bok, bagock!_ But she wasn't like every other jackass at school, so maybe it was only in my head for a reason.

"All right," she said. Shuffling items around on a desk, she began to scour the quarters for any evidence of food. Finding nothing in the desk, she scooted it underneath the open panel.

I hopped down. "Thanks."

"No problem," she said with a silly grin.

Turning over the room, I finally found some dried meat wrapped in a salt-laden towel. "It's been a while since I've had jerky," I said sarcastically, and I bit into the tender strip.

"What's it taste like?" Penelope asked.

I offered her a long, thick slab. "Venison, I think," I replied. "But it mostly tastes like salt. The most delicious salt I've ever had."

She munched down a morsel of her own. "That's certain." A huge smile of relief crossed her lips. "Maybe a day is longer than I realized."

The salt hurt my dry lips and mouth, and made me incredibly thirsty.

"Whoa, dude," she said when she noticed me downing our H2O supply. "We have to conserve the water. We don't know when we'll find another depot."

She accepted the bottle when I offered it. "Sorry. I'm just used to drinking as much as I need, or don't need." I wiped my mouth clean.

Penelope stored the meat in a pocket. She decloaked and cloaked again, so that the meat would become shielded from watchful, hostile eyes. "Let's go." She hopped onto the desk and climbed up with a boost from my weak arms.

She helped me as I struggled to lift myself back into the duct. "Thanks," I said, coughing. "I need a breather."

Nodding, she replaced the panel, then sat down beside me.

My heart skipped as our arms grazed. This was the last thing I needed. My heart couldn't take the blood pumping through it. I cleared my throat again. I scooted away, just so our skin wouldn't touch again, not wanting to risk my heart exploding, which it would if it happened a second time.

She regarded me, calm. "You ready?"

"I guess so," I said. My breathing was still shallow and fast, but I had managed to compose myself a little. I followed behind her. She was a good leader, and I didn't mind the view, not with her back pockets looking like they were ready to bust. _What's wrong with you, Darrel? You could die at any moment and all you can think about is sex? Stop staring. Look at her shoes. Her shoes!_

Flip side: maybe she would find it flattering? It was a possibility, right? That little voice in my head only spoke one word. _Wrong._ But she'd kissed me. She'd leaned into me. _Maybe I should bring that up?_ My thoughts volleyed back and forth as time dragged on.

We crawled and crawled and crawled.

My stomach grumbled again, not satisfied with the tiny portion I had fed it. I shook my head and focused on crawling, ignoring my cravings as best I could—all of them. Our pace slowed, and I could barely move, with sore arms and legs, and everything else.

I savored our breaks, which were few and spread out, with great long gaps of bleeding and crawling between them.

"I don't know what's worse, knowing or not knowing," she said after a long while of silence.

"You mean whether your parents are dead?" I asked weakly.

"Yeah. It's shitty either way."

"Sometimes I really wanna know," I said. The hesitation in my voice choked the words. She was asking me to tiptoe on thawing ice. She knew for certain, in the most horrible way. "But then the more I think about it the less I truly want to, to have that definite image. Right now I have a thousand different ones running through my mind, you know, and some of them aren't so bad." I stopped and leaned against the wall. "I guess by not knowing, I can fool myself into believing happier scenarios exist."

Stopping, she eyed me with sympathetic, watery eyes. She was kind enough _not_ to give me the "everything will turn out in the end" speech. It was too hard to fathom that things actually would. I put my hand on her knee. "I'm sorry about your—parents." Forced out the last word.

"I have my sisters to worry about," she said, not ready to grieve. Not here. Not now. "They're only eleven."

"They were holding it together way better than I would've at eleven. I don't think I would've made it at all."

She skirted around my comment. "Are you ready to try another panel?"

I shook my head. "Nah. There's only so much you can stomach in a day, and who knows what we'll stumble across. It's likely to be something I don't wanna see."

"And it may be a cache of macaroni and cheese," she said.

"Macaroni and cheese?"

"I don't know. I'm just saying . . . it could be worthwhile." She slid a panel onto the duct, whether I wanted her to or not didn't matter much, and she lowered her head inside the room to get a look at what doom awaited us. She came back up. "I don't know what kind of room it is, it's weird, with bright lights and big tables. You should take a look."

Against my better judgment, I took a peek. "It reminds me of a hospital."

"I was thinking the same thing, but it's so foreign . . . did you see the huge tables?" she asked.

I nodded. "Well, they're big animals."

"Let's get a closer look," she urged.

Reluctantly, I gave in. "All right, but if I can't get my ass back up here, it's on you."

She laughed. "I've been working out, don't worry. Haven't you noticed that it's already on me to get you up here?"

I blushed and hid my eyes from her. She was right, I was weaker than her, and I didn't possess a tenth of her perseverance or willpower.

"I didn't mean it like that," she said, trying to comfort me.

"What way did you mean it?" I asked, my voice cracking. I couldn't even make myself _sound_ bold.

"I was just kidding. I wouldn't make it if you didn't boost me." She put a hand on my shoulder, then slid it down my arm. "It was just a joke, nothing more." With a smile, she jumped through the hole onto a cushioned bed, piled with blue-green blankets. "You're good to go."

Though her words hurt, I brushed them off and descended to the bed. Penelope was out of sight. "Penelope?"

"Around the corner," she said. She was poking her head around another corner, spying. Even though they couldn't see us—as far as we could tell—it was a practice of caution.

I came up behind her, and as she twirled to meet me, her soft hair slapped me across the face. The long strands of copper smelled like citrus and sweat and alion blood. "What are you doing?"

"Watching," she replied. "I saw one, lying on a bed around the corner. It looks sick."

"I hope we gave it to the beast," I spat.

"Come on." She sidled past the corner and along the warm wall, turning down another corridor. Five more beds sat spaced out evenly along the hall, one of them occupied. An alion rocked side-to-side, calling in a sickly tone. In the next hall, rooms branched off, and we glanced inside. A mother and her newborn cubs lay sleeping, curled up together.

I walked out and down the hall, where it ended in a T, and a large room with a huge glass windowpane, stopping before it, mesmerized. Dozens of warm blankets clumped together in mounds. Little fur balls slept, interwoven with each other and the blankets.

Penelope brushed up against me. "A maternity ward," she whispered when she spotted all the little critters.

"Guess so," I responded. "They don't seem so evil when they're small." _Do they think the same about human babies? Maybe that's why there are none in the pods  . . ._

She pressed a hand against the glass, spreading her fingers wide. "That's certain. Maybe we should—should—" Her quiet steps stopped at the door's threshold. "Never mind."

"Are you talking about killing them?" I stepped back from the window. The little kittens had their eyes shut, peaceful, defenseless, and fragile. "I don't have the heart or the stomach to do such a thing."

"I know," she said. "Neither do I. Sometimes a flood of anger fills me, and I want to kill every last one of these bastards. But you're right, I can't kill babies."

I spotted a reflection in the glass and flinched to the left. Whirling, I fell, backing away from a gigantic alion with a scraggly mane. The beast stared through the window, observing the sleeping young. It seemed to smile in serenity. The alion pressed its nose against the glass as another alion crept to its side.

Penelope walked around them, and joined my gaze in utter bemusement and apprehension. One of the alions entered the room with newborns and nuzzled a cub, then it nestled down and fell asleep.

She turned to me and offered a hand.

I took it. Once on my feet, we ran down the corridor, without a word spoken. "That was a—"

"Male," she finished for me. "I guess that solves your question from earlier."

"I guess it does," I huffed with a laugh. "Let's hope we don't see any more of them. One was enough for me."

"That's certain."

After a few more twists and turns, we entered a massive room with hundreds of beds, all fit to the size of the biggest alions. At the opposite end of the room, several lines of alions waited, communicating in low cat voices. Their soft speech was unlike anything I could reproduce. The lines went hundreds back, and as we drew closer, it became apparent as to their task.

At the head of each queue an alion stood, holding a silver gun in one of its humanlike hands. It grabbed hold of an alion patient nearest to it, folded back a patch of fur on one of its shoulders, and injected something into the exposed tissue. The alion patient growled. The doctor nodded for the patient to leave, and it scooted out of line and went back to its duties, grumbling as it disappeared down a lengthy hallway.

One after the other, alion patients stepped up to the doctors to receive a shot. Each one growled, then plodded off, annoyed. The lines did not seem to dwindle at all, as a replacement filed in the moment one left it.

My mind drew a blank as I tried to fit the puzzle pieces together. "What do you think they're doing?"

"Did you ever play the old video game _War of the Worlds_?" she asked, returning my question with a question of her own. "It was based off a book from the nineteenth century by H.G. Wells."

I shook my head. "I don't think so. At least it doesn't sound familiar. What about it?"

"In the game, at the end, all the aliens died because of diseases. Bacteria attacked them that we had grown immune to over time. It was devastating to them, like smallpox to the Native Americans."

"Never thought of an end like that."

Her dimples grew deep and beautiful. "Yeah, it was pretty profound, ingenious, and simple all wrapped into one."

"So, what does that have to do with anything?"

"These alions are smart, _very_ smart . . . twenty bucks says those are inoculations." Her voice overflowed with confidence. "You want to get a closer look?"

"I think we're too close as it is," I said with a crisp edge. "I wanna get the hell out of here, that's what I want to do. Come on."

Captivated by the scene, she ignored my appeal. "Wouldn't mind learning what's in those shots. Could be all the cures for every human disease. Wouldn't that be something?"

"More than likely whatever's in it would kill you." I turned back to the corridor we had entered from, checking over my shoulder to make sure she followed; thankfully she did. We navigated down several halls, twisting and turning again, until we realized we had made a mistake along the way. "All right, let's just get back up into the duct. We can use one of these empty rooms."

She sighed. "Our trail is becoming easier to track. We can assume they already know we're using the duct system, leaving rearranged furniture under these access panels."

"You have a better idea?"

She grabbed my arm and stopped me. "They can't see us, we don't need to use the ducts."

"Well, I feel a hell of a lot safer up there, don't you?"

"At this point, not really. We're running out of time, and the precious minutes we waste getting in and out of the ducts could be spent actually looking for a hangar and a way off this ship."

I gave her a hard stare, one people tended not to argue with. "It's way harder for them to fit in the ducts. They can only attack us one at a time in them, and I think that fact alone is worth it, even if it means taking a little longer to find a hangar."

Logic won after a solid minute of silence. "Okay, fine. We'll use the ducts." She used the yellow disk to open a locked door. Jumping atop the bed, she began poking the panels again, locating the access point at the head of the mattress. "Boost me."

I wrapped my arms around her knees, touching her warm legs, so close to her thighs. I almost dropped her as I cleared my throat, slightly dizzy. On the move again, I filled the void with a question. "Don't you think it's odd that these access panels are in the ceiling instead of the floor?"

"It would be a lot easier for us if they were," she agreed. "But maybe they're not really access panels but something else."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. Murder holes?"

"Murder holes, on a spaceship?"

"The alions seem to be all about having the advantage, and that would certainly give them the advantage if the ship was boarded by their enemies."

My stomach knotted and brought out a grimace. "Just thinking about that idea makes me sick."

"Well, it's only an idea. Don't get too hung up on it."

A wordless lull replaced our talk. It stretched on for the better part of an hour. Musing on all the places we'd been on the ship, it occurred to me that we hadn't come across that many alions. "Does the ship seem a little empty to you?" I asked, stopping for a break.

Penelope considered the question, her tongue playing with her cheek. "You would think we'd run into more in the halls, I suppose. It makes since though, that the ship would have a smaller crew, if all they're really doing is abducting and transporting us somewhere else."

And then it clicked in my brain. "They're transport ships, not battleships," I said. "It's not an invasion army, but a culling force."

"Right," she said. "They really are just having fun with us down there. It seems like that's all extra, peripheral to the primary mission."

"Well, that's a good thing for us then. Not us as a species, but you and me. It increases our chances to get to a hangar."

She rolled her shoulders. "If you say so. It only takes one to do us in." Conversation killer.

After the respite from activity, we crawled and crawled and crawled until I was bone-tired. We'd checked over twenty rooms and nothing.

"It's probably time we rest," she muttered.

"Probably a few hours past the time," I said, collapsing to the floor, using an arm as a pillow.

Hands wrapped around my chest a few seconds later. Her boobs snuggled against my back. "For warmth," she said. "So don't get too excited, stud."

"Of course." I closed my eyes but my heart and my brain competed in a race. What could go faster, my thoughts or my ticker?

Regardless of which won, there'd be no sleep for me.

#

I WOKE UP with a face full of hair. It took me a second to realize where I was and what was happening. At some point I'd become the big spoon. My hand was now cupping one of her boobs.

I froze. My pulse literally hurt. Like a jackhammer pounding through my neck, my head, my chest. Everywhere.

This was it. ABG. The accidental boob grab. Often talked about between Karl, Félix, and me, but never experienced, except once when Félix stumbled and reached out for Maggy. That was a long time ago though.

I didn't dare move. One slight twitch and it could end in an instant.

But then I noticed how badly my crotch ached. _Shit!_ NPT. Morning wood. Morning glory. Whatever you wanted to call it. It hurt like hell right now. Blue balls. Yep. All of a sudden I couldn't take it anymore and rolled over. Health class: I didn't learn much from it, but I remembered nocturnal penile tumescence for a number of reasons. One, the thought of getting three to five hard-ons a night was disturbing. I mean, what if I fell asleep on the couch and Dad walked in on me sporting one of these NPT's? Or worse—Mom. Nightmare, right? Two, it wasn't suppose to hurt like this. This was different. This was worse.

All I could do was wait it out. A second lasted an hour, a minute a day. After ten minutes I began to worry it would never subside. I felt like I was going to throw up. Again.

Breathe, Darrel. It'll go away, just breathe. Think about something else. Something nasty. Not puking though, that'll make it worse. You're on an alien ship. A real one. Everything on here wants to kill you. Wants you dead. Shred your guts, rip out your intestines. Eat them. Eat your brains. Your eyeballs.

I checked my pants. No progress.

Worse, Darrel, worse. They have Mom and Dad. They tortured them, killed them. Too far. Too far, man. Frak.

Glancing down, my problem held strong, so it wasn't psychological but physiological. And now a whole storm of emotions surged from the vault I'd locked them in to get by the day-to-day struggle. If Penelope woke now . . . what would she think?

I battled grief and the anchor of depression that would sink me, taking deep breaths, pushing my mind into a corner where nothing existed. Blankness. A slight ringing filled my head as my surroundings evaporated. The chime grew louder. Constant.

My stomach rumbled and brought me back from the nothingness. Opening my eyes, I found the tent put away, for now, and my balls didn't feel so blue. And my emotions were stuffed back into their vault where they belonged, for now. I wasn't as hungry as I had been the last time I awoke, my fingers not quite as appetizing, but I definitely needed the salted meat, worried that those thoughts might return. Penelope had the meat hidden away in a pocket, and I didn't want to wake her, but my fingers were twice as big as her pockets, and her jeans were so tight, I would have to squeeze a finger into them just to get a centimeter. I gave up and shook her shoulder. "Hey, wake up."

"Why?" she asked, drowsy. "I'm not ready."

"You have the meat," I explained.

She reached into her pocket and tossed it to me, along with some lint. She said no more and nodded off again. I knew that feeling, where you'd sleep forever but didn't actually regain any energy, and so you just wanted to keep on sleeping, to the point where even sleep became fatiguing, weighing down your body with a fuzzy sickness.

I tried to conserve the meat, taking small bites at a time, but each small bite led to another and another, until it was almost all gone. Cursing my weakness, I swished around the water, listening. Less than a quarter remained. She wouldn't be kissing me any time soon. I waited for her to wake, anxious, dreading her reaction. I feared her disappointment in me. I played out the scene in my head a hundred times, and every time it ended with me getting slapped, or punched, or kneed in the balls, or some kind of physical abuse.

My stomach growled again.

When she woke and saw the leftover portion, a sigh escaped, but that was all. "It wasn't going to last anyway. We better find some more."

I exhaled in relief that none of my envisioned scenarios came true. "Lead the way."

We gathered up our things and began to crawl. "Can I ask you a question?" she said a short while after we had started our trek.

"If I say no, will you not ask it?"

"No," she replied.

I laughed. "Well then, I guess I don't have much of a choice but to say yes."

"That's certain." She laughed, too, but soon sobered. "Why does Maggy call you 'Blue'?"

"Have you noticed how dark my eyes are?"

"Nope." She turned back and studied them. "A really dark blue. That's it, no other reason?"

"That's it." We turned left at a T-junction. My knees ached, red and sore. Regardless, I followed on, always on the move, periodically checking access points for the hangar. "Why, you don't like the name?"

She plopped down and rested. "It's an okay name, I guess. A little plain for my taste."

"Ooh, that stings," I said, smirking. "All right, then, what would you call me?"

Her tongue was playing with her cheeks as she thought. "Hmm . . ." She glanced over at me and smiled. "I'd call you Tyro."

"Tyro? Why Tyro?"

"Because I like the way it sounds. It means novice, and compared to me, you're a novice at _Death Squad_." A giggle filled the duct.

I eyed her with a playful simper. "Is that so?"

"It's certain."

"Well, after we get off this dismal ship, we'll have to go a few rounds," I challenged her.

"We'll have to find the game and a console first." She grabbed her stomach when it growled.

"You should have a nickname too, then, if I'm Tyro. Maybe I'll call you Spree."

"Spree?"

"Yeah, because you're on an alion killing spree."

She punched my arm softly. "Just call me Penny."

"All right, Penny." I scratched at the facial hair coming in under my chin. "I can do that. Makes you sound a little cheap though. Are you sure you don't want to be nickel or dime instead?"

That earned a good, hard laugh. "I'm good with Penny."

I shrugged. "Suit yourself."

"You and your friends are really close," she observed.

The conversation was helping our moods, and she clearly didn't want it to end. "Yeah, I've been friends with Félix for a long time, since the second grade actually. He traded me his Corruptor Drone for my SkyFlyer spaceship from _Armageddon Fleet_." Nostalgia: the bittersweet sentiment caught me off guard, all the memories of people I probably would never see again. "We've been friends ever since. And Maggy we met in seventh-grade band—well, sixth for her, anyway—but we never talked to her until our sophomore year when we were all on the school bowling team."

"You bowled?" My participation in a sporting activity astounded Penny, even one so physically undemanding, not because of my size, but because of my general devaluation of school and school-related programs.

"For four years," I replied. "I'm not half bad either." There was a slight boastful quality to those words.

"That's cool. I never could get above a hundred."

"My freshman year, my high score was seventy-seven."

She found comfort and humor in that. "So you were a band geek?"

"Until eighth grade," I said. "Played the bass clarinet. Never got above a B-minus." She liked that, I could tell. Not that I was bad, but because I was honest.

"I was too," she admitted. "Played the clarinet for a few months in fifth. My mom kept saying it would make me smarter. God, I hated it though, broke a reed a day until finally my dad intervened and said it wasn't worth having me pissed off all the time . . . My friend Cailey did the same thing, broke all her reeds." She grew quiet. "We did everything together, like you and Félix. We even got scholarships to play basketball at U-Dub. I was the passer, she was the scorer . . . I wish—I wish my friends . . ."

When I noticed her crying, I put my arm around her. "Sorry."

She leaned into my shoulder and we didn't speak for a long time. All she needed was a shoulder and I had that.

"I can't believe you were a bowler," Penny chortled. I had to remind myself to call her this.

"Well, my old man wanted me to be a football stud," I said. "A lineman like he was back in the day. But I never had his height or his muscle tone. I figured bowling would be the next best thing." I couldn't help but chuckle at my own joke. "It wasn't. He hated it. He hated almost everything I did."

"Everything?" she asked skeptically.

"Pretty much, yeah."

"That sounds . . ." She searched for the most sensitive word.

"Bearable," I said for her. "He was a hardass most of the time, and he smoked a lot of dope to calm himself down, but he never hit me or my mom. Not like Félix's dad."

"His dad was abusive?"

I nodded. "His dad gave him that shiner he was sporting."

"Oh, I thought—"

"My dad loved me though," I cut her off. "He didn't like any of the crap I did, but he loved me . . ." Swollen, my throat made it hard to say much else.

She rubbed my back. Was it my turn to shed tears? Nah. Not now. Some other time. "How are your knees?" Penny asked suddenly. She looked up at me, my shoulder providing her a pillow.

"No worse than anything else, I suppose," I said. "Yours?"

"They feel raw, like they might be bleeding, but every time I check, there's nothing on them." She folded up her pant leg and showed me.

"Ouch." I rolled up my pant legs and examined my own knees. Spots of thin skin promised to break soon, but there was nothing to be done about it, we had nothing to pad them with.

"Yours look worse," she said, cringing.

"Maybe we should just chop them off and be done with it," I cracked.

She smirked, then suddenly changed subjects, as I found she often did. "You know, you never really kissed me. It was too short to call a _real_ kiss."

I flushed, clearing my throat a dozen times. "Didn't seem right with the alion there and all."

"Oh, is that the reason? Well, I don't see any alions around now." To my eyes, her soft lips seemed to pucker up, dry and splitting, but still alluring and desirable. "Do you?"

I cleared my throat. Shifted uncomfortably. Scanned the duct left and right. My cheeks grew hot to the point that I thought someone had set them ablaze. I opened my mouth to say something, but only a squeak escaped.

"You've never kissed anyone before, have you?" she asked in a sympathetic tone.

I shook my head. "That obvious?"

"I think you'll enjoy a _real_ one." Her smile grew and grew until it swallowed her face. Then she advanced, her eyes excited.

My heart pounded so hard I was afraid I would faint for the hundredth time, or just drop dead after it exploded.

The kiss lasted a quick second. A closed-mouth peck that made my head swim.

Penny bit her lip as she slowly pulled back. "Let's do that again," she said, glowing with exhilaration.

"Why?" I asked.

She stared at me, curious as to why I would ask that.

My nerves ate away at my stomach and it growled, so noisy and fierce.

"Because you're a good guy," she replied. "And we may die up here . . . If we do, I would like to remember what a real kiss feels like. It's a sad thing, I know, but it's the truth."

The same thought had crossed my mind, though a little further than that. To die a virgin was a sad fate. I decided to oblige her, leaned in, and this time our lips locked, moist despite our dehydration. When we parted, I was smiling so wide my mouth threatened to split apart. Luckily, it didn't. "You were right." My words came out rushed and screechish. "I will always remember that."

"That's certain. Now you can say that you've had a _true_ kiss." She chewed on her lip and grinned. "You ready to find some food?"

I looked at her, mystified. She was an utter mystery to me. One minute she was crying, then the next second she wanted to kiss, and then a second later find food. I couldn't argue with my stomach, though. "Yeah," I said, nodding.

After a few more turns, Penny halted, heaved up a panel, yanked it off to the side, and poked her head through the hole. When she came back up, she shrugged. "Looks like an engine room or something like that. No food."

She repeated the process a few more times, each with the same result.

Thoughts of Maggy consumed my mind as we crawled. I had crushed on her for years, and yet kissing Penny for one second felt more right than all those times I wanted to kiss Maggy. That meant something. Though what exactly remained unsolved for the future me to figure out.

"Your turn," Penny said, stopping.

Hoping my luck was better, I slid off the panel and a blue cloud engulfed us. I couldn't see Penny for a second, until the cloud dissipated in the duct, though a trace lingered around us like a disconcerting mist.

"Spooky," she said, half joking, half afraid.

"It's cold," I said, waving my arm in the mist. All my hairs stood up. I put a hand through the hole, lying on my stomach. "I think it's a freezer."

"A freezer could be promising." She scooted up beside me and waved a hand around in the blue mist. "Shall we take a look inside?"

"What if we freeze to death?"

"Then it'll feel better than a gash through the stomach." Pushing herself up by the elbows, she turned around and held on to the ledge, easing down. "It's not a far drop. Maybe a meter and some change."

My legs kicked in a flutter as I gripped the ledge. Penny found my feet, calmed them, and helped me down. My teeth instantly chattered, my skin bit by the extreme cold. "This is insane," I reminded her.

"Maybe. Look for a door, we're not getting back up to the panel." We groped around for a door handle. Nothing. Which made sense since none of their doors had handles. The blue mist swirled about, as if frolicking.

I bumped into something hard. Hard and painfully cold. Jerking back, I raised my gun, primed. The mist cleared the closer we walked to the center of the room. Large chunks of red and white hung from the ceiling. Long stringy fibers as solid as rock stared back at us.

"It's a cow," Penny gasped. The cow-shaped meat was perfect, almost as if it had been pristinely skinned. Behind the butchered carcass, more cows hung in a row that went far on out of sight. We continued along the wall and another animal dangled beside the cow. The big slab of icy meat matched a horse, and next to it, an elk. Animal after animal appeared, all different, and behind each one were thousands more of the same species. We passed elephants, dogs, turkeys, rats, deer, bears, bison, lizards, fish, whales, alligators, kangaroos, rhinoceros, goats, rabbits, toads, and walruses, and hundreds of other animals. The ceiling shaped to each one, as high as needed for the largest, and for the small animals the ceiling spanned the same height as where we had entered down from the duct.

Shock stretched time where minutes became hours, and we gasped at each new species, overwhelmed by the flayed carcasses. Then at last we reached the end, and a shape dwelled there that churned my stomach in revulsion.

Penny stopped, gaping at the human hanging like all the rest of the animals. Skinned just the same, with frozen muscle and fat exposed, yet it was different to gaze upon our own kind, so much worse, the butchery seemed. But in the end, the alions gave us no special treatment. We were animals just the same as all the rest. And animals meant food.

Dizzy, I fell back on my ass, then rolled over, facing the wall.

Shivering, Penny stepped away, her back against the wall, allowing the blue mist to hide the suspended corpses. She slid down and sat next to me.

"Now we know," she whispered. She grabbed her knees and shook in the cold.

Nauseated, I couldn't see straight, and my mind worked in scrambled flashes. Incoherent thoughts popped in and out, as if I'd lost control, melted in a freezer. My courage retreated into my bowels, and hope became a star in the night sky, there but unreachable.

Utterly, completely, absolutely unreachable.

#

IN THE FOG that clouded my head, I noticed my arm lift up as if someone grabbed it, and then my body glided across the slick floor. A pressurized door opened. Warmth invaded my skin, lungs, and blood. The blue faded. The fuzziness that had attacked my brain vanished. I peered up and made out Penny's face.

"You all right, dude?" she asked me.

I shook my head. "No, are you?"

"No," she choked on the word, then cleared her throat. "No, I'm not either." She flopped down beside me, violently shivering.

I rolled over and sat, my body shaking. "It's so much worse to know . . . to see it . . ." I mumbled.

She gave no reply as she stared at the tiled floor.

I closed my eyes and dreamed of my parents. Their faces were already hard to see clearly, distorted from the terrible days and nights, and the traumatic events that never seemed to stop. When I opened my eyes, I absorbed the giant room for the first time, with rows upon rows stocked full of all the foods and snacks that I most desired. My stomach bellowed a song of joy and anticipation. My mouth watered and my pupils grew as large as bowling balls.

Skeptical, I blinked. All the food still sat idle on hundreds of shelves, so I shut them again, counting to five. I braced myself for the reality of my melted brain as I opened them again. Yet, bags of tortilla chips and boxes of fig bars awaited the return of my vision, speaking to my stomach as much as my eyes. They pulled me towards them, as if they had shot a grappling hook around my back and the rope retracted, drawing me within a centimeter of their wrappings.

My outstretched arms grazed the box of fig bars. "Penny!" I yelled.

She jumped awake, instantly on her feet. "Run," she spoke to herself, now an automatic motivational tool.

I beamed at her and tossed the box.

It slipped through her frosted fingers as she tried catching it with one hand. She rested her alion gun on the floor and examined the box. "Fig bars?" she said, doubting her eyes before energetically tearing the box apart, throwing the paperboard in all directions. Six individually wrapped bars awaited her desperate fingers. Ripping the wrapper, she bit into the snack, realizing that she wasn't dreaming. "It's real!" she said with a mouthful. "It's really real!"

I snatched a bag of tortilla chips and popped it open. Each chip was perfectly crunchy and salty. "If we're sharing the same dream, I may have to kill myself when we wake," I told her. I wouldn't have been able to handle that reality.

She studied the room with care. "It's like a hundred grocery stores."

"More like a thousand million grocery stores," I said. "The biggest stockpile that anyone could ever see. This must be what they were after, our food supplies."

"More like Earth's food supplies," she corrected me. "Don't forget what we saw in the other room."

"That wasn't a dream?" I stacked five chips in my mouth at once, inhaling them like a vacuum hose sucking up feathers.

"No, that wasn't a dream." She pointed to the freezer door.

I stared at it for a while, keeping up pace, crunching yellow triangle after yellow triangle. "I really wish it had been."

"Me too," she replied. "Let's see what else we can find." Tossing the fig remains aside, she walked off along the wide aisle.

I followed close behind. We passed all the chips I had ever known, and then some foreign chips of rice, corn, pita, and more beyond naming. It was a different world of food. I found a box of cheese fish and one of graham cracker bunnies. I ate as we roamed. My stomach was approaching maximum load, but I didn't want to stop, just in case this was my last meal.

We came upon a huge mountain of sport drinks in a different row. Despite the lack of refrigeration, I downed two or three one-liter bottles stamped with a foreign language, thrilled to have something sweet and flavorful for a change.

Soon though, the liquid ran to my bladder. "I have to drain the tank," I told Penny.

She nodded. "I've been holding mine in forever."

"So have I." I was rubbing my hands to distract my mind from my bladder's urgent calls. "I've only gone twice since we've been here."

She screwed up her face, either impressed or disgusted. "Well, you beat me, I've gone three times. I'll wait here for you."

I half-grinned. "I won't go far, just around the corner." I rushed out of view, emptied, and ambled back. "Relief at last."

"But now it's my turn. Watch our stuff." She pointed to our pile of reserves, then walked around a different corner. She wore a big smile when she came back. "Ready to return to Earth?"

"Since I got here." I trailed behind her quick steps. The aisles were long and interminable. At the end, I glanced behind us. Quickly, I pushed Penny out of the aisle, behind a corner, jumping as I did.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Alion," I whispered, peeping around the shelf. "It's sniffing around where I dropped a box of crackers."

"Shit. The wrappings—the bags, boxes, bottles, we didn't cloak any of it. Our scent is all over this place now." She bent low, poking her head around the corner, just enough for her to glimpse the alion as it sucked in long whiffs of our scent.

Staring at its powerful nose, I trembled, picturing the end, our guts thrown all over the floor. How could it not find us now? "We have to run."

She nodded. Without a reply, she turned and sprinted off, decloaking and recloaking, an action I copied to make sure nothing on me was left visible.

I huffed after her. Running was so much worse on my lungs than crawling, and even that had nearly killed me. How did people run for fun? Sharp pains shot through my gut, back, and sides, not to mention my sore knees and aching feet. This was as far from fun as it got. I doubled over a couple of times, hunching as I continued on. Pain stabbed me everywhere.

Quick footed, Penny wound this way and that way, dodging shelf corners, pivoting in a blink. Her athletic build and basketball training gave all the speed I wish I had—and a hell of a lot more endurance. She held open a door as I whirled around a shelf a few steps behind.

The door pressurized as it closed. The room was a long hallway filled with electronics. Using the yellow disk, she opened the door to the left at the end of the hall. We entered an empty, square room. The walls were padded with a foam material, as if to dampen collisions. A door across from us led to another square room with a table covered in what looked like training weapons. We brushed the weapons aside and climbed on top of it. The ceiling was much taller, too high for Penny to reach, so I thrust up the access panel and slid it to the side, my muscles shaking with strain.

In a hurry and without thinking, I pulled myself up first, stronger now than when worry had a grip on me. Fear proved the bigger motivator.

Before I could turn my body around, alions barged into the room from three separate doors.

Penny threw the yellow disk up into the duct, spun around and started spraying black globes, until a blue orb broke on her skin and enveloped her in a sphere. Tiny, light-blue tubes that resembled little lightning flashes crept down from the surface of the field, drawing near her skin until they pierced her fragile body. She didn't move. She looked stuck in time.

I retreated, peeking over the edge.

A group of alions approached her. One pressed a button on a bazooka weapon. The blue ball that encapsulated Penny vanished. An alion patted around her belt, finding the decloak button. Her body now revealed, another alion injected something into her elbow with the medical gun we had seen earlier. Her eyes closed as her body collapsed.

All of it happened within a heartbeat. Dizzyingly fast.

A soft growl echoed off the walls, and several alions searched the ceiling in my direction. I crawled back in a hurry. Rolled over, put my feet to the duct floor, and walked away, squatting. I stopped, hesitant. I couldn't just leave her behind. I went back to the hole. All but one of the alions had disappeared. The monstrous cat was sniffing every centimeter of the room, on the hunt.

I cleared my throat, staring at the beast. If I didn't follow now, I wouldn't ever find her. My nerves twitching, I slipped back down into the room, gun up and firing. The body dropped. One of the doors was open, so I took a chance, wishing it were the correct one.

My wish came true. A dozen or so alions surrounded Penny's body. One carried her over its furry shoulder. None of them stopped to smell the air. If they could smell me, they pretended not to.

I stayed back, lingering at a safer distance than if I trailed at their heels. Their languid pace melted my brain and drove my nerves haywire. My blood zipped up and down my arms and legs, swelling in my brain, then deserting the area in a rush of blackness that threatened a loss of consciousness. Despite my out of control body, I continued to follow, gun raised to their hindquarters.

After what seemed like a hundred turns, they finally stopped in a giant room, its walls adorned with blue slabs of reflective metal. Strapped to the slabs, a few people struggled to get free, while others lay limp and lifeless. Three tables lay in the center of the room where they secured Penny. A corpse rested on one of them, its chest open, a heart showing, and in a glimpse, I saw it pump once with life.

The room spun. Swooning, I ran into the wall, choked on air as I struggled to breathe. The air turned to fire, and my vision left me, lying alone in the calm darkness.

A second later, I rolled over, gasping. I fought off the swirling shadows. At last, I won, staring at the high dome ceiling of the alion room.

As I raised my upper body off the floor, bending at the waist, I spotted a yellow line flying at me. It looked like a detection laser that protected museums and other high-security places. Reacting, I jumped to my feet and fled. The line stopped at the end of the door, turned aside, and scanned along the walls.

Afraid, I turned back to regroup. None of my thoughts were clear and I wasn't doing Penny any favors as woozy as I was. I found a long hall with more pods, all of them occupied.

I sat and collected my thoughts.

If the yellow line were a scanner, I wouldn't make it far enough into the room to free Penny. My only option: disable it somehow. Half a hundred plans shot through my mind. Sadly, I didn't think I could pull off a single one, most of them requiring some superhuman quality or miraculous luck.

I got to my feet and wandered through a few halls, memorizing the path back to the torture room, or whatever it was. Alions were streaming into a central location, like before when we stumbled upon the Tactical Operations Center, but we had to be a long ways from it; we'd traveled so far, how could it possibly be close? The answer came when I entered a massive room lined with rows of short tables no more than a decimeter from the ground. Hundreds of alions feasted. Not one peered my way, so I figured I was safe, still invisible.

I studied the alions. They ate at their leisure, tearing meat from bone, some cooked, some raw. Along the tables, bodies of birds, rabbits, deer, and humans overflowed, bones tossed about, plucked clean of tissue.

Two of the nearest alions finished off the flesh sticking to a long, thick bone. When all the meat sunk to the pit of their stomachs, the bigger one stole the bone away and bit at an edge, breaking apart the end. Holding the bone with a humanlike hand, it swung back its head and sucked down the marrow within, seeming to enjoy it as if it were candy.

The sickening sight made my stomach gurgle in abhorrence.

I turned and ran back to the hall.

Now I knew that if I tripped the alarm, hundreds of bone-sucking alions would be there within moments, long before I could make an escape.

I made my way back to the room where they held Penny. She still lay unconscious on one of the three center tables. An alion examined the body with the exposed, slow-pumping heart, experimenting. The shorthaired man made no gut-wrenching screams as I'd expected. He just rested with a tranquil, drugged face, slightly curved up in a smile.

Observing the yellow line's pattern for a long, long while, I figured out it scanned around the room at random. _It has to originate from somewhere. But where?_ I searched for its origination point, yet it didn't appear to have one, as it glided along the room without a trace of the source that emitted it.

Another alion walked into the room and pressed a combination of keys on a translucent screen. One of the slabs along the wall to my right moved forth. The slab, controlled by a massive robotic arm, reached the alion within a second, rotating the table so that it was horizontal like the other three.

The alion took a cutting tool and began to open the chest cavity of the woman who lay strapped to it.

She screamed in agony.

I crushed my ears with my hands. No use. The horrific cries penetrated right through my attempt to muffle them, shooting down to my gut, twisting my insides with a knife. I backed out of the room again.

For all my effort to sit and study the room, I couldn't stand by the door for longer than a minute before the screams unsettled my stomach, driving me away to collect my nerves. Once settled, I went back to examine the layout again, trying to find the source of the laser. I went back and forth a hundred times or more, adding to the picture I was building in my head.

To calm my stomach, I searched all the rooms circling the torture room. Three were hallways, one a square room with padding, and the fifth was pitch-black and smelled of decay, so I didn't linger. For hours I walked back and forth through the connecting halls, scouting out the entire area, looking for an opportunity. As my body slowed in exhaustion, I realized I had to make my own opportunity, but I couldn't fathom how.

My thoughts ran everywhere, disorderly, like rambunctious kindergarteners playing basketball. A prominent memory stuck out from eighth grade biology, a memory that had been burned into my brain all these years, and cropped up from time to time as I rethought life. "What separates us, _Homo sapiens_ , from the rest of the animal kingdom?" Mr. Holden asked, a smug teacher I'd never liked much, more because he placed all students into little boxes on the first day. Dozens of hands went up, but Holden rarely called on anyone with a hand up, and instead spied the room to pick on those he deemed not paying attention. Rodney, a nüo goth with dyed black hair, all black clothes, dozens of body piercings, and black makeup, happened to be doodling—as many people, including myself, did to get through Holden's boring lectures. "Rodney, what do you think separates humankind from the rest of our fellow animals?"

I remembered how emotionless Rodney's voice was when he answered. "The difference between us and other animals? That's simple. Torture." He said the words as if they were a fact he was reading out of our textbook.

Mr. Holden's smile evaporated as he crossed his arms and leaned back on his desk in front of the class. "Torture?"

"Yes, torture," Rodney repeated impassively. "There's no other animal on this planet that carries out torture like we do."

Mr. Holden, a good-looking guy who often had the popular girls talking about him, simply grinned. "Obviously you don't own a cat, Rodney," he said mockingly. That had earned a laugh from the rest of the class. "Otherwise you'd know that they wound insects and rodents and leave them to die without the intent of ever eating them. Isn't that torture?"

The memory of Rodney cocking his head oh-so curiously had never left me and probably never would. His next line wouldn't either. "Are you comparing a cat playing with a mouse, which could be successfully argued is hunting practice, to a man tied to a chair while his fingers are being cut off or his skin flayed from—"

Mr. Holden threw up his hand. "That's enough, Rodney. Would anyone else like to provide an answer? A _real_ answer."

"Our ability to reason?" someone said, an actual regurgitation from the textbook.

Mr. Holden clapped his hands excitedly. "Yes. Our ability to reason. That's one. And?"

"That's bullshit," Rodney said, his voice filled with emotion for the first time ever, like he'd forgotten about his nüo goth personality for a lapse. "I gave you a real answer and you can't just gloss over it."

Mr. Holden instantly pointed at the door. "Mrs. Walters's office. Now."

The image dissolved as I reflected on Rodney's answer, which I'd found bizarre at the time, but had since been unable to find any actual documentation that proved he was wrong. The closest I'd found involved orcas tossing seal pups back and forth for over half an hour while it still lived, but this often included juvenile orcas learning how to properly grab a seal for a beach attack, and could hardly be labeled torture. Infanticide, a cross-species behavior in the animal kingdom, boiled down to explainable actions: mating, resource control, and disease control among them. And none of it equated to someone spasmodically asphyxiating a person with a plastic bag until they divulged their secrets.

Looking at the alions carrying out their torturous experiments put it into perspective. Maybe the ability to reason and torture went hand in hand. We did it. Alions did it. Maybe it was part of what separated us "intellectual" beings from the other animals.

Nauseated again, I used a pod and climbed up into the duct system to clear my head. I erased the philosophical question of what made us human from my mind and visualized the torture room. Nothing came. Hungry, I took out a chocolate bar I'd found in the colossal stockroom of food, the only morsel left on me with the rest abandoned. Stress eating, that was a thing, right? I made a note to Google it later because eating was all I could do at the moment.

_Goddamn, Darrel. You need to man up, Son._ My dad's voice. How did he pop into my head so often? It was worse than a shadow. _She'll die because you're a wuss. Look at you, stuffing your face when she's on that table, about to have her heart cut out._ I shook my head but his voice wouldn't leave. _My son, the coward. The wuss. The candy-ass chickenshit._

I didn't know how long I sat there, listening to my own abuse with my dad's words, but soon a horrible itch came over me, pushing me back to the torture room. Stashing the water bottle in the duct, I returned to Penny, staring at her unconscious body. They hadn't touched her yet. Something felt off about that, like they were waiting for something. But how long would they wait? A minute? An hour? A day? How long could I stand outside and do nothing?

Anger flooded my veins. Helplessness followed.

Hungry again, I went searching for food, and found a smaller stockroom brimming with snacks not far from the massive dining hall. I also found the kitchen, watching alions prepare plates crowded with meat, thick breads, and various vegetables.

In the stockroom, I stuffed my face with cheese crackers, unable to control my appetite, comforting myself. I felt sicker and sicker by the minute, but I couldn't stop eating. It was an insurmountable compulsion that kept putting a cracker into my mouth like a conveyor belt.

Then suddenly I looked up and an alion stood in the doorway, gaping down at a floating box of crackers that I'd forgotten to cloak. Dropping the box, I grabbed the gun that lay between my legs. The black rounds pierced the beast's skull. Not to mention shooting up the walls and snacks. I hurtled over the carcass and out into a short hall. Another alion caught sight of its dead companion and chased after me. Or the ghost me. I whipped around frantically, shooting but never hitting. The bazooka tube was strapped across its back. Unfastening the buckles with its humanlike fingers, the alion lifted the weapon above its head and aimed in the direction of my fleeing body.

I didn't understand how it could see me. Had it been a trick the whole time?

Zigzagging, I crossed into another, lengthier hallway. When I came to the door at the end, it was locked, and I had no time to use the yellow disk.

I whirled around to face the alion.

It shot the blue orb at my invisible face as I launched a stream of bullets. The blue cloud instantly immobilized my entire body. The blue lightning strikes pierced my vulnerable pink skin in a thousand different places. With every pulse came a stabbing pain.

Suspended, I gazed out of the semi-transparent cloud, watching as the claws that promised my death approached.

I waited with open eyes.

#

NO ONE SPOKE as we drove south. The thrumming of gas engines surrounded us, though most of the vehicles were electric, powered by high-absorbent solar panels, but they were also old and the batteries did not last when darkness came. Someone told us that we had entered California a short while ago, but it didn't look any different than southern Oregon with rocks and hills and evergreens. What road our wheels rode on, no one knew, and when I asked where we were going, I received the same answer from all of the soldiers.

"We'll be there soon. You'll be safe, don't worry."

But soon wasn't soon and safe wasn't safe. Alions ambushed us over and over, and the column of heavy vehicles stopped a hundred times to fight off the small groups of attackers. Once, an alion tore a soldier from the edge of our cargo truck, just stole him away in the daylight. It was even more horrific than when they took Mike.

The worst part: no one cared about finding Darrel and Penelope, written off as lost causes. "We'll do everything we can for them." Without fault, every soldier regurgitated the same line, which meant they'd do nothing. But I couldn't blame them. They were struggling just to keep us alive, let alone mount an attack and rescue operation aboard a spaceship.

Habi and I, along with the twins, huddled at the front of the truck's bed, shivering under a single blanket. Habi lavished comfort on both girls, even though Amanda insisted she didn't need it. Jane dug her head into his chest and squeezed his body, terrified. She clung to him for a better part of the journey. He was really stepping up to fill a role, a role I wasn't equipped to take on.

We hadn't seen any of the Third Squad, but as dawn broke the next morning, Burnhammer appeared at the tailgate for the first time since our departure. "How are you four doing?" she asked. Her camouflage fatigues already looked normal to my eyes. She hopped up into the bed and took a seat across from us on the long benches.

I could've hated her with all my heart for her failed promise to keep Jacob alive, but it wasn't really her fault; that responsibility weighed on my shoulders alone. "We're hungry," I answered. "They haven't really been giving us rations."

She cursed. "Hold on, I'll go get you some." She returned with four quick meals, wrapped and preserved; two were turkey subs and the others were ham, all with that weird low-grade cheese.

"Thanks," I said, unwrapping the package.

"You're lucky we had those. Trust me, you don't want an MRE. I'll tell the ones looking after you to keep you better fed, but I have to go," she spoke softly. "Duties to be done."

"Can't you look after us?" Jane asked.

"Wish I could, kiddo, but I have orders to watch our six. We can't let them sneak up behind us anymore." She smiled and hefted her rifle over her shoulder. "Your guns still working?"

Habi and I nodded.

"Good. Ask one of the soldiers to show you how to clean them. Keeping a clean gun will keep you alive." She nodded and left.

The sandwich tasted a hundred times better than the jerky at this point, a relief from the same foods we had been eating for what seemed like a year. I tried to count the days, but when I did, Jacob and his house and his death wish always popped into my mind, so I quit counting after day two. It couldn't have been more than seven or eight days max. A sick taste filled my mouth when my thoughts drifted to Jacob. Watching his death now ate away at my nerves. The scene replayed over and over. I wasn't even sure I had any nerves left.

Guilt consumed me. There was no letting it go. _It's your fault. You should've been there for him. You should've protected him._ These lines circulated without end.

Even though hundreds of soldiers surrounded us, all of them trained and packing heavy-duty weapons, I felt more vulnerable now than when I woke up alone in my house. After losing Jacob, the soldiers didn't promise safety as I once thought they had. None of us were safe.

None of us.

As the sun awoke, dark, unfriendly clouds blocked out its warmth, pouring rain to muddy up the ground to either side of the road. It rained into the afternoon, until we had either passed the clouds, or the wind had swept them away. By three, the clear blue sky smiled again.

The hardtop cover over the bed limited our view to the opening at the tail, so I walked to the edge of the truck, bouncing around as the driver failed to miss potholes. I stared up at the sun. The warmth bathed me and I absorbed as much as I could, closing my eyes.

Then a mass blocked out the rays for a beat.

I opened my eyes and spotted the alion fighter craft, what the soldiers were calling Hellcats. Balls of yellow exploded at the rear of the column, sending giant plumes of red and yellow flames skyward. Thick black smoke engulfed what I could see of the convoy's tail. The boom generated from the tanks deafened. Huge mounted machine guns added to the chorus of blasts.

The truck sped up.

Out of the smoke, a Hellcat flew low, zooming over the tops of vehicles. The triangular ship fired a wave of yellow dots. The jeep behind us exploded, its flames reaching for my face, like a hand grabbing blindly for food to consume.

I fell back.

The soldier in charge of us, an Asian woman by the name of Corporal Kosugi, grabbed my shoulder and hauled me to the front by the others, but I shrugged her off and returned to my perch. A large, muscle-bound private, who reminded me of Park, radioed their superior. No response came. He called over and over, but it was futile, no one was going to respond.

"Give it up, Weaver," Kosugi said. "Just protect the civvies, that's our duty."

Private Jelen, a broad, pale man with a bushy mustache and thick eyebrows took guard at the tailgate, his attention on the sky, searching for alion craft. One approached, flying even faster than its last pass over. The man aimed an anti-air rocket at the front tip of the craft. Waiting until it zipped over a tank four vehicles behind, he pulled the trigger, and with gray smoke filling our mouths, the rocket raced towards its target.

I coughed, hunching over, squinting to watch the outcome. The rocket found its mark and detonated upon impact. In seconds the entire Hellcat burned, afire from front to back to wings. The crimson gas emitted by the alion vessel combusted, adding to the chaos. The ball of fire whooshed over us, drifting to the left. In a crash, the wet trees and foliage burst into fire as the craft blew apart into flaming shards.

"Got one!" Jelen whooped. His Slavic accent, something I'd only heard in movies and video games, was pronounced and entertaining, though I wasn't sure why.

The other soldiers cheered and hollered their delight. When the celebration died down an hour had passed. The soldiers took every kill as a victory, and they relished in it, as if the end of the war—or whatever we were in—drew near. The only end I could foresee, the only future I imagined awaited us all, was death, flesh torn apart and sliding down the throat of an alion, digesting in stomach acid.

"You look grim," Habi told me as the afternoon slipped away.

"It was my fault," I stammered. "My fault Jacob died."

"No it wasn't," he argued.

"Yes it was," I said, ashamed. "You said it was a bad idea to go into the city, but I didn't listen. We should've just kept going down I-5 like you said. We could've found a pharmacy in a grocery store in a suburb or small town, but I—"

"You thought it was best, no one blames you." He was full of unwanted sympathy. "Besides, we would've never found the soldiers if we hadn't gone to the hospital."

I ignored his comment. "I feel like my heart is growing cold, bromigo." My heart hadn't leapt at his touch since Portland, and my skin felt numb to everything that grazed it.

He hugged me, kissed a cheek, and smiled. "It wasn't your fault, IQ." He rubbed my back. "They're taking us to a safe place."

I laughed. "There are no safe places left."

My mood irritated him, I could tell, but he hid it, pushing my words aside. "There's still a fight . . . still a chance. We're soldiers now, whether we ever wanted to become what we played or not, that's us now. You better put all that pain and guilt and whatever else some place deep, and save it for later, it's not doing you any good right now."

"Habi, we're not sol—"

He put a finger up to my mouth. "We're tough, our skin is thick, and our muscles only know endurance, just like in _Death Squad_. If it wasn't true before, it's true today."

My heart pounded for a second, alive. I nodded at him. He needed me to be strong. I hugged him tightly. We sat motionless for a while, our warm bodies pressed together, a sweet embrace that both of us desperately needed.

I took his advice and swallowed it all down, the guilt and the pain, all of it.

The trees of middle California rolled by as night came.

At sundown, the convoy stopped, and the soldiers assigned to us walked around to see buddies. A low-ranking soldier ran up to the truck, visiting Weaver, spreading news as he did every few hours. "Word is the alien shits have left most of the military installations intact just so that they can attack them. It's the weirdest goddamn thing I've ever heard of. Now they're blowing the bases all to hell and killing everyone in the process. Some divisions have been rerouted to meet up with us at . . ." His voice trailed off as the two walked away. They left the four of us alone again.

Habi seized my hand. "Thick skin," he said.

"Do I have thick skin?" Jane asked. "It feels the same as before."

"It's the thickest, toughest skin around," Habi lied. "An alion would have to be melted to come after you again. But if they do, we're all here, standing guard."

Burnhammer checked in again a short while later. "They tell me the ride is almost done. We're going up into the hills, to a secret base under Mount Baldy. Never been there, but apparently it's one of the last resort bases in the States. I guess it's like a small city, a place for civvies to live."

Jane grew excited. "We'll be safe there?"

"You betcha, kiddo," Burnhammer replied, smiling. "I've been told survivors can settle in until we exterminate the invasion force."

"Can I help . . . with the extermination?" Amanda asked.

"I think your days having to use your weapons are over, kiddo, at least until you're old enough and choose to enlist. When we get to Mount Baldy, you can relax again."

Amanda frowned at that; I could tell she detested being treated like a little girl. Her angry cheeks puffed, and she scooted to the front of the truck, lying down on the bench in a sullen pout. Jane followed her.

I slipped down from the truck to stand next to Burnhammer. "Corporal Burnhammer, can I ask you something?"

"If it's not classified, I'll answer." Meant to be a joke, no one laughed. She situated her assault rifle to rest across her stomach, hanging from a shoulder strap.

"How did your entire brigade survive? We overheard that the military installations were left unharmed."

"Well for one, the entire brigade didn't survive. Secondly, most of us were underground when the alions"—she grinned when she said the silly word—"started taking the masses, so maybe that factored in, I don't really know. What you heard about them leaving bases alone is correct. Our brigade was stationed at Tooga's Training Facility, a military base outside Forest Grove." She must have seen the confusion written on my face. "It lies about sixty klicks west of Portland, so that's why we were able to rescue survivors in the area. Anyway, intelligence thinks we were spared for a good reason, but I'm not really supposed to tell you."

"Because the alions want to train against soldiers," I said as if I already knew, trying to bait her.

"I cannot confirm or deny that," she said, nodding.

"Is that why they're here?" I looked her straight in the eye to gauge her reaction. "To train their soldiers against ours?"

She didn't flinch. "Intelligence has given us a number of possible reasons for why they're here. My personal opinion is that they're here to colonize Earth, but apparently there are lots of habitable worlds out there if you can get to them, which obviously they can. Others believe they're here because they need the food supplies, but a brainiac pointed out that a spacefaring species could easily grow enough food to sustain a high population, just like we do with our limited genetic engineering programs. Some think they're here to kill us just for the sheer hell of it. That idea lines up with them hunting down random civvies, seemingly for sport, and also why they left behind armed groups like the Red Treads, to give them a bigger challenge, though it doesn't take the abductions into account. But honestly, I, and the Big Thinkers above me, don't know why they're here. Maybe we'll never know . . ."

"Do you think we can exterminate them like you said?" Habi asked.

"So far it's been a losing battle, but once we regroup, organize, and make some plans of attack, yes, I think we'll have a chance. The problem was when they took everyone, we didn't know what was going on, it was all done so fast. The alions made sure our reactions were panic and confusion, and because of that, we didn't regroup to strategize our next moves." Her voice was mournful, yet a hope traced her heavy words. "We still have some backup communications working, so we're not totally blind."

Habi wiped his forehead in exhaustion and frustration. "What about other countries, do we know what they're doing to combat the alions?"

"I haven't heard anything as of yet. I suppose they're scrambling like us."

Up until this point I hadn't mentioned the SIM at all, knowing that they'd take it away the moment I told them what it did, but keeping it a secret also seemed wrong. Their engineers could probably amplify its coverage or duplicate its design to ensure that the alions abducted no one else, but could they do it fast enough? I'd never forgive myself if the twins were taken in the meantime. "Burnhammer, I have to tell you some—"

Suddenly, loud, ferocious roars boomed through the convoy and drowned out my voice. They came from all directions, a circle of calls, instilling fear. The alions had us surrounded with what sounded like thousands of soldiers.

Burnhammer spun around, searching the tree line. The grass grew tall before the trees, tall enough to hide a crouching alion. The unending roars never faltered. Deep, powerful, and shocking, they rattled my body, shaking the ground beneath my feet.

Voices yelled up and down the column. Most were commands, but screams of panic mixed in, shrills thick with fear. The roaring was unimaginable, a sea of horrific calls that knelled our death sentence. I had watched animal shows about lions before, groups of thirty or forty, all crying to each other, singing songs in the night. But this was different. Pure malice filled these roars. And they were crawling towards us, creeping upon our position, slow and threatening. They wanted us to piss our pants, and I did. I soaked my thighs. The warmth quickly turned cool.

Burnhammer grabbed my shirt collar and threw me into the back of the truck. I had no idea she possessed such strength. She handled my body like a toy. "Jacob had our bag with ammo," I shrieked. She jumped onto the bed and opened up a weapon case stacked against the right wall. She tore a sleek black and tan submachine gun from the foam padding, and punched it against my chest.

I took it with both my hands. "What is it?" I yelled, trembling from the constant roars.

"The KRISS VP55. It's the best submachine gun on the planet, slower than the OMP2, but there's no recoil and no muzzle climb. It shoots straight and true every time, even on full auto." She picked up four magazines and placed them in my pockets. "You'll need these." She leaned in close to my ear so that no one else could overhear. "I think this will be our last stand, Maggy. You protect the little ones with every ounce you have left, you hear me?"

I stared up at her, tears oozing from my eyes. I nodded slowly.

She rushed back to the case and found another one for Habi. He accepted it with a bruise to his chest. She gave us a quick rundown on how to operate the machine gun, then stooped down and snatched up her assault rifle resting against the truck's bed. Floodlights flashed on, shining across the grass, scanning the border where the tall evergreens stood. I peeked out into the darkness and saw nothing but grass and trees.

The roars continued to quake the earth. Gunfire exploded down the convoy. Rockets ignited by the trees. The forest lit up in a giant blaze. An alion swooshed out of the grass and ran past a soldier who carried a rocket launcher, snapping its jaws around the soldier's ankle, hauling him off into the wilderness on the other side of the road.

It all happened in a bat of the eye. The man screamed and pulled the trigger. A spray of saltwater jetted out the back of the launcher. The rocket burst from the tube, zoomed through the air, then exploded as it impacted a nearby tank. A single soldier jumped out of the burning tank, afire and running wildly into the grass, until death found him in the forest.

Another alion zipped through the convoy. Soldiers shot their heavy assault rounds, huge shotgun cartridges, and speeding machine gun bullets. For all the projectiles of death thrown at the alions, I didn't see one dying or dead.

An ear-splitting scream rent the air to the side of the truck. Burnhammer poked her head around in a flash. Her breathing remained calm. "Ready?" she asked us. Amanda had her gun raised, sitting on the bench, hunched over Jane.

Habi nodded.

My vision remained glued to the square view of the truck's tail. I kept my finger off the trigger; I didn't want to accidentally shoot a friendly if they rushed by, and I knew I would clamp the trigger the moment I glimpsed anything.

A man ran by, another civilian, screaming, "THE END! THE END!" He ran into the grass where streams of bullets sought to kill the advancing alions.

When I glanced around the corner, there were no alions coming, just grass. Gunfire and alion roars rattled my head. My fingers twitched and twitched.

"They're toying with us," Burnhammer yelled. She knelt down on one knee. Fear was starting to shake her. The longer we waited, the more our nerves broke down—it was inevitable.

In a heartbeat, an alion sprung from the tank behind us, landing before the truck's bed. A roar washed over me, a wave so intense it forced me to drop the submachine gun, and I stood there unarmed and unhinged.

It pounced up at us, claws out, ready to tear us to shreds.

"DIE! DIE! DIE!" Burnhammer hollered. Her bullets punctured the alion's skull and chest, flying through its body and into the tank behind. The carcass slipped from the truck's bed. She stepped to the edge, yelling four-letter curses, and sunk a dozen rounds into the body. Blood gushed out.

Habi held his gun, but hadn't pulled the trigger. Amanda stood there quivering, unable to shoot.

The corporal jumped down, alive with adrenaline, a murderous glint in her hungry eyes. She joined the mindless firing into the woods, seeking to find an enemy target, hoping that the bullets hit a furry mark. A world of bloodlust swept in. Soldiers all around bore the same melted glint in their eyes.

The scene lasted for half an hour; it lasted two minutes. It was hard to tell which. Despite all the rounds shot off, there were no more visible deaths. The forest fire burned for long hours after, but there was nothing to be done about it, except hope that it didn't spread near the road, and thanks to the good graces of the wind, it stayed far from us.

Early light powered up the solar panels. Soldiers went out searching for carcasses, to see the damage they had inflicted in the blind night.

Burnhammer approached, bearing an armload of sandwiches. She sat down on a bench. "Five, five carcasses . . . that's all we found. It sounded like thousands, but they had these." Shaking her head, she tossed a box that resembled a speaker at our feet. "They really were playing with us . . ." I could hear her teeth grinding in anger. "All those roars, made from these. So far, we've found hundreds of them scattered all over the place, a vast wireless network of speakers, all designed to generate mass panic." She stopped and caught a whiff of the sickening smell. Instantly she recognized the scent. "I'll have someone bring you all a change of clothes. Hopefully we can find some spares for the young ones." We couldn't hide the embarrassment in our eyes from her. "Trust me, almost everyone else did the same, even trained, experienced soldiers. Intelligence thinks it was some kind of ultra-low frequency produced by the speakers. The engineer called it infrasound, and I guess it can scare the shit out of you, even though you can't actually hear it. In any case, don't worry, you're not alone."

I stopped her as she was leaving. "Burnhammer, I wanted to tell you something last night."

"Oh, that's right, before all the madness started. What's up?"

"Félix and I didn't survive like all the rest," I said. "We weren't left behind, we survived because of this." I withdrew the sphere from my backpack. The soldier took it in her hands. "I call it a Spy Interference Machine, or SIM. I made it for fun, to stop our parents from listening in on our conversations. Anyway, it's a whole story, but it's the truth. It really works."

"It prevents them from abducting us?" she said, more than skeptical. "A disco ball?"

"It's not a disco ball, trust me."

"She's not lying," Habi supported my claim. "I don't know how it works, but I can tell you it works like she says it does."

"I was thinking maybe there's someone here or at Mount Baldy who can replicate it for everyone," I said. "To make sure none of us are taken like the others."

Burnhammer, who inspected the reflective ball with doubt written on her face, said, "I'll see what I can do."

At that, the corporal left us, and another guard took over. The three charged with our supervision never returned and their fate never divulged, but it was clear enough what happened to them. Corporal Gardner, a thin, short black woman, talked us through the traumatizing events of last night. She had been training as a counselor before the alions came. The woman spoke with a gentle voice, soothing, repairing our shattered spirits. She helped Jane most of all, who took a strong liking to Gardner the instant she stepped foot onto the truck's bed.

A sour, grim-faced man brought us a change of clothes, scurrying away afterwards, as if afraid of children. The clothes, plain gray sweats, fit loosely. Gardner assured us we'd get new, normal clothes once we reached Mount Baldy.

By midmorning the convoy turned on their gas engines and electric motors and pressed on. The day passed without any more atrocities. We were all in and out of consciousness, but none of us got a wink of sleep, because even when we had our eyes closed we were running, screaming, restless.

We reached the Mount Baldy perimeter at twilight. The convoy rolled to a stop, bathed in a dim red glow. "You'll be safe now," Gardner told us when we were within view of the first watchtower. "We're all safe now."

I shook my head in disbelief. _No, you silly woman. None of us will ever be safe again. Not here. Not anywhere. They're coming for us. It's just a matter of time._

A matter of time.

#

ONCE PAST THE three-meter thick wall, the journey to the bunker complex took another thirty minutes. Automatic gun turrets shifted atop the wall in a row, only visible when the moonlight struck them just right. Gardner pointed out the hexacopter drones patrolling the area, circling the woods from the wall to the underground installation. The red glow from the dispersed watchtowers faded as the convoy crawled up the mountain.

We stopped at checkpoints until we finally cruised under what at first I perceived as a tunnel, but the sky never reappeared, and it turned out to be the main entrance to the secret military base, Mount Baldy. The truck took a left and we headed down a wide concrete ramp before it rolled into a garage the size of three or four football fields. The room was crawling with soldiers, mechanics, and other personnel, along with massive trucks, tanks, jeeps, four-wheelers, and several vehicles I had never seen before. A woman climbed into the back and gave Gardner instructions on where to take us. They gathered us up with other civilians at the far right end of the hangar. Officers barked orders for all to remain calm. Corporal Gardner departed at that point, assigned a new task, a development Jane detested.

I counted up all the civilians: forty-seven. That was all they had rescued from Portland. Forty-seven people. Four of us weren't even from Portland, and at that moment, I wondered if the others were from different areas too. Before I could ask anybody, they scooted us off into another room with a row of curtained shower stalls. A large sign by the heavy metal door said BUG-FREE ZONE with a smiley face beside the words. Between each stall a hamper crammed with dirty, nasty clothes. Staff members wearing camo scrubs directed people into individual stalls, handing out goggles. "Pull the big yellow lever and stay still until the countdown is done," said a nurse with a blue nametag that read CINDY in bold white. "Dress in your new clothes and proceed to the opposite end of the hall." A soldier collected our weapons by the door, but I was reluctant to give up Liontamer, and he allowed me to keep it after I shot him the nastiest look I could muster.

Habi entered a stall first, then I oversaw the twins as a nurse gave them instructions to strip down to their birthday suits and slide their old clothes out of the stall for the nurse to throw away. Lastly it was my turn. The stall, about the size of an SUV, had a nozzle at the back that looked like the emergency shower in a science class. Stacks of more gray sweats sat up against the right wall in labeled bins. Shedding my clothes, I dropped them outside and straightened out the curtain for good measure, though it was made with privacy in mind and blocked out any would-be peepers. Goggles on, I pulled the yellow lever while standing under the nozzle. A jet of green gas shot out, engulfing my entire body. _Don't breathe,_ I reminded myself as I watched the digital countdown. At the end of thirty seconds, the vent under my feet sucked away all the green gas. Shivering, I dressed in a hurry, catching up with Habi and the twins in the next room.

We had to wait until ten refugees filled the room before a soldier led us to several elevators. Down and down and down we shot. The elevator stopped at level forty-one. Escorted down a long corridor and into a gym with basketball courts where five white booths were set up with banners hanging above them, displaying groups of letters: A-E, F-K, L-P, Q-U, and V-Z.

"I think they were expecting a bigger crowd," I said to Habi.

"Yeah," he rasped, his voice weak and grating.

We walked over to the L-P line, Jane and Amanda following on our heels. Three people stood in front of us. "What's your last name?" I asked Jane.

"Whitestone," Amanda blurted out.

"She asked me, not you." Jane pinched her sister.

"Not here," I snapped.

They ceased immediately. Amanda slipped between Habi and me.

"We'll get you signed in once we're done," I promised, impatience growing in their eyes. Their bodies became antsy and squirmy, fidgeting with their hands as they stood.

The civilian man speaking with the soldier behind the table moved out of line and we took a step forward. Habi went first when our turn came. He answered the woman's questions in a shy, reserved voice. "Félix Portillo. Seventeen. Bellingham, Washington. It's by the border of Canada. Single child. Both were taken . . ."

After they were done, I stepped forward.

The woman eyed me with distaste. It was evident the soldier hated her menial task. "Your name?"

"Maggy Li."

"Age?"

"Sixteen. No wait, what day is it?"

"It's the thirty-first, hon," she answered.

I gawked at her for a second. I turned around and found Habi's eyes. "Tomorrow's my birthday. I almost forgot . . ."

He frowned. "Me too . . . We'll have to celebrate."

The soldier hustled me along. "You're still sixteen, then?"

I nodded at her. "Yes, ma'am."

"City and state of origin?" she continued, leaving no room for small talk.

I answered quickly.

"Fate of your parents?"

"My father died when I was eleven, and my mom—she was taken." It was painful to say aloud. "So was our dog Lilly." She didn't ask me about Lilly, but I told her anyway. I answered the rest of her questions, and she gave me a temporary I.D. card so that I could move around the facility, though we were pretty much restricted to our quarters. Jane and Amanda received their I.D. cards, and then they shuffled us off to another level, where apartments lined the corridor. I estimated two hundred or more. A soldier led us to an apartment with a fancy "49" bolted to the door, like at a luxury hotel. It was a three bedroom, one for the twins, one for me, and one for Habi. Habi and I were each given an electronic key. We unlocked the door and it swung wide.

"Thanks," I said to the soldier escorting us as he walked away.

He turned back. "Someone will be by shortly to see that you're all settled." With a smile, he spun on his heels and left us.

The walls gave off a sturdy vibe, as if they could withstand a hundred massive blasts, and that alone provided a deeply sought comfort. A furnished living room was all set up with a TV and movies to watch via streaming on a closed Intranet network. A kitchenette lay to the right of the entrance, stocked with cookware, silverware, and everything else we needed. With all the electricity flowing through the compound, it was evident that the base did not rely on the solar stations for energy, and my money—which neither existed nor mattered—was on a geothermal reactor.

Jane ran to the couch and switched on the TV. An app listing old shows came up, an archive of ninety years or more.

A young soldier stopped in to check on how we fared after we'd eaten a quick and easy meal. "You look like you're adjusting to the apartment," she commented, her blond hair tucked in a ponytail so tightly it pulled her face with it. It hurt just to look at.

"I guess so," I replied. Though I'm not sure how she gauged her observation, we'd only been there a few hours, and we didn't have much to put away.

"I brought some fresh clothes, based on the sizes you gave us when you signed in. I hope they all fit well enough."

I nodded at her. "Do you know how I can contact Corporal Burnhammer?"

"Who was that?"

"Corporal Burnhammer. She's in the Fifty-sixth Infantry Division."

"Hon, almost everyone here is in the Fifty-sixth."

"She's a Shadow Stalker," I blurted.

"A Shadow Stalker," she repeated slowly. "Right. I'm sure I can track her down. Is there a message you want relayed?" She placed the bag full of clothes on the dining table.

"Just tell her what floor we're on and our apartment number, and ask her to stop by when she can."

She wrinkled her brow. "Sure, I can do that, but I can't make any promises she'll come. Most likely she's got her hands full, as you can probably guess from the chaos above."

"All right, well, I'd appreciate it anyway," I said with a courteous smile.

She nodded as she walked towards the door. "Yeah, you folks have a nice night. Try to get some nice long hours in. I'm sure you need it after what you've been through," she said, as if she knew the details of our horrific journey.

I waved a hand as I closed the door.

"That was strange," Habi said, "the way she looked at you when you told her to ask Burnhammer to stop by."

"That's certain. You think she'll tell Burnhammer?" I asked him.

"I don't know why she wouldn't," he responded, yawning.

Jane and Amanda were already rifling through the bag of clothes, tossing aside the articles too big for them. They began to argue over who got what, pinching each other all over. Once all the disputes were settled, and the clothes distributed, it didn't take long for them to pass out on the couch, watching _The Mansion on Mouse Hill_ , a big animated movie released two years ago.

Habi and I closed the door to the room I'd chosen. "Should we sleep together with them here?" I raised the question.

He adjusted his spectacles. "Why not, we slept on the buses together."

"Yeah, but this is private, there's a door between us now. They might think . . ."

"If you don't want to, I'm okay with that. I'll sleep in the other room."

"I think it's best until we really settle in," I told him.

"Settle in? So we're staying here? What about Darrel and Penelope?"

"We have no idea where they are. How do we find something when we don't know where to look?"

"We start at the JPL. That was the plan."

"The two of us?" My voice a mere whisper. "The two of us who don't know a goddamn thing about flying, pitted against spaceships loaded with alions . . . tell me, how is that going to work out? We have to face reality, bromigo, we can't find them on our own. Maybe from here we can learn more and come up with a better plan."

"And we're really not going to stay together tonight?" he said, changing subjects.

"No. Not tonight."

He nodded. "All right. Well, I'll see you in the morning then." His face bore his disappointment and irritation. He'd really gotten used to sleeping with his body next to mine. When he left, I slipped under the covers and turned off the light. The only light in the room came from an alarm clock, a soft red glow projected on to the ceiling.

After a few hours of tossing and turning, I got up and walked out into the living area. The TV flashed white, then blue, then green, as the scenes changed from a new movie. I crept into Habi's room and climbed between the covers. I wrapped an arm around him as the big spoon.

"Can't sleep either?" he asked.

"Nope," I replied. We rolled together so that he became the big spoon. "I can't—can't get the image of Jacob dying outta my head. It just keeps happening over and over and there's nothing I can do. I stand there, helpless, and he's so far away."

"It's not your fault, Maggy."

"Maybe not," I conceded in lieu of arguing. We both lay there for a long time, aware that neither of us was sleeping, feeling each other take a big breath every now and then.

"Have you thought about," Habi started. I rubbed his arm for encouragement. "Have you thought about how big the alions are?"

"Of course, they're huge."

"Well, have you thought about why they're so physically developed? Isn't technology supposed to curb physical evolution?"

"That's not a thing," I said, yawning. Exhaustion tugged on me. Called to me: _Come sleep, Maggy. You don't just want to, you need to._

"It's not?" He couldn't help but yawn too. "I thought we learned something like that in ninth grade bio?"

"Some people have argued that we've stopped evolving, but that's still unproven and up for debate. But applying anything we know or think we know about evolution to an alien species is putting the whole process in a box, making it predictable, and evolution is far from predictable." With each word I could feel my motor shutting down a little bit more. "They have copper-rich blood after all, and nothing so large or fast evolved on Earth with copper-rich blood, so that throws everything out the window right away. Plus, you could also argue that technology might breed physical evolution with genetic modification. Modify a few parents and watch their descendants change down the timeline. It's not Darwin's evolution, but it's evolution. And think about this: we've been bulking up soldiers for decades using science, why couldn't they do it too? It boils down to the fact that we know almost nothing about them. What if they're like ants and all we've seen are their soldier class? We can't assume anything."

"Didn't think of that," he admitted.

"Why were you thinking about their size and evolution?" I asked, curious despite my slowing brain function.

"At first I was thinking about how video game aliens almost never have fur, and my thoughts spiraled from there, picturing all the different aliens people have invented over the years."

I mumbled a reply, but what I said was anyone's guess. So tired. Too tired. Had anyone ever been so tired?

He gently squeezed me and whispered, "Goodnight."

"Goodnight," I replied, my lips barely parting.

It was seventy-two degrees and cozy, and I was out.

#

A FIST POUNDED in the distance. Then a second knock echoed. Then a third. Realizing that it wasn't a dream, I slipped out of Habi's arm, and entered the living area. Another knock came from the door. When I opened it, Burnhammer stood outside, ready to knuckle the surface again.

She smiled at me. "I was beginning to think they told me the wrong apartment."

"I thought I was dreaming," I told her.

"How are you adjusting?" She nodded at the accommodations of the apartment, as it tried to emulate normal life, but we both saw that it was false. Untold meters below the surface, it wasn't a life anyone of us would have chosen.

"It was nice to sleep without so much fear. I had a few nightmares, but I had a few good dreams too."

"There will be a time when all the good dreams come back," she said. She cleared her throat awkwardly. "Anyways, I gave your device to the Big Thinkers, and they thought it was brilliant. No one could believe that a sixteen-year-old designed it. They're working on creating more of them, and one to protect the entire base."

Pride swelled in my chest. "Wow—" I started.

"You're damn right wow," she cut me off, "but that's not what I came to tell you. General Kramer and Senator Stowitz are going to speak in the central auditorium in an hour. Apparently, they have some answers to the invasion, and to what exactly is happening out there, which I'll be glad to learn. It's open to everyone, even the refugees. I sent you the directions, you can check the PocketPad tablet assigned to this room, and you might wanna bring it just to record what they say. Good or bad, it'll be monumental."

"In an hour?" I asked, my satisfaction regarding the SIM somewhat deflated.

"In an hour," she answered. "I'll be sitting with the Shadow Stalkers to the left when you walk into the door I mapped out."

"All right, I'll be there." I waved goodbye as she left. The twins were still asleep, the TV voices giving comfort, and it didn't look like they'd be waking any time soon. I shuffled into Habi's room and nudged his shoulder. He didn't stir, so I shook him awake, then told him about the SIM news and the upcoming speech.

The hot water of the shower was insanely revitalizing. Water showers owned chemical showers, no contest. I had forgotten its magical properties, its ability to refresh the body, as if it made me a completely new person, ready to take on new challenges. I still had to deal with old ones though, but now I wanted to, as hope bloomed anew within my mind.

In forty-five minutes, we had showered, dressed, and eaten. I left a note on the table for the twins, hoping they didn't freak out if they woke up before we returned. PocketPad in hand, we navigated the many levels of the compound with a 3D map, most of which was grayed out, off limits to civilians; the elevator simply would not open, flashing RESTRICTED on the digital display above the doors. On top of the biometric scanners, a keypad awaited the secret access code and an ID swipe to allow entry. Without all of those, the elevator moved on after a few ticks. The higher we climbed, the more packed it became, until floor three, where people rushed out in droves. The auditorium spanned multiple levels, and we walked up a flight of stairs to the second level and the door pointed out by Corporal Burnhammer. To the left, a dozen or so Shadow Stalkers sat, waiting for the event to begin. The rest must have been on duty.

Burnhammer saved us two seats near the end of the row. She nodded as we sat down in the red velvet padded chairs. They were soft and contoured to our specific shapes. "Made it in time."

I nodded back at her. "There are a lot of restricted levels," I commented. "Yet we're supposed to feel at home . . ." My voice trailed off, as a man in a solid-black, three-piece suit took to the stage fifty to sixty rows down below us.

"It's the same way for the lot of us. Only scientists and officers are granted access to most of the levels. A real short end, if you ask me." She hushed up when the man on stage cleared his throat.

"Thank you." His voice came out loud and clear over the surrounding speakers. "Thank you all for coming. After the arrival of the Fifty-sixth last night, Senator Stowitz, along with Major General Kramer, believed it the appropriate time to explain what they know about our situation, and will try to answer any questions as best they can. I kindly ask for no comments or commotions during their initial speeches, and that you reserve any words for the end. I also ask you to be polite and respectful when forming your questions. This is a delicate hour, and no one wants haste, anger, or frustration to cloud the room. Thank you. With that said, I would like to introduce Senator Stowitz and Major General Kramer."

General Kramer stepped forward from behind a black curtain to the left of the stage. His matte-blue uniform bore two stars on each shoulder. He forwent the standard beret, displaying a proudly shaven sunburnt head, wrinkled and lumpy, as shiny as the new stars designating his authority.

Behind the general, Senator Stowitz, dressed in a slim-fitting blue suit and red necktie, walked onto the stage as applause sang a song of approval. He waved left and right and left again.

As the noise died, General Kramer stepped up to the podium centered on the stage and gave a salute. In seconds all sounds stopped. Soldiers and civilians resisted their urges to talk, and suppressed any heavy breathing. The auditorium grew dead silent. "Life as we know it is at an end." His voice rang in the auditorium. "We are at war with an enemy never before seen on Earth, with an army of untold number of soldiers and technology vastly surpassing our own, and a will to exterminate every last creature on this planet. We enter into a new era, where we must marshal new strength, new life, new determination, and a new unity, one the likes our race has never known. We've had loved ones taken from us . . . seen our homes marked by strange symbols . . . and had to defend ourselves with the most basic of weapons." A long pause came over the general. "What I am going to say next is virtually unprecedented in the United States of America." He emphasized his last words, giving them a quality that inspired the heart.

"What I mean to do today is give every willing and able man, woman, and child over the age of thirteen, a weapon to defend themselves with, which many of you brave souls have had to wield during the absence of your protectors, your leaders and law officers, your military strength and scientific vigilance, those that have made us feel safe since the birth of our Great Nation. I ask for volunteers to step forward to fight for our freedom . . . for our land . . . for our very survival.

"To those who will take up arms, a crash-training course will be given. To those who wish not to participate in field engagement, we ask that you contribute in any way that you can. We have need for teachers, custodians, farmers, computer technicians, engineers . . . I am afraid to say this, but if ever it were truly appropriate, it is today . . . Uncle Sam wants you . . . he wants _all_ of you.

"I would not say these words unless our cause was desperate, and believe me, I do not speak them without a heavy heart, for I know what I am asking, especially of those many feel are too young to be included, but without hands to hold our guns, we are few and defenseless. To elaborate on our grim situation, I will turn the floor over to Senator Stowitz, who will give you the details that we know." The general stepped back.

I looked around. Mouths gaped, people gasped—soldiers and civilians alike—and no one sat without attentive ears, listening to take in every last word. Despite the shock that had just hit the audience, no one spoke, waiting on the edge of their seats.

Senator Stowitz stepped forward so that the room had eyes only for him. "Good morning, good morning. As far as we know, the entire western and eastern seaboards have been devastated. The capital has been leveled. To my knowledge, the president and her next fourteen successors have been taken. I have been told that the Secretary of Energy, Leo Sterling, is being held down in a complex like this one, outside of Fort Worth, Texas, and will assume the mantle of president. As to why the aliens are destroying our great cities after the abductions, no one knows for sure, but we can reasonably conclude they are not here for our resources. They're not here to colonize our planet.

"Our world has been decimated, but not beyond the point of recuperation. We can rebuild. We can renew. We can bring ourselves out of the darkness, but it is going to take every one of us, we cannot afford the laws and ethics of the past to infiltrate and fog our future. What we are asking our children to do is unsettling, atrocious, and compromising of old standards. But if we do not ask our children to join the military ranks, we very well may not have a future on this planet.

"They are our last line."

Shouts from the crowd pierced the silence. Voices spoke against the extremely young fighting in combat, against training child soldiers.

An image of Amanda flashed in my mind; she held her pistol, rapidly pulling the trigger, killing alions left and right. I knew she could handle it. Killing an alion wasn't the same as killing a man, and Amanda had done that. If she could, the older ones could too.

Habi leaned into me. "Do you think this is wise?"

"If it's not wise, it's necessary," I replied.

Astonished by my words, his jaw fell. "But thirteen-year-olds?"

"Amanda is eleven."

By his reaction, I could tell he'd forgotten that fact. "Eleven," he repeated to himself.

The Shadow Stalkers made comments to each other, debating the decision. Burnhammer leaned over the armrest. "Are you gonna volunteer?" she asked Habi and me.

I looked at him to confirm my assumption. "Of course," I told her.

"Glad to hear it," she said. "You two would make fine Shadow Stalkers."

A man near the front yelled out, "How did they get past our space defenses?" Others grew bold once the first voice had put forth their thoughts. It was something I wanted to know as well.

Stowitz raised a hand to silence the crowd. "Please—please." His words were lost in the clamor of growing voices.

"SILENCE!" General Kramer boomed. The crowd obeyed, beaten down by his powerful presence and commanding tone.

The senator nodded at the general for his support. "It is well known that, although the PDN was built to stop a world war, the satellites can also be used to target outside threats. And I know that is the prevailing, dominant question—how did these aliens slip past our defenses? To all of you, it is a mystery, and it shames me that I know the truth.

"I will tell you, but you must listen, and judge me not until the very end of what I have to say. I would also ask you to bear in mind that the aliens would've arrived no matter our actions." He waited until nods were requesting that he continue. "Two years ago, Earth's population was approaching eighteen billion. Water supplies, even with advances in seawater desalination using graphene, were still declining considerably. Food supplies were on the brink of collapse. Unemployment was peaking to the point of societal instability. Even the very space with which to live was dramatically affected by soaring numbers. Society, simply put, has been living on the edge these last few years, and we, your government officials, along with all the other top government officials around the world, decided a drastic plan was called for.

"That same year, at the 2046 World Summit, we met to discuss what actions could be taken. That's when a scientist from Japan played us a recording. It was a message sent to our planet from space over fifty years ago, and ever since, the Japanese had been working on translating it. They didn't say how exactly, but they succeeded in their endeavor only days prior to the summit. The translation called for food, water, and medicine, anything we were willing to spare. Their species was at war with another alien race, and they couldn't produce enough supplies to keep up the war effort. A description of their diet was included in the message."

Everyone in the audience, including myself, tensed up, as if all could sense what the senator was about to say. I didn't want him to, but I knew it was coming, the words were on the edge of his tongue, about to roll off.

"Animals fit their needs. _Humans_ fit their needs."

Shock and horror rang out in the audience. General Kramer looked appalled, possibly even stunned, as though he'd been kept in the dark. When the uproar of the crowd became too much, the general stepped forward and yelled for silence.

"We believed the situation dire," the senator continued, "and so was that of these aliens—it was never supposed to be like this," he cried. He scrambled in front of the podium and fell to his knees. "The deal we made with them was only for a small percentage of the population . . . only a small percentage . . ."

The crowd spat venom at the senator and the general had to silence them once more.

When next Stowitz spoke, a noticeable tremor accompanied his words. "The day before the abductions started, the Planetary Defense Network was powered down in preparation for their arrival, and we learned shortly after communications went dark that the IPDA's headquarters in Antarctica was bombed that morning, and soon after, all the ancillary bases around the globe were simultaneously destroyed, including our own base in New Mexico. But as far as we can tell the PDN satellites are still operational, and we have confirmation that the International Space Station is intact, which houses the last remaining system capable of controlling the defense network. However, we've lost contact with those brave souls aboard the ISS, and we can only assume the worst at this point.

"We never imagined—"

The crowd could no longer sit and listen to the abominable words the senator was saying, and then I heard it, angry cries rising here and there: _"It was him!"_ and _"Murderer!"_ and _"Genocide!"_ Then a single booming voice erupted: "Kill the senator!" And with that suggestion hanging in the air, the scattered voices evolved into a single echoing chant: _"Kill! Kill! Kill!"_

"Please—please—please. I beg your forgiveness. We didn't know! We didn't know. The aliens—they weren't supposed t-to take so many—it wasn't the agreement. We d-didn't know. We didn't know . . ." He wept before the crowd, turning into a heap of emotion, tears spilling from his red eyes, his body trembling.

The general shook his head. Eyes open and staring into nothingness, he just shook his head. He looked as if he didn't know what to do next.

An officer in the front row drew the pistol holstered at his hip. One shot . . . Two. Three.

The senator hit the imitation-wood flooring.

People screamed in panic, up and running for the exits, until they realized what had happened, then cheers spread throughout the room like a crowd giving an ovation at a concert. Their cries of retribution rattled the auditorium.

General Kramer peered at the senator's corpse with disgust.

Hatred choked the air. We had all been betrayed and no one would soon forget it.

I gazed at Habi.

His eyes met mine, full of streaming tears. He shook his head as well. "How could this have happened like this . . . our own leaders . . . our own . . ."

Blue, Habi, and I had talked about global conspiracies hundreds of times, but none of them came close to the unimaginable scale of the senator's disclosure. It went beyond mind-boggling; it was unspeakable. "I don't know," I said, my voice cracking. I shuddered. "I don't—" I started to say, when my eyes caught sight of a soldier running down the steps of the lower level. He leapt up onto the stage and whispered into the general's ear.

General Kramer nodded and dismissed the man. Walking up to the podium he asked for silence. No one listened. Then he demanded silence. "Major Locke has just informed me that a strange mark has been discovered on top of the main entrance into this base. It's a single bar coming out of a horizontal line. The last of the three symbols. Three lines for those abducted. Two lines for the civilians left behind. One line for the military bases they plan on attacking." He paused and sucked in a deep breath. "It's been confirmed that this mark has appeared on other military installations just prior to being assaulted by the enemy. So now we know they're coming for us, and soon. I want volunteers to line up at the right end of the auditorium, down in the staging area. Soldiers, return to your superiors for orders." His words came out rushed, his movements frantic.

"This could be our last stand." His voice echoed over the rows. "We now know why they are here, we are food to them, and we can guess why they are still here, using our planet as a training ground while they weed out those of us who remain. I ask you . . . I ask you to remember, remember those who you are fighting for, remember those who have been taken, and those who have died. Remember our strength, our perseverance, and our intelligence, and the very thing that makes us human, the core of our species . . . remember our love.

"Remember these things in the coming darkness, and know that we stand united, a unit of anger fueled by the will to survive. Stand strong, stand composed, stand as one."

A wave of HOOAH thundered in the auditorium. The end of his speech penetrated the very hearts of his soldiers. Blood boiling, the soldiers were moved to a state of charged preparation, awaiting the enclosing noose with determination in their eyes.

His speech moved me too, somehow, someway unbeknownst to my mind, as my blood was charged with energy, and I was ready to unleash my fury at the alions.

The room became busy with movement, with soldiers filing out, and refugees running down to the staging area.

"You should go enlist," Burnhammer said. "Both of you."

"We need to get to Pasadena," I blurted.

She eyed me curiously. "Pasadena? Why Pasadena?"

"We need to get to NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab." A plan formulated in my head. If the end was truly near, then it didn't matter if we died at Mount Baldy or attempting to reach the JPL; all that mattered was that we gave it a shot. "We know that they were working on manned and unmanned space fighters there, and we could try to use one of them to board the Mosaic to fire up the PDN."

"Board the ISS?" she asked.

I nodded.

She leaned in closer. "And just how do you know they were working on space fighters at the Jet Propulsion Lab?"

I chose not to correct her then that I didn't exactly know where the spaceships were, realizing the plan would never get the green light if the location was uncertain. "Jacob, the one we lost in Portland, his father worked there on a top secret program for the IPDA called Project Raptor."

She paused and hung her head, searching her mind. "Project Raptor, eh? That's an odd name."

"They're birds of prey," I elucidated. "It's the umbrella term for Project Whitehawk and Project Spacefalcon, the different spaceship programs."

Her face contorted as it had when I gave her the SIM, wrinkled in skepticism, but she'd made the right decision in the end. "I'll bring the plan to Lieutenant Laffrado. This has to be taken to the general."

I grabbed her arm as she jumped to her feet. "There's no time."

"If you want this plan to succeed, then there's time," she replied. "Go back to your quarters for now. I'll come for you as soon as I have word."

I frowned. Habi and I left the auditorium, but before we rounded the corner of the door, I saw the line of volunteers; it wound around to the back and down an aisle. At least four-fifths of the civilians that had sat in the audience now waited to enlist. Hundreds wanted to fight. And they would get their chance soon enough.

#

KNOCKS RAPPED OUR apartment door thirty minutes later. Burnhammer smiled faintly as I swung it open. "Approved," she said. By the way she paused I could sense a 'but' coming. "But they won't allow you to come. I argued in your favor since it was your plan, and I reminded them that it was you who gave them the SIM, showing how smart you are, and I even added that you intend to enlist, but they rejected the idea outright."

"We can't go?" I said aloud, more to process the reality than anything else. "But we're seventeen. They're giving guns to thirteen-year-olds."

"Your age isn't the problem, it's your experience, or lack thereof. You're not trained for a mission like this."

"Not trained?" I repeated without thinking. Again, processing. "You can't be serious."

"I'm sorry, Maggy, but it is what it is."

"So what, we just sit here and wait to die?"

"Hell no. A battle is coming, and they'll need you and Félix to fight. Come on, you can take the little ones to the Care Center, they'll be safer there. I'll get you geared up after that and make sure you get to where you need to be."

I nodded vaguely, out of it. Habi explained the situation to the twins. Amanda ardently protested being left out. Jane didn't want to part ways either, but she also didn't want to be near the fighting. "Lead the way," I said. We had everything packed and ready to go.

Burnhammer stopped me at the door. "Leave the axe. It's too big to swing around other untrained civvies, and we have knives that will do the trick."

My face protested, but I slid it off my back all the same. _Goodbye, Liontamer_ , I mouthed as we left.

We dropped the twins off at the Care Center. Jane sobbed helplessly. Amanda screamed for us not to exclude her, yelling, "I'm old enough to fight! I'm old enough!" A bulky guard stopped them at the door.

We raced down a long corridor to an elevator. Up we went. Burnhammer brought us to a warehouse-sized armory. Several different types of guns were neatly racked along the walls, and on tall, wide shelves on wheels in the middle of the room. All of it was orderly, well maintained. She found Habi a shotgun and spare bullets. "Four hundred RPM's and no recoil," she boasted. Then she asked if I'd liked the submachine gun she had given me before. I nodded, and she handed me one. She showed us what she used in the field, grabbing an assault rifle with BARRETT M968 imprinted above the magazine box. She also grabbed a shorter gun similar to her assault rifle. "It's called a Personal Defense Weapon, or PDW, shorter and lighter than a standard assault rifle, but it keeps up the range. Good for cramped situations."

After we loaded up on weapons and ammo, which outnumbered people ten to one, if not by more, she led us to a line of racks stocked with military clothing: vests, jackets, pants, boots, belts, and everything else. "These are part of the DS45 uniform, adopted three years ago. It's called Dragon Scale. Trust me, it will save your life."

"From ten centimeter teeth that can exert a few thousand kilograms of pressure?" Habi asked, guessing about the power of an alion's bite.

Burnhammer chuckled. "No, probably not from that. But maybe a few of those black bullets they shoot."

We nodded, then dressed in a changing area off to the side, covering ourselves in the lightweight ensemble. We put our old clothes in a sack and wrote our level and apartment number on it. Burnhammer led us to another hangar where officers were assigning refugees to groups. At the back of a line, Burnhammer shook our hands. "I don't know if I'll see you again, but I'm glad to have met you two. You take care of each other."

"Good luck," I said begrudgingly. We watched her depart back into the corridor. Pulling on Habi's sleeve, I whispered, "Come on."

"Where are we going?" Habi asked, confused. "We're supposed to wait here to be assigned a group."

"This is bullshit and you know it," I said heatedly. "This is our plan, and I'm not going to wait around here while they go off and risk their lives. We have to follow her and sneak into whatever vehicle they're taking."

"Are you frakin' melted? We'd be spotted before you could say 'I got lost?' And then they'd probably send _us_ to the Care Center."

"It's a risk I'm willing to take." I hustled after Burnhammer down the corridor. Habi, my best friend in all the world, chose to stay by me.

"This is nuts. I just want you to know that."

I nodded, maintaining our distance behind Burnhammer, using soldiers and refugees as cover. "I do. Trust me, I do."

"Good, then you're not as melted as I thought."

We followed Burnhammer across the base to another hangar similar to the one we'd parked in last night. The entire Second Platoon geared up and assembled by two decked out Humvees, some kind of tactical jeep, and one larger armored vehicle that resembled a small bus. The head of the platoon, Lieutenant Laffrado, a tall, wiry man who looked strong, but not as crazy hulky as some of the other soldiers we'd seen, greeted Burnhammer with a salute and some inaudible words. Hiding behind a truck, we spied on the soldiers, assessing our best chance to smuggle aboard.

"Plan?" Habi asked like he always did when we played video games.

"All the trunks are open."

"So? Everyone is also gathered around them, stowing supplies."

"We need to get closer." Creeping around the front of the truck, I darted from one vehicle to the next, until only one stood between the Shadow Stalkers and us. Habi, about to explode from anxiety, breathed heavily into my ear. I squeezed his arm. "Patience." He shook his head in dismissal.

Henderson, along with Loritz, another squad leader, and the squad leaders' assistants, joined Laffrado, and were discussing the route they should take to the JPL. "Shadow Stalkers!" Laffrado yelled after a few minutes. "Gather 'round." He waved his soldiers in close. "You know the mission, our platoon has been assigned to get to NASA's JPL without drawing the attention of these alien scumbags, and hopefully—hopefully it will be more than a wild goose chase. We'll be taking an IT expert, a highly skilled engineer, and four pilots of the Hundred and Fourteenth Fighter Squadron. Our route is simple, a straight shot down the main road to 210, and we'll find our exit about forty-eight klicks west after we hit the highway. We're ten down from our usual thirty-one, but we're strong and determined, so let's get the job done. HOOAH!"

The platoon thundered HOOAH back at Laffrado.

As the platoon loaded the last of the supplies, two women strolled up with computer gear and other gadgets. The taller one with long black hair shook Laffrado's hand and introduced herself as Doctor Strafford, then her associate, Doctor Sutton, who sported short, kinky curls. Their eyes were cold and tired, as if only awake because of the graces of the coffee bean. The two were directed into the armored bus a second later, along with four other soldiers dressed in different fatigues, who could only be the pilots.

Suddenly a siren shattered the relative calm of the hangar. "Ah hell," Laffrado shouted. "They're here. Hold on." He ran off into a different corridor from the one we came from. For the briefest of moments, the soldiers were preoccupied with the bustle of troops.

"Now!" I whispered, bolting for the trunk of the closest Humvee. Hiding between the gear was easier than I first imagined, the space impeccably organized. Once settled, I lowered the trunk, but couldn't get a good enough grip to close it, and a noticeable gap called attention to us like a stop sign.

Laffrado's voice returned a moment later. "An army of the alien bastards has been sighted making their way up the main road, so we can't go that way. We'll have to take the back roads that connect to Highway 2, then make our way west from there. It joins back up with 210 near the JPL exit." He sounded as if he were familiar with the area. After explaining the rest of the details to his platoon, the drivers fired up the vehicles.

"Shut that trunk!" someone ordered, and my breath got stuck in my throat as a shadow blocked out the sliver of light. _Don't open it. Don't open it._ The trunk lifted a quarter before slamming shut. In that nanosecond my heart stopped and didn't resume again until we jerked forward. _Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!_

The vehicles ran without a grumble, their fake engine noises disabled. Despite that fact, I couldn't hear anything but chaotic shouting in the distance. No gunfire yet. We rolled to a stop minutes later. How long were we stopped? Ten seconds? Two minutes? We took off again. The blacktop must have ended because the ride suddenly became severely bumpy.

The next thing I knew someone was screaming bloody murder. The Humvee jolted as if dodging a bomb blast. More screams. My chest grew tight. The next blast popped my ears as it rocked the vehicle. I could hear Habi breathing next to me, panicking. In the hot, airless trunk, we both gasped. He clutched my leg, the only body part he could reach. "I love you," he yelled over the results of several explosions. Heat pressed upon us like a blazing inferno. "I love you," he repeated, this time louder and with more force, desperate to make sure I heard.

The words scared me, scared me more than I'd ever been scared in my entire life. It meant it was the end. I couldn't see him at all, but I reached back and found his hand, our fingers intertwining. "I—"

A concussive force flung the Humvee on its side. The trunk violently burst open and the world passed in a sickening blur. As the swirling red and yellow that pierced my vision turned to black, I heard the screams of soldiers, and the repeated cry of "NO!"

Then I heard nothing but the crackle of death.

#

AS THE SWIPING claws plunged at me, I watched the last black globe I had fired, now trapped within the blue suspension field, a fingernail's thickness from escaping. No lightning bolts struck the bullet. Unstopped, it approached the edge of the cloud at a crawl.

The globe penetrated the barrier.

The world of blue shattered, evaporating into nothing. Bullets resumed launching from the alion gun.

Black globes suddenly riddled the alion and blood sprayed everywhere. My face dripped with the horrific cobalt, mixing with my sweat. My stomach wanted to shoot out my mouth, but I battled it back down, calming my nerves. I swallowed. The metallic taste of copper engulfed my tongue. I spat. A few coughs rattled my chest, and I spat a couple more times, clearing my throat afterward.

I didn't want to faint, so I slapped myself, but that didn't help at all. My heavy eyes closed, and I was swimming in summer's warmth. When I opened them, the walls blurred, and were too fuzzy to make out with any distinctions. I reached, but there was nothing within grasp, and I collapsed to the grating, disoriented by nausea.

I rolled over.

Hours passed before my vision cleared. Or maybe it had only been minutes. Seconds? I sat up, holding my knees, breathing deep and slow. The dead alion lay a meter or two away. Its blood had pooled beneath the grating, now motionless and shiny, reflecting my face back to my eyes. I hated what I saw. Everything about me now screamed of enervation. If the alions didn't kill me soon, my own weariness would.

My thoughts turned to how it could detect me, then I remembered, jamming my hand into my right pocket. There I found the bag of Skittles that I had never cloaked. That must have been an odd prey to follow, a purple bag of candy. I decloaked and recloaked.

My stomach rumbled.

I clutched the sides of my gut. Those cheese crackers had done nothing to ease my hunger pangs. _Stress eating, Darrel, that's all it is. You're not really hungry._ My stomach wholeheartedly disagreed with a bellow. _Screw you, stomach. Screw you._ I ran back to the stockroom and grabbed a few supplies, making sure they were cloaked. Returning to the torture room proved much more difficult than the last time I navigated from the dining hall. The halls looked different, with my memories faded instead of fresh, and I stumbled around each corner, surprised by every terrible sight reminding me I was on an alion spaceship.

Finally, I chanced upon the room. Penny lay in the same place. Three alions now worked, fiddling with bodies, using strange instruments, touching screens to input calculations and adjust the angle of dozens of robotic arms hanging from the ceiling.

Every other minute a bold nerve struck, and I was centimeters from jumping into action, on the verge of dashing into the room to scoop Penny off the table and make a break for the exit at the other side of the room. But then another nerve pulsed within, a cowardly nerve, and I stood stock-still, staring.

If only I could freeze the ever-shifting laser that monitored the room. If I could put it in stasis like the people in the pods . . . or the blue cloud . . .

I spun around and headed back to the dead alions, following a trail of cheese crackers that I'd left behind off to the side of each hall. Whether or not any alions could sniff them, I didn't know, and I pushed the consequences out of my mind of what would happen if they could.

Finding the stockroom, I surveyed the hall. It remained unnoticed by any alions. I ran for the second alion and its bazooka. Strapping it across my back, adjusting it tight, I performed the cloaking routine, sprinting back to the torture room.

I'm coming Penny. I'm gonna rescue you.

The cheese cracker trail made it ten times faster on the way back. I passed a few alions, but they paid me no heed, as if I didn't exist. Returning to the room where I'd climbed up a pod to stash the water in the duct, I left everything behind in the same spot, carrying only the bazooka to the torture room.

The alions used both of their humanlike hands to fire the blue stasis orbs, so I hunkered down to a knee, bracing myself by tightening all my muscles. This would probably take my arms off. I placed three fingers on the giant trigger. Courage waited for its moment to surge through my veins. It waited a good long while, as my eyes tracked the yellow line, leading the target by a fraction.

I pulled back.

My chest and shoulders strained backwards, as a stasis orb launched at the scanner. Within a blink, it was trapped in suspension. I adjusted my aim to the closest alion and fired, then snared the second and third alion an instant later, blue lightning bolts striking into their furry bodies. I swung the bazooka to my back, using the soft straps, tightening them until they pinched my skin, secured.

When I ran for Penny, no sensor gave away my position, or alerted the dining hall full of alions to my presence. The buckles that held her down were difficult to undo, and the faster I tried to go, the longer it took, as the uncooperative buckles fought against my trembling fingers. The eyes of the alions seemed to stare directly at me. I had no idea how long the stasis clouds lasted, but with every passing second, my nerves told me they would fail soon. The straps released after a dozen _clicks_ , and I snatched her up, huffing as I raced out of the room.

My muscles proved too fatigued to push her into the duct. I searched for one of the square, padded rooms with a table, coming upon one three hallways later.

I laid her on the table. Her closed eyes darted all around underneath her lids. She looked as if she were dreaming about something pleasant. I waited as time passed at a rate slower than my mind could take. Agitated, paranoid, and afraid, I twitched while I paced from wall to wall.

My gaze never left Penny.

She suddenly coughed, bringing herself upright at the waist, and gasped. "What the—"

"It's okay, it's okay," I said, running to her side. "You're okay now."

She swung her feet over the table. "Hello?"

"I'm here," I said. "I'm here for you . . . Oh, right." Realizing she couldn't hear or see me, I pressed the button to uncloak. "See me now?"

"I can't believe—" she started.

I threw my arms around her, squeezing. "I got you out. You're okay." My words were more for me than for her. I needed comforting.

"There was a cloud . . . I was trapped." She stuck out her hands. "I couldn't move."

Our eyes met. "I know. I was in one too. But we're okay now. Can you walk?"

She hopped down and took a few steps. "I feel pretty drained. Do you have any water or food?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I stashed some supplies in the duct." I grabbed hold of her hand. "Do you think you can climb?"

"Maybe," she said, doubtful. "I'll have to try."

Following a cracker trail, cloaking every now and then to make sure we were headed in the right direction, I led her to the corridor where I'd entered the duct system. "This is it," I said, stopping before a pod directly under an access panel. I climbed up, popped it open, then descended the pod. "The supplies aren't far from here. I'll push you when you're ready."

She nodded, though her droopy eyes said she was about to collapse, fighting off the sedative. She gripped the thick plugs that attached to the pod and struggled upwards. Once her fingers clutched the panel's frame, I boosted her the rest of the way, grunting and panting.

I slipped as her legs left my hold.

She peeped over the edge. "You all right?"

"Yeah," I said, staring up at her. "I'm fine. Lost my balance is all. I'll be up in a minute. You should see the food to your right."

She smiled and retreated into the duct. "It's cloaked," she said, reappearing.

"Okay, hold on." I gathered my breath. The effort had winded me after all the running and walking, all the pacing and worrying—and staring death in its five-clawed face. It all took its toll. I clambered to my feet and headed up the pod. Replacing the panel and tossing the bazooka aside, I cloaked, collected all the gear and uncloaked it, then sprawled out on my back, recuperating again.

"You need some sleep," she said. Her lips smacked as she chewed down a piece of salted meat.

I hoped it wasn't human muscle, but I didn't say anything. I knew she would throw it away at the thought, and we desperately needed it to survive. Besides, what were the odds it _was_ human? Nah, it tasted like beef. The more I told myself that the more I believed it. "Sleep sounds good, but escaping sounds better." I groaned, rolling over and pushing myself up on my knees. "Could you hand me the water?"

She offered me the bottle. "What happened? You said you rescued me, what did you rescue me from? Did they put me back in a pod?"

Taking the bottle, I shook my head. "Nope. They laid you out on a slab to do some experiments. They were torturing people in the room—but I got you out." I nodded, my body rocking. "I got you out."

"You all right, Darrel?"

"Probably not. I don't think too many people, if any at all, have seen what my eyes have taken in over the last few days." I set the bottle down with a _clink_. "There was a monitoring laser in the room, to detect intruders, at least I guessed as much. I killed an alion that had one of those bazookas." I pointed to the silver tube. "It was all luck, but I did it, somehow . . . anyway, I froze the laser, along with a few alions. That's how I got you out."

She stared at the bazooka. "Wow," she said. "I can't believe you did all that for me. You didn't—"

"It was my fault," I cut her off. "It was all my fault. I went up into the duct first. You went first all the other times, but not that time . . . it was my fault, I'm a coward. My dad always told me I was. He was always saying, 'Man up, Darrel' or 'Goddamnit, Darrel, be a man for once in your life.' He never let me forget what I am."

She crawled over to me, wiped away the tears that had started to moisten my cheeks, and smiled at me. "You're not a coward, Darrel," she spoke softly. "You saved me, remember? Would a coward risk their life like that?"

I sniveled. My nose filled with globs of snot.

"No," she answered her own question. "No, they wouldn't." She held me, laying me back to the floor. "You need to rest. Take it easy."

Resisting her directions, I labored to sit up, wiping away the tears. "I don't need rest," I swore with the force of a solemn oath. "They've broken me down, and now I'm building myself back up, rising on the tide of rage, filled with the fire of vengeance." I opened my hand and offered it to her.

With a fervid smile, she took it and rose. "Break me down, build me up."

#

"THEY TOOK EVERYTHING I had." Penny dug a hand into the bag of cheese crackers. "Including my cloaking device. What are we going to do about that?"

"I could scout the ship by myself," I said, but before I could finish, she was already shaking her head.

"No, they know we're using the cloaks, and even if their main scanners are down because of the bomb, they probably have short-range scanners that can detect us."

"They might not," I blurted, though I knew that was absurd. "Yeah, all right. You're right."

"Honestly, it doesn't make sense that they haven't caught us. We can't be too far from this torture room, and they know we're using the duct system, so what are they waiting for?"

"I've been trying to figure that out. They knew we were together when they took you, but they barely put any effort into capturing me afterwards. And now . . ."

"It's like they're not even trying."

"Right. But why?"

"That doesn't matter right now. If we didn't have much time before, we have even less now. We have to find a hangar, and we have to find it _now_."

"So, what do we do?"

She chomped down on the golden crackers. "We crawl until we find it. No stopping. If they come, they come. And if they don't detect you, at least you'll get away . . . maybe."

"In that case, you should wear the cloak." I loosened the straps to the device and stripped it off my body.

Despite her protest, she strapped on the invisibility harness but forwent cloaking. "I don't know why, but they're giving us this chance, so let's use it."

I handed her the alion gun, grabbing the bazooka for myself. "Let's do it. Let's go home." We started another long journey on our hands and knees. In every new duct we entered, we stopped and scoped out what lay beneath us, but all of the rooms were either living quarters or rooms with pods.

When my knees became good and sore, we stumbled upon a room storing water supplies or, perhaps, the same room from before. I lowered Penny down—cloaked—and she filled up the bottle. The alions paid her no mind, though one of the two stopped for a second to take in a long sniff, but continued pressing images on a display after it deemed everything normal.

The ceiling was low enough that she could jump and catch my arm. It took all I had, but I hoisted her up, heaving with a thousand puffs. We rested awhile and I dozed off.

"Hey," she whispered, poking my shoulder.

I heard her muffled speech, dulled in my head, as if it were coming from across a ballroom.

She poked me again. "Hey."

I sat up straight, my heart pumping, shocked. Gasping, I stared at her.

"It's all right, it's just me," she said reassuringly. "Sorry to wake you, beautiful, but we should get going. I'm itching to leave."

I nodded. "How long was I out?"

"Like thirty seconds," she laughed.

"Oh." I laughed too. "This place is draining my life."

"All the more reason to hurry up and make our escape. Ready?"

I cleared my throat. "Yeah," I lied. My vision was spotty, and my arms and legs were shaking with that weird jello feeling, but I didn't want her to get frustrated by waiting for me.

Our pace had slowed when we started off again. My motivation to escape was fought by fatigue, and it was becoming a losing battle.

"You look zapped, dude," Penny observed a while later. "You gave a good rallying _Death Squad_ speech back there, but are you sure you're okay to keep going?" Worry lines attacked her forehead.

"For a little bit longer, yeah. I think we're getting close. We have to be getting close." Unconcealed desperation carried in my voice.

She frowned but kept going. "Did I ever tell you my gamertag?" she asked.

"No, only that you're a crazy good FPS player," I replied.

"Red Vixon," she said. "With an 'O' instead of an 'E.' A dude at school was always calling me vixen, and I thought it had a ring to it."

"It does," I said, though not as enthusiastically as I could have.

"What was yours?"

"Maggy always said my eyes were midnight blue, so when we first started hanging out, she called me 'Midnight.' We were playing the _EverQuest_ game _Toll of Blood_ and I wanted to start a shadow knight, so that's when I started using Midknight with a 'K.' I've used it for every game since. Félix uses 'Deadrunner' after a character from a short story he wrote called _Dead on the Run_. It was published in a magazine."

"No shit?"

Her tone made me laugh. "I shit you not."

She started crawling again. "And Maggy's?"

"SteelKitty77," I answered. "Not the best name, I know, but it has its worth, to her at least."

"Cute and cuddly, yet able to rip out your throat," she said without looking back. "I get it."

I was going to ask her about her friends, but she wanted to try another panel. After removing a stubborn one, a cloud of steam hit our faces, like a refreshing sauna, though the warmth made me even sleepier. We waved the steam away, glad that it wasn't the blue mist that had been in the freezer room.

When the steam cleared, what I saw blew me away, utterly mesmerized. The room spanned a hundred stories or better, tiny lights shined in long rows everywhere, and ships buzzed in all directions. It was like a diagram of neurons in the brain, only the neurons were docking stations, the axons were catwalks, and the ships were neurotransmitters. Or something like that. I never studied those diagrams enough.

"Whoa," Penny gasped.

"Whoa," I duplicated.

She turned to me and grinned so wide I thought her lips might split. "We're going home."

"Or die trying," I declared.

"Or die trying. Come on, we can't get down from here, we have to find another room to enter from."

I replaced the panel and followed as she crawled away. A few passages down, we happened on an empty square room. No convenient table awaited our feet, so I lowered myself first and fell to the floor. Groaning, I hopped up and helped Penny down, wrapping my arms below her knees.

The top floor of the hangar bay greeted us with a dejected tone of disuse.

"It's a scrapyard," Penny remarked, annoyed. "These ships don't look flyable."

"Well, let's not give up so easily. If it is a scrapyard, then the alions are unlikely to visit it often, which is a plus for us, and there might still be something here. Look how far it goes on." I pointed down the narrow walkway. To our sides, abandoned junk piled high like mosaic towers. Gaps of open space were left between each pile, allowing for a view of the lower levels, though I couldn't distinguish much beyond the lights, walkways, and spaceships. If alions stalked the paths below us, I couldn't make them out.

"I guess it's worth a shot," she said. "But I will say I told you so when we find nothing but discarded alion parts." She headed off down the walkway.

We passed ship after ship, all with huge holes scattered throughout their hulls, as if a devastating weapon had shot them down. Mixed about the ships were rusting fragments of various alloys, most of which I'd never seen before.

"That looks like a microwave." Penny pointed at a box with a panel of electronic buttons down one side of its front. "You think they cook using microwaves?"

I laughed. "A cat using a microwave, now that's a picture I never imagined."

"Did you imagine walking through an alion scrapyard, searching to steal a ship, all so that you could get back to an Earth with a population of ten?"

"Well, when you put it like that . . ." I shook my head, laughing. "I have imagined blowing up spaceships though. You know, saving Earth in the nick of time, like in _Our Descent_ and a hundred other games."

"Well, now's your chance for real," she replied.

"My chance? How?" I shook my head again. "We can't with all those people on board."

"We can't rescue them," she said with shocking finality. "But we might be able to help the survivors on Earth." She bent over and picked up a black canister that looked like an outdated magazine to the gun she carried.

"Even if that's true, we don't have a way to blow up the ship, unless you have some explosives stashed in your back pocket. Though judging from their tightness, I don't think anything could fit in them." I stared at her, blushing after I realized what I'd said. The words echoed in my ears.

She giggled softly. "You're right, they're useless. You're also right that we don't have a way to blow up the ship. I was just saying to say, I guess. I just wish we could." She tossed the broken part back into a pile, then continued down the walkway.

We neared a bend in the walk when I heard a chinking ahead. "In there!" I whispered. "Go!"

She dashed for the open entrance of a damaged ship. I hurried after her. Inside, only darkness smiled upon us, a foreboding darkness that welcomed our end.

I peeked through a hole in the ship's frame. Three alions strode sluggishly along the walk like board security guards. Their claws clinked as their feet dragged. Their ears were perked up, listening.

"What are they doing?" I whispered. It took everything I had to refrain from clearing my throat.

She put a finger to my mouth. Then she moved her hand down to my chest, over my heart, and tapped me, as if to tell me something. My heart beat faster.

The alions stopped at once.

_Oh God. Oh shit._ Question: how could I stop my heart from beating really fast? Answer: die.

She waved her finger back and forth, breathing slowly, trying to get me to imitate her.

Panic pulsed in my veins, escalating with every quick breath.

She rolled her hands, breathing in and out, slow and controlled. Our eyes locked in the dark.

Copying her, it started to work. When I was able to close my mouth, I shut my eyes too, relaxing. Focused on nothing else, just breathing, slow and controlled, synchronizing with Penny.

"They're gone," she said a minute later. "It's a good thing you calmed that heart down, I think they could hear it."

I was still doing the breathing routine. "Now we know they do come up here. I guess we have to be a little more careful."

She nodded. "And keep our voices hushed. Come on, let's move."

We walked, side by side, shoulders grazing every so often, which did little to help my rushing heartbeat.

Three bends later, we spotted a ship that appeared to have no exterior damage. "There must be some faulty wiring or something," Penny predicted.

"Or something," I said, grinning. "You wanna check it out anyway? It could be that it was just old and slow. Things are always trashed when a newer model comes out."

"I think that was four models ago for this pile of crap."

"Why do you say that?" I put out a hand to the hard metal door. "Feels pretty sturdy to me."

"I'm just guessing by the paint." She indicated a line of faded foreign symbols that had once meant something. But now most of the blue coloring gave way to broken white spots, or sheer blocks of the white metal underneath, leaving behind only traces of blue. "But yeah, we should check it out anyway." With a large stride, she crossed into the pitch black beyond the door.

Trembling, I followed, the bazooka supported on my shoulder.

"Shut the door," she called back to me.

"Are you melted? I'm not closing the door."

"Close the damn door, Darrel," she whispered. "If it works, we'll need it sealed shut."

The itch at the back of my throat drove my tic wild. "All right, fine. Jeez." I found the handle to the door and pulled, but nothing happened. I pushed it to the left and it slid in a track. "It didn't seal."

"There's no power," she said sharply, as if I should've known.

"Right." I stretched out my arms, feeling my way around. There was no light in the compartment we were in. "Dammit," I said, when I bumped into something sharp. "It's dangerous in here."

"I found a door," she exclaimed. "Help me, I can't push it open on my own."

"Keep talking so I can find you." She started to sing a quiet song, and for a second, I stopped to listen, captivated by her unique voice. It was beautiful and light, elegant and soft, completely enchanting.

She ceased. "I can't hear you moving towards me."

"Oh, sorry," I said. "Keep singing. I'm coming." She began again, until I finally jammed my fingers into her shoulder. A curse escaped.

"Stop your whining and help me." She guided my hands to the sheet of metal.

We yanked on the door and it budged a centimeter. A shaft of light flooded the darkness. I squinted, momentarily blinded. Once our eyes adjusted, we went back to work, heaving with heavy grunts. Centimeter by centimeter, the door gave, until it hid inside the space between compartments.

Three large windowpanes formed the front of the flight deck. Two benches were positioned before a console of inactive buttons, along with two flat displays, black without power. Four pads were built into the floor at the corners of each bench, like pedals for a car.

"You think that's how they fly this, with those pads?" I asked.

"Look for a big 'on' switch and we might find out." She scanned the console, touching every button as she went.

I examined the buttons along the wall to the right. None of them did a thing, and some of them were too rusted to move at all.

When Penny reached the middle of the console, she flipped a big blue switch. The ship lit up with life. Sounds of sealing reverberated throughout the hull. The entire console flashed a couple of times, then ceased, but a light continued to blink at a port for a disk.

I took out the yellow disk from my pocket and deposited it.

Two mechanical arms dropped down from above the benches, each ending in a controller similar to the Nintendo Revocution, but with four joysticks, two to each side of the center, one on top and one underneath. From the console, a voice greeted us in an alion language, not wholly unlike a computer booting up, and the lights began to dance all around, until only one button remained lit.

"I think it wants us to press the button," she said. "Should we?"

"Let's think this through for a second." I sat down on the bench to the right and studied the controller. "This is way beyond us, we don't have four thumbs."

She took a seat on the left bench. "Or six limbs." She eyed the flashing button. "They might notice that the lights are on in here. We can't take too long."

"All right, fine, press the damn button," I told her. "I just thought you might wanna think for a moment."

"What's there to think about? We don't know what the hell we're doing and it'll be a guess either way. Ready?" She rested her hand over the button.

I cleared my throat. "No."

She pushed down hard.

An alion appeared on the left display, speaking to us with courtesy in its voice. Then it squinted at us, followed by a snarl of surprise.

Penny pushed the button again but nothing happened.

The alion twirled its head and called out. All of a sudden, an alarm rang in the hangar bay, alerting each and every alion to our presence.

She cursed. "Well, there's nothing for it, put your hands and feet on the pads," she ordered, as she flopped down on her bench.

I copied her and pressed down with my hands. Nothing. "Press down at the same time," I suggested.

She nodded. When we did, the engines fired up. I could feel the power behind us. I pressed my feet down and the ship jumped a meter, grinding its bottom on the grating that supported it.

"Press your feet down," I said.

She did and the ship took off, flying from the grating, out into the open hangar.

My right leg started to shake and slipped off the pad.

The ship nosedived.

I replaced my foot on the pad and we leveled out. "So we have to keep our feet on the pads at all times," I said.

She exhaled a long sigh. "Grueling." The thrusters were propelling us directly into a walkway. "I'm going to try and turn." She tapped her left foot on the pad.

The ship barely jolted left.

"These definitely weren't made with us in mind," I screamed. My leg was shaking violently now. "I can't keep my foot on the pad, it's too awkward and too far away."

"Too far way? Try being my size. My tiptoe can barely reach."

I glanced back at her foot. It was shaking more than mine, scarcely connecting with the pad.

"We can make it," she asserted. "You see the opening?"

"Yeah, to the right." The gap between the catwalks was narrow, but large enough to slip through, if we navigated it just right.

"To the right. Tap the right footpad when I say go . . . GO!"

We tapped the pads in unison. The ship shifted right, jerking hard, but it still wasn't enough. It took six quick strikes to shift us so we wouldn't hit the walk and align the ship up with what looked like an exit ringed in lights. "The controllers must run the main propulsion, all we're getting are rough secondary thrusters."

"If that's true, then we're SOL," I shouted.

"And all these buttons," she pointed out. "We haven't even done anything, we don't know if it can go into space."

"I guess we'll find out soon enough."

Her face darkened, smacked by fear.

Within a second, my leg began convulsing, and the ship dropped, lurching as my foot connected and disconnected from the pad. Cramping, I couldn't extend my leg anymore, and I rolled off the bench, howling in pain.

The ship plummeted straight for the bottom of the hangar.

I rolled towards the console and smashed into it.

"Darrel!" Penny called out. "Darrel, get up!" She looked over at me. Our eyes met. She noticed my leg and gasped. Finally, her leg no longer reached, tightening up. Her body shaking, her grip waned to nothing, and she hit the console.

Neither of us could see out the windows. I didn't know how long we had until the end, probably only seconds. "You're beautiful," I shouted.

She stared at me, nonplussed.

I had always wanted to tell a girl what I really thought, with confidence, and this was my last chance. "I just wanted you to know." The fall lasted an eternity. It lasted a millisecond.

She smiled at me. "You're—"

The windows shattered. An explosion followed; it was a boom that ruptured my eardrums. I saw a flash of red before being engulfed in blackness.

#

I OPENED MY eyes when I felt a tug on my leg. I gazed up at the blurry contour of Penny. A stabbing pain attacked my ribs. My shoulders seemed disconnected from my body. Spasms plagued my muscles.

I noticed a red outline around her body, around _our_ bodies, protecting us as if a force field.

The ceiling shifted as she hauled me away, until we were out in the hangar, and lights blinded from all directions. The red force field faded. Heat pressed upon my skin, burning. Suddenly, my leg smacked the floor.

Blue stasis orbs flew over my head. Penny was cursing furiously. Then I was sliding along the grating again.

A short ceiling of a corridor replaced the open expanse of the hangar. She lifted my back and scooted me to the wall, handing me the alion gun. "If you see something, shoot it," she advised.

"What's happening?"

"We crashed," she panted. "Now we're running." She held up the bazooka, glancing between doors.

"Everything hurts," I informed her. My head was swimming. "We made it?"

"Yeah, we made it. Just rest a moment." She counted to ten aloud. "Can you walk?"

"How did we survive?" I asked.

"I'm not sure, but I would guess it had something to do with the red field that surrounded us. I think it was a safety mechanism for when they crash. An anti-collision force field or something like that. Can you walk?"

I shook my head in disbelief. "We should be dead, a nosedive from a hundred meters or more . . . we should be dead."

"Try walking." She clutched my arm and helped me to my feet. "Easy now," she said in a gentle tone.

I wobbled. "My legs feel dead." One step forward. My foot landed with a _clomp_. "Yeah, I think I can walk."

"We'll take it slow, we just have to get out of here." She took my arm and placed it around her shoulder. "Lean on me if you need to."

In a fog, I must have leaned on her pretty hard, as she groaned under my weight. I limped through a doorway, into another empty corridor, then into a pod-filled corridor. We climbed up into the duct system and rested.

"I must have frozen twenty of them. They were coming at us from everywhere. I wonder if this bazooka-thing has a limit . . ."

Her voice trailed off as my hearing went in and out. Everything was dulled, except for the aches terrorizing my body. "What do we do now?" I asked her, my voice cracking and strained.

"Well, I left the supplies we had on the crashed ship, so we won't last much longer without water. They broke us down, so I say we blow them up. We find another armory and hope it's stocked with enough explosives to blast this ship into a quadrillion pieces. We can't escape, so we take them out with us." She gave a sliver of a grin, but all the hope that had given it life when we found the hangar was now gone, replaced with despair and tinged with wrath ready to be loosed upon the enemy.

It took a moment for me to process this, to accept this inevitable conclusion, but eventually I nodded at her. "Okay, we blow it up." We were always going to die aboard the mothership, we both knew that, but now, maybe, our deaths would have some meaning for the rest of humanity.

"When you're ready, let's find us some bombs," she said, her smile expanding.

We rested, listening to dozens of alions pass underneath us, roaring and calling. It sounded like we had created quite a mess in the hangar. Aggravated, my ankle throbbed as if slightly sprained. Once I recuperated enough strength, we began another tiresome trek, crawling like infants about to collapse for a nap.

Eventually we found a room brimming with electronic equipment, on par with the TOC and its giant wall map. Penny lowered herself down to a flat space atop a console. She helped me ease myself down next to her. We slipped off the side where no electronics decorated the panel. "What is this place?" she asked.

I shrugged. "A control room, or maybe some kind of communications room? I don't know, your guess is as good as mine." I touched an unlit button, its smoothness uncanny.

"Look, on the wall—the chips." She pointed to a rack of objects hanging on a wall, as she walked to the far side of the room. "The chips that were in us." With delicate fingers, she slid the chip off the rack and tossed it to me. She grabbed a second one to inspect for herself.

"You still thinking they're tracers?" I asked.

"Don't you?"

"I'm just glad to be rid of it." I tossed mine to the floor and it skidded into a dull silver console. I studied the unit for a moment. "Hey." I poked her shoulder to get her attention. "Doesn't that look like a radio transceiver?"

"You mean because it has a dial?"

I walked up to it. "Yeah, I don't know. It just looks like one to me. Maybe we could send a message to Earth."

She stepped beside me. "Send a message? So far we haven't had very much success working their electronics. Even their guns are difficult to fire."

"It's worth a try, don't you think?"

She shrugged and waved her hands. "I'd rather look for explosives."

"Just give me a few minutes to fiddle with it," I said, adjusting a big orange knob.

"Are you any good with our own electronics?" she asked.

"No, not really," I answered. "But one time I rebuilt an old radio with my grandpa, and I picked up a few things. Just give me a minute to try. If I fail, I fail—and if I don't, you'll kiss me later."

"Did that crash knock some confidence into you?" She smiled, almost happy.

"Not the crash, the fall." I brushed my hand against hers.

She grabbed my fingers, locking them together. "Whatever did it, I like it." She kissed me softly.

Our lips parted after the most magical moment I had ever experienced.

Before I could speak, she kissed me again, harder and longer. Blood rushed throughout my aching limbs. "Now get to work," she said, punching my arm playfully.

I wanted to kiss again, but I also wanted to hurry up so we could get out of the room. There were too many alions stalking the halls to stay put for very long. I began pressing random buttons, flipping switches, and tuning the orange knob.

Static blasted from a speaker in the console, deafeningly loud.

Penny twisted all the knobs within range, and after several failed tries, found the volume. "If you wanted them to find us, you could've just gone out into the hall and started yelling," she said, rubbing her ears.

"You're right, sorry," I said. "This isn't gonna work." I kept turning the orange knob but the result remained the same.

"Well, like you said, it was worth a shot. We should get back to the duct and stick to the plan."

I hung my head and nodded. A spark of light caught my attention to my left. The wall, covered in individual displays—the very picture of a security room from any casino heist film—came to life, streaming video footage as if monitoring the ship. The screens shifted coverage.

Penny pointed to a screen showing the duct system and a dead alion. "That's the technician we killed." She pointed at another screen. "And the one from the armory."

"That's the stockroom I was in," I said, tapping the dead alion surrounded by food. I went to the next screen. "And the quarters where we got the jerky, and the infirmary, and the torture room . . . Everywhere we've been. It's all here."

"They've been watching us this whole time."

I tapped the screen with the Assistant; the scene had been left untouched, the four darts now visible, sticking out of the alion's thick coat of fur. "If they've been tracking us this whole time, why have they let us roam the ship?"

"They hunted us on the ground, on our own territory," Penny said. "Maybe they wanted to see how we'd react in their domain. You know, testing us . . ."

"You think we've been set up from the beginning?" I asked, disconcerted.

"We've both been thinking it, how our survival hasn't added up, against all the odds, lucky break after lucky break. It's probably why I could only get your pod to open, and why mine mysteriously unlatched in the first place. And let's face it, we both know they have sensors that can pick us up, though we've both been putting that idea to the back of our minds so we don't go crazy, but we can't ignore it anymore. This has all been one elaborate experiment."

"But the explosion, it really could've wiped out the sensors, right? And—and maybe they never developed any short-range sensor technology." I regretted saying that. More denial. And the more I thought about our freedom, the more it made sense that it was staged, especially considering their delay when holding Penny captive, displaying her in the middle of the room like bait. They wanted to see what I could and would do to rescue her. A shudder stopped the mental images. I didn't want to think about being a lab rat.

"Denial," she scoffed.

"It's all I have," I laughed. "Anyway, if we were set up, why would they let us kill one of their officers?"

"We don't know that it actually _was_ an officer, or any kind of leader for that matter. It could've just been a pawn set in place for us to follow. We've no idea how they value individuals, maybe they're willing to sacrifice a few bodies for an experiment, to see what we'll do in order to survive."

Every word she said rang with truth, but even so, it was still hard to swallow. "Why are they showing us this now?"

"I think there's only one reason why, and I think you know it, too."

"It's the end of the experiment."

She nodded. "I think so."

Scanning the screens, I saw another familiar room, the concealed camera rotating until the back of Penny's head came into the scene. A furry body stood a few meters behind it. "But that would—"

Both of us had been too distracted to notice the silent footfalls of the alion creeping up behind us.

Reacting, Penny shouldered the bazooka and launched a stasis orb. The alion froze. "Run!" she commanded.

We bolted out the room and down a long hall. Hobbled by the ankle sprain, I slowed us way down. Before I could tell her to leave me behind, an alion blocked our path at the end of the hall. Sprinting up behind us, a company of alions readied bazookas.

I fired the alion gun, ejecting black globe after black globe, both magazines spinning. Blood splattered the walls all around.

Penny shot dozens of stasis orbs until a mechanized noise signaled that it was empty. She cursed and threw it at the alions. A stasis orb suspended the bazooka in the air, just short of smashing an alion's skull.

Several more stasis orbs flew our way. Before I could even think to say goodbye, I was trapped again, trapped in a frozen world of blue. The lightning struck my body. My pain peaked, more excruciating than anything I had endured.

But instead of passing out, I watched as the alions strode over to me. One tapped its bazooka and the field disappeared.

Another alion ran up and stuck a needle in my elbow.

I screamed as my surroundings descended into a warm darkness that no light could penetrate.

#

THE TREES AROUND me ignited in a sea of red and yellow.

"Maggy! Maggy!"

Habi's voice belled in my ears, distant, distorted in a high-pitched ringing. I couldn't distinguish the words, I just recognized the voice . . . that comforting voice. I opened my eyes, and there he was, stooping over me.

"Habi?" I rasped. My sore throat ached, so dry that every syllable took great effort to get out. "Habi?"

"I'm here, Maggy. I'm here." He grasped my hand, gently squeezing my fingers. "Do you need water?"

Gunfire trumped his speech. The repetition of burst rounds rent the air. The roars of alions engulfed the world as dread attacked my stomach. "What's happening?"

"We're under attack." The words sputtered out in a rush.

"I need a gun," I said.

"The jeep is still running," another voice yelled. "We need to get to it if we want to get the hell out of here."

"I think she's hurt, Burnhammer," Habi shouted back.

"Can you carry her?" Burnhammer's voice registered in my head.

"I think so," Habi replied. "I'll have to."

I noticed Burnhammer's back, then her face as she glanced down at me. She returned her attention to something in the distance. The blare of her assault rifle rattled my eardrums. Heat pressed upon us as yellow bombs exploded all around.

Habi wrapped an arm under my knees and one around my back, lifting me with a grunt. "Does this hurt?"

"No," I whispered.

Blackness swooped in again.

#

THE THUNDER OF machine guns destroyed my attempt to rest.

"On your nine! Nine! Nine!" someone screamed.

"To your six!"

A stone in the road sent a jolt of pain down my back. The uneven terrain rocked the jeep side to side. I could feel every little bump.

Habi put a hand to my chest when I tried to sit up. "Easy now. There's nothing you can do for us. Let the _trained_ soldiers handle it."

Each word became clearer as I listened. I opened my mouth to talk, but nothing coherent came out, just a gasp for air.

A bump sent Habi into the ceiling of the back of the jeep and his glasses fell off. He cursed, but then grinned at me, feigning cheeriness. He retrieved his crooked spectacles. "We're going to get there, don't you worry." Before the abductions he hadn't been so solid, but at that moment he was my strength.

Screams from the soldiers continued, uninhibited. They used every swear word in the book, and they never stopped.

"These jeeps were made for rides like this." Burnhammer's voice rang loud and clear. "And we'll take down every goddamn SOB out there, you have my word on that."

I shifted my head to the right and found Burnhammer firing out an open side window. She was yelling as loudly as the rest of her comrades. With deft fingers, she endlessly fed her assault rifle mag after mag.

I smiled up at Habi. "How does it look out there?" I asked hoarsely.

Habi glanced out the tinted window. "Like a world of fire . . . It's not a world like it used to be." He put a water bottle to my lips and poured relief down my throat.

"Or maybe it's the same," I said, with a slightly smoother voice. "It's not like we never napalmed forests before."

"I guess that's certain." He leaned down to my ear. "I love you." He wore a face full of uncertainty, not about his love for me, but about our future together.

I squeezed his hand. "I love you, too." But when I closed my eyes, I could feel consciousness slipping away once more.

#

WHEN I WOKE up next, we were driving on a smooth, paved road. I opened my eyes suddenly. Habi was gazing out the window with a look of reflection. "What are you thinking about?"

He smiled down at me. "I was thinking about how we met."

"In sixth grade?"

"Yeah," he replied. "Well, I was in seventh, but yeah. Do you remember how shy we both were?"

"You're still shy," I said.

"At least I can get words out around you now." He grinned as he touched my hand. "Took a while, but I got there."

I laughed. "A while . . . it took three years."

"Well, I've always heard that the tortoise wins the race." He stroked my fingers with his thumb. "I think it's true this time. If we became friends earlier, and started dating in middle school or something, who knows, we probably would've broken up a month later and never talked again."

I had contemplated that scenario a dozen times over the last few days and fallen on the same conclusion.

"I guess I was meant to accidentally trip and grab your boob," he said.

"And I guess I was meant to throw my applesauce in your face."

We both laughed hard, remembering the incident that assured my relentless silence towards him for the next three years.

"We're on Highway 2 now," he informed me. "They haven't attacked us in a half hour or so, we lost them before we came to the blacktop."

"Have they yelled at you about. . . ?"

He nodded. "A little, but there hasn't really been time."

Burnhammer glanced down at me. "Don't worry, that's coming." She paused thoughtfully. "We should be there in under an hour."

I nodded at her as I slowly sat up with the help of Habi. Every muscle felt stiff, especially my midback and neck. When the jeep came to a roadblock of dead cars, the driver simply went off-road, hurtling around the obstacle. I stared at the passing trees. A brilliant blue sky hung above the sea of green. The day was warm and pleasant. The air from the open windows allowed for deep, peaceful breaths.

Something was poking my leg, so I reached into my pocket and found Colonel Blackwater. I smiled at the figurine. "It saved us."

Habi couldn't help but smile too. "Told you he would. He's always got our backs."

I rubbed the plastic soldier before replacing him in my pocket. "How did we get out of the Humvee? How did we survive?"

"Not all of us did," Burnhammer said, pain thick in her voice. "The helmets probably lessened most of the impact that would have crushed our skulls in, and when we flipped I caught myself, ready to recover. Most of these vehicles are made to roll." She slapped the side under her window. "I pulled you two from the wreckage, along with Private Paola." She pointed to the unconscious woman lying in the seat in front of us. "No one from the transport made it . . . or the first Humvee, except for you two. Lieutenant Laffrado, Sergeant Goldward, Sergeant Loritz, the two civvies . . . the four pilots. Seventeen in total fell. There are only ten of us left, twelve with you two stowaways. Hopefully that's enough to do what we need to do." She rotated her tense jaw from side to side and it cracked like gruesome thunder.

I hung my head. More souls added to the list of the dead, following Park, who had died in what the soldiers were now calling the Battle of Portland. I hadn't known him long, but had liked him for his humor and his enthusiasm for the word alion. "I'm sorry about your comrades."

"Don't worry, I plan on avenging their deaths," she said. "We'll show these bastards what we're made of soon enough."

A HOOAH echoed in the jeep.

Every time the soldiers said the battle cry it made me feel like yelling my own cry, but I didn't think they would appreciate it since I wasn't one of them, especially since we'd snuck aboard. No one could be happy about that, though Burnhammer didn't seem too upset.

The hour went by, and Paola had woken halfway through, complaining of severe aches in her back. Sergeant Henderson gave us a tongue-lashing about protocol, disrespect for authority, our deficient training for such a mission, and our sheer dumb luck that we were even alive. She was practically hoarse when she finished. She didn't exactly know what to do with us either, since she couldn't turn around, and she couldn't spare a soldier to babysit us once we reached the JPL, not with losing a third of the platoon in Portland and another third on Mount Baldy.

We eventually pulled off the highway, taking a left onto Foothill Boulevard, then another left at Oak Grove Drive. We drove past a large green sign embedded in rocks, the top of which read: WELCOME TO THE CITY OF LA CAÑADA FLINTRIDGE and below that: HOME OF THE JET PROPULSION LABORATORY. On past a security checkpoint, up into the maze of roads. There were too many buildings, and none of us had a clue where such a classified project would be located, though my guess was near a runway. A few of the soldiers agreed, including Henderson, who had taken over command of the platoon, or more precisely, incorporated the three soldiers from First Squad into her Third Squad.

The directory we found pointed out two runways and a helipad. "There's nowhere else to check, ma'am," Burnhammer said.

Henderson examined the map with a critical eye. "Then I guess it better be there, for all our sake," she said. From a large pocket, she pulled out a PocketPad, charged by the sun, and jotted down the directions to the runway.

Her assistant, Sergeant Geisler, awaited our return behind the wheel of the Humvee that survived the bombing, now parked behind the jeep. "Find where we're going?" he asked as Henderson strode up to his window.

"Think so. Just follow us," she told him.

"Yes, ma'am. You got it."

The network of roads led us to a long black tarmac at the base of a hill. Giant parabolic antennas and wind turbines dotted the slope. Geisler busted through a chain-link gate with the Humvee, turned off the blacktop and crossed over two perfectly level tarmacs, making a beeline for a massive hangar across the airfield. The tarmac material didn't even feel like a regular road at all, but something special, something probably made specifically for what we were hoping to find.

We stopped at a person-sized door in the hangar. Soldiers, including a grumbling Paola, took positions all around the vehicle, securing the immediate ground, then the perimeter.

Henderson cornered Habi and me by the jeep's door. "You're well aware that I can't afford to leave you here with a babysitter. I need every last soldier, which means you're coming with us wherever we go. Which also means that I'm gonna allow you weapons, seeing how you handled yourselves back in Portland. So just do as you're told, and for God's sakes, don't shoot any of my soldiers. Are we clear?"

"Yes, ma'am," Habi and I said together.

"Good. Corporal Burnhammer, weapons please."

I wondered if this would be a bad time to bring up that the ships might not be on the JPL campus. _Wait,_ my gut was telling me, and I decided to listen to it.

Burnhammer distributed the same submachine gun to each of us, and weighed us down with what felt like fifty kilos of spare mags, our pockets stuffed full of ammo. Henderson led us into the locked hangar after making easy work of the door with the same automatic shotgun Burnhammer had given Habi before we left on our suicide mission.

The Squad Leader kicked the door in.

My heart sank in disappointment. There was nothing within the hangar but an empty slab of gray concrete. _Oh frak, Henderson's going to kill me._

"Dammit," Burnhammer muttered under her breath.

"Sweep the interior," Henderson ordered.

The soldiers fanned out in pairs. Habi and I stayed close to Burnhammer. I held up my gun, ready to fire as we sped along the bare walls.

I glanced at the door as a soldier ran into the hangar and whispered in Henderson's ear. When we returned to her, all the soldiers reported the same—there was nothing in the building.

"Well, we haven't counted all our pennies yet," Henderson said. "Fox says there are two roads heading into the hillside. One of those could lead to a bunker facility. We know this was a top secret project, and it stands to reason that they'd hide it, so before we scrub the mission we'll take a look and find out." At that, she raced out the door, and we climbed back into the vehicles.

_Good, she figured it out on her own. Hopefully she doesn't call me on it later._ Beads of nervous sweat stung my eyes, and I wiped them away in relief.

The first dirt road was short and led to a power management building. The second road snaked up the valley and ended at a dirt wall. Everyone jumped out and explored the vicinity. "Over here," Corporal Fox shouted. She stood in front of a camouflaged door built into the hillside, almost mistakable for rock, except for the minor rust spots on the handle that betrayed the disguise. She pulled up on the handle to no effect. "I can't get it open, ma'am."

"With these door-blastin' rounds, I'd be surprised if it held." Henderson waved us back a step. The handle busted in with one shot. The entrance hid a small control room and a door to a narrow, unlit passageway.

Geisler fiddled with the computer for a moment. "The way the cameras are positioned, my money's on that dirt wall actually being an entrance, but there's no power getting to this station, so we've no way to open it."

"All right, that leaves us with the stairs," Henderson said. "Saddle up, Stalkers. We don't know what's down there."

The soldiers brought down their goggles strapped around their helmets and switched on the night vision. The eyewear made them look like they were on some super dangerous ski trip. I couldn't find my switch until Burnhammer pointed to my left temple. I nodded a thank you to her. The world came to life in grayscale, the image impossibly clear, like seeing in daylight without any color.

Without Henderson commanding it, the Stalkers went silent, and we crept into the darkness. Habi and I breathed noisily, but neither of us spoke. My pulse slapped my eardrums. The passage wound back and forth, steadily descending the entire way. The trip was slow but constant. After about ten minutes we entered a subway system with auxiliary lights lining the edges. A flat, two-lane moving walkway like what they had at airports was situated in front of a single railroad; without power, the conveyor yielded to dormancy. The path came to a wide platform a hundred meters down the tunnel. A sign marked four destinations: the JPL parking garage behind us, Project Raptor at terminal one to our right, and ahead of us Project Ranger at terminal two, and apartments at terminal three.

"What do you think Project Ranger is?" Burnhammer asked.

"Hopefully a bomb big enough to wipe out those spaceships," Henderson replied. "But that'll have to wait. We came here for Project Raptor. Let's see if these birds really exists, shall we?" She led us through a heavy metal door and into an enormous room lit by strips of auxiliary lights on the floor and ceiling.

Everyone gasped when we saw what hid inside.

I squeezed Habi's hand. "We did it," I whispered to him. "It wasn't made up . . . I wish Jacob could see these."

Someone whistled in amazement.

"Hol-lee shit," the soldier name Rivera said, stunned.

Row upon row of sleek white fighter planes lay before us. The triangular shape of the planes resembled that of stealth fighters, only much smaller. USAF SQ-1 WHITEHAWK was etched into the right side of the planes, barely visible.

"There must be a hundred of these," Geisler commented.

"At least," Fox agreed.

"There's a room over there." Henderson pointed to the left. It was a control room with a group of consoles and four large flat screens built into the wall.

Geisler located the button that supposedly turned on the power. "It's dead."

"We'll have to find the backup generators," Henderson said.

"They'll be down here more than likely," Geisler told his superior.

She nodded. "You know the routine, get going," she ordered.

The Shadow Stalkers fanned out as they had in the hangar. One of the soldiers from First Squad found what we were looking for in a room opposite from where the computers were. Geisler fixed the power, and we regrouped before the screens. A moment later, he pressed the button again, and this time lights turned on all over. Computers booted up as displays came to life. Taking off their goggles, a few soldiers began to type away.

The hangar was much bigger than I'd judged. About two dozen larger planes, also resembling stealth fighters, sat at the far end. _The Spacefalcons._ Seeing the manned space fighters renewed my hope that we could succeed—we could win this war if we reached the ISS.

"Sergeant, there's an inventory of the ships," Geisler said, waving his commander over.

"How many?" Henderson asked.

"Two hundred and twenty-one SQ-1's. It also lists thirty-six SF-1's."

"Those must be the big boys in the back." She glanced through a window at the spaceships with desire in her eyes. "And they're all functional?"

"Looks that way, ma'am," Geisler answered. "I think the hawks are controlled from these four consoles alone."

"Can you operate them?"

"I think so," he replied. "It might take some time to get everything up and running smoothly, but the system looks like it was designed so grade-schoolers could do the job."

"My kind of engineering. Nice and simple," she said, grinning. "But how the hell do we get them out of here? We must be thirty meters under the surface."

"We fly," Geisler said with a sarcastic bite. After a second of typing, he pressed a combination of buttons on the console. The ground started to shake. Suddenly a huge metal door opened behind the Spacefalcons over two hundred meters away. "The entire airstrip is underground and exits on the east side of the hills," he reported, showing us a graphic of the facility's layout. "It's all perfectly hidden."

Henderson clapped her hands together. "Sounds like we're in business."

"There's more, ma'am. Project Ranger, they're robots."

"Did you say robots?" I burst out with unbridled enthusiasm. I waited for an April Fool's joke, but none came.

Henderson frowned at me before turning back to her assistant. "Continue."

"It looks like Project Ranger was designed to fly the Spacefalcons. It doesn't say much more than that, but now we know it's worth checking out."

"Do you know anything about robotics?"

He shook his head. "Not my cup of java."

"I do!" I yelled. "I built one. His name is One-zero-one. He's the best, or pretty good. He would've been better if I'd been able to put more money into—" A hand stopped me from rambling.

"All right, Guylas, Paola, and Corporal Mu, you stay behind and help Geisler. The rest of us will go check out these . . . rangers." Henderson picked up her shotgun and led us back into the subway tunnel. With the moving walkway still offline, we crept along beside it, until we reached a second platform and a sign designating Project Ranger over the entrance. About to explode with anticipation, I had to restrain myself, curbing my rising emotions.

When we entered the warehouse-sized room, I could feel my jaw drop, and the rush made me slightly giddy. Before us, lined up in orderly rows, were hundreds of blue-and-white robots that looked like super soldiers in advanced armor, their heads solid helmets with large opaque visors instead of individual eyes. Equipment, pulled from science fiction, cluttered the room. A few items stood out as familiar, like the bench with ocular ports, but most of it I couldn't guess its purpose without delving into research.

Henderson turned to me. "Maggy, I've been briefed on your smarts, and the SIM impressed a lot of people with some big brains. Show me what you got."

"Yes, ma'am." I couldn't help but smile, and ran straight to a computer terminal off to the left. The realm of guns and warfare belonged to the Stalkers, but the realm of robotics belonged to me. I cracked my knuckles and began waking up systems. Navigating security was like running a marathon, hard but not impossible, which led me to believe that someone wanted to make it easy for an outsider to gain access under certain circumstances. _Did they know they'd all be taken?_ I shook my head. _Of course they didn't. They would've made better preparations than this, surely._

"What's Project Mechan?" Félix asked, standing over my shoulder. He pointed out the title of the program launching. The program loaded a schematic of a robot. The design went well beyond One-zero-one's simplistic cleaning functions.

Abruptly the screen went black and a video began playing. A woman appeared, an office in the background, the room dark and dingy. Her eyes told us she hadn't slept in days. "Hello, my name is Doctor Elizabeth Padilla, program director of Project Ranger, which oversees Projects Mechco and Mechan." She rubbed her eyes in an effort to stay awake. "Since you've found the backdoor into the system, that means the worst has happened, and nothing we did to prepare for the aliens' arrival worked. It also means me and my team are dead. I'm leaving this video for you, valiant survivor, with instructions to command the Mechans, which, as of"—she glanced up, as if looking for the time—"Saturday, March twenty-first, two thousand forty-eight, we have five hundred and seventeen functioning units.

"I've also made available certain recordings that contain many truths. If you're in the situation that I'm guessing you are, then you don't have time right now to watch them, but there's one fact you must know. Our bewildering population growth isn't a fluke, but the work of science. We recently discovered that the aliens have been pumping a virus into our atmosphere since the nineteen seventies. The scientific proof is backed up on these systems. The effects of the virus are manifold. However, the most pertinent change began more recently in the mid twenties, when birthrates exploded and has only increased since, contrary to all model predictions. Suffice it to say, the aliens have more interest in us than what they've let on. What that interest is, none of us know for sure, but it's logically more than humans as a food source."

I paused the video, absorbing the information. "Do you think she's lying?"

"Why would she lie? She stands to gain nothing from it," Habi said.

Henderson sighed. "I don't want to dismiss the importance of what this lady is saying, but she was right about us not having time, because it's running out fast, and as far as I can tell nothing's changed. Understanding why they're here is something we need to put on the backburner." She rolled her hand impatiently.

I took the cue and resumed the video. "Now on to the Mechans. First, you'll need to power up Project Mechco, the two command units that will control the Mechans in the field. You will find them by typing in this authorization code in the pop-up window." A box materialized on the screen as the director raised a piece of paper with a long, intricate code. Why she chose not to vocalize it threw me off, but I punched in the twenty-symbol string regardless of my suspicions.

The paneled floor in front of the first Mechans retracted, and two red-and-black robots rose on metallic platforms. The units were indistinguishable from the Mechans beyond their color scheme. "Although we planned on completing twenty mech commanders by the end of the month," the director continued, "Mechco-1 and Mechco-2 are the only working units. You'll have to imprint them with the voices of their commanding officers so that they'll recognize their orders. To do this . . ." From that point on I followed her step-by-step guide, having Henderson speak to the units first, then the other soldiers in descending rank and, after half an hour of instructions, the Mechco units only needed one last step to come to life: the on button.

With a compact tablet remote, I stood in front of the Mechcos, my finger hovering over the green icon. "Everyone ready?"

"Do it," Henderson said.

I tapped the icon, and immediately the visors powered up with a soft white glow, but they made no movements and seemed to be in standby.

"Uh, I think you forgot something," Habi said.

"Oh, right. I forgot the magic words." I cleared my throat and spoke in a clear, loud voice, "Mechco-1, give me something to shoot."

The robot stood at attention and spoke: "Mechco online." His dark, deep voice was smoother than I ever could make One-zero-one's, as if he were a real person talking and not an artificial reproduction. "Go ahead, TACCOM."

"I think someone played a lot of StarCraft growing up," Habi laughed.

I shot him a cheesy grin. "Didn't we all?"

"None of us more than Darrel, though."

_Blue  . . . _My stomach knotted at the thought of him, but I swept those feeling under the proverbial rug, otherwise guilt would consume me, and the stakes were too high to let that happen. Burnhammer's voice brought me back to reality.

"What the hell is TACCOM?" The corporal had her rifle halfway to her shoulder.

"It's from a video game," I said. "I think it stands for tactical communications."

"Great, more sci-fi nerds," Henderson scoffed. "Let's get back to our task, yeah?"

"Right. Mechco-2, give me something to shoot."

"Don't shut me off—hey, where am I?" Mechco-2 surveyed the gargantuan room. "Dammit, she shut me off, didn't she? Where is the good doctor, I don't see her? And who are you people?" Contrary to my assumption, the second mech commander had a unique voice from the first, higher in pitch, and livelier, as though affected by emotion.

"Who are you talking about, Mechco-2?"

"Mechco-2? I do have a name, you know." He patted his right shoulder. Upon closer inspection, I noticed the designation etched into the metal and painted white. "You may call me Vee. My colleague here is Vader, but as a first generation, he doesn't speak so expressively. As you can tell, I have no such developmental impediment. To answer your question, I was referring to Doctor Padilla. We were in the middle of a conversation when she powered me down, to my protest."

"Maggy, we can't stand around sippin' lemonade all day," Henderson snapped. "We need them to power up the other robots."

"Is that all you need?" Vee sneered.

Henderson raised her shotgun. "I think something's wrong with it."

"There's nothing wrong with me, I can assure you. I'm here to serve and to lead. Oh boy, is that a contradiction in my programming? I'll have to get clarification on that. Where did you say Doctor Padilla is?"

"She's gone," I broke the news. "She left us a video guide so that we could deploy you against the enemy. We need your help to fight those who took her."

"I see. So they're here, Species-ET01. This is what I was built for—I won't let you down." He stood at attention. "Awaiting instructions."

"We need you to turn on the other robots," Henderson said antagonistically.

"Will do, boss," Vee replied. "Activating assigned Mechans." A second later, half the robots in the room came alive with lights, reporting in unison, "Mechan online." Unlike the Mechco units, the Mechans all possessed the same voice, a gruff, masculine baritone.

"That's too cool," Habi murmured.

"That was definitely on my bucket list," I whispered back. "To watch an army of robots power up."

"What about the other half?" Burnhammer drew attention to the idle robots.

"Vader controls the other two hundred and fifty-nine Mechans," Vee informed us. "You'll have to tell him to do it. He'll respond like any other software intelligence. Speak to him as if you were talking to a TV."

Henderson, the leader that she was, took charge. "Mechco-1, power up assigned Mechan units." The remaining Mechans activated in identical fashion to their brethren. "Now, Mechco-1 and Mechco-2, arm your troops."

Vader complied, answering, "Acknowledged, Sergeant."

Vee, slightly more stubborn, carried out the order, but not before he said, "Although I recognize your authority, Sergeant Henderson, I would like to remind you that my name is Vee." The robots, moving all too lifelike, filed into another room half the size of the first, the space set up as a shooting range, the front loaded with gun racks. The primary weapon: an assault rifle twice the size of Burnhammer's M968. Each Mechan equipped themselves for battle and marched back into the main workshop.

"Your orders, Sergeant," Vader asked.

"What he said," Vee added.

"Head to platform one," she commanded. "We'll sort out everything from there."

"Affirmative." Vader signaled his Mechans and they began the short trip to the hangar bay. Vee followed suit, and soon five hundred and seventeen robots, plus two command units, filed into the Project Raptor hangar, much to the dismay of the four soldiers who stayed behind.

As I appraised the scene, I only had one thought: _Thank you, Doctor Padilla, you may have just saved the world._

"This is some crazy shit," Henderson said, smiling at her assistant. "Status?"

Geisler gave her a thumbs up and a thumbs down as options; Henderson chose down. "We tried radioing command at Mount Baldy, but we got no response. I know we all wanted to know what happened after we left, but I guess that'll have to wait."

"The good?"

"I pinged the PDN satellites and they all responded, so they're still operational, which means they just need the on switch flipped and pointed at the right target. Unfortunately, I can't do that from here. I tried, but it's a fool's venture. Control has to be turned over from an IPDA networked computer. And I know what you're thinking, this is supposed to be an IPDA operation, but I don't think this base was sanctioned by the IPDA. I don't think it's IPDA at all, but military, judging by the air force markings on the ships." Vee stepped up to say something, but the sergeant stopped him. "I also got all the birds ready to go," Geisler carried on.

"That's what I want to hear. Obviously, we didn't fare too bad either, with over five hundred of what I guess are called Mechans, and these two Mechcos, the command units. So the plan is to have them fly the manned ships and get us to the ISS and power up the PDN. Piece of damn cake."

"There's another thing, ma'am." Geisler spun in his chair and brought up a picture taken by a telescope.

"Is that—"

"A mothership," Geisler finished for her. "It's in high orbit, and if I understand these calculations, above North America right now."

As soon as he said the word, an image of Blue popped into my head, trapped on the distant starship, strapped to a table, an array of torture instruments hovering above him, a giant drill piercing his skull. _You've seen too many movies,_ I told myself. _They're not really doing that  . . . are they?_ I couldn't erase the visual from my brain.

"What if Darrel and Penelope are on there?" Habi snapped me from my cruel imagination. "We could never rescue them."

"Rescue . . ." I mumbled. Synapses fired in a chain reaction like a bomb exploding inside my cranium, but with a positive outcome. "Yes, the equipment, it's all here. I think it'll work."

Habi had never looked so puzzled in all his life. "What are you talking about?"

"There's no time to explain." I eased backwards, away from the circle of soldiers, and found a computer. "All I have to do is boost the signal from forty kilometers to forty thousand kilometers." I slid my phablet from my pocket and connected it to the desktop. The locator app was up and running in an instant. Amplifying its range proved easier than I expected, and while the soldiers went over their plan, which excluded Habi and me, I pinpointed Blue and Penelope's location over thirty-eight thousand kilometers from earth.

"Is that really them?" Habi wiped sweat from his brow.

"It's them all right. They still have the locator chips embedded."

"What are you two doing back there?" Henderson yelled from the front of the control room. All ten soldiers were staring at us as if we were guilty of a crime.

"Our friends—they're on the mothership. They were taken before we made it to Portland, but I've found them using the base's powerful antennas. You see, I put—"

Henderson threw out a hand to call for silence. "Maggy, we have to destroy that ship, you understand that, don't you?"

"But maybe we could rescue them—"

She cut me off again. "Rescue? We don't have the time, resources, or the intel to pull off a rescue mission. It's simply out of the question. If we don't get to the ISS and turn on the PDN, we all die, not just your friends, but the entire human race. You're a smart girl, smarter than most, so I know you understand what extinction means. There's no coming back from that." The sergeant wasted no more time on me. "You four stay behind and fly these babies. Rivera, Fox, Lakes, and Tasper will come with me, and we'll take Mechco-1 and his Mechans on the falcons, leaving Mechco-2 here with his units in case the aliens figure out where we are. Let's get to it, Stalkers!"

A wave of HOOAH filled the room.

"Corporal Burnhammer, you will stay behind and babysit our stowaways, understood?"

Burnhammer straightened up at the command. "Yes, ma'am."

My mouth opened to retaliate, but the words slid back down my throat when Burnhammer's eyes grew. _Don't!_ they said. _You'll only make it worse._

Habi looked wild with fury, but clenched his fists instead of erupting with pointless objections.

_No, we can't let them die up there. Not without trying._ A million ideas rushed through my head and none of them struck me as plausible.

Geisler stood up and shook Henderson's hand. "Good luck, ma'am. I'm sure that if we could contact command, they'd field-promote you to second lieutenant."

"A promotion wouldn't make our task any easier."

"No, ma'am, it wouldn't, but you deserve it nonetheless. Radio me when you're in the cockpit."

"Will do, Sergeant." The five soldiers left us standing there by the consoles. Vader and his Mechans marched to the back of the hangar, boarded the Spacefalcons, and began the preflight protocols.

This was it: go time or no time. Action or inaction. There was only one scheme, one course that had any chance of success, but it meant disobeying Henderson's orders. It also meant giving Burnhammer the slip, a difficult objective because it was her assignment to watch us, but the opportunity to save Blue's life motivated me like never before. I'd failed Jacob, no question, but I'd die before I failed another friend.

Leaning into Habi's ear, I whispered, "Get ready." He opened his mouth with a question, but my fingers, typing at the keyboard, answered.

Burnhammer, already suspicious, glared at me. She was in stride when suddenly all two hundred and twenty-one of the space fighter drones turned on all at once, generating a boom that thundered in the room.

I gazed at all the hawks, disbelieving my eyes.

"Cool," Habi said.

"Way cool," I agreed, but shook off my awe. "Hurry. I programmed the lights to shut off after Geisler activated the drones and our window will be short. We have to get to a falcon before the drones start leaving." The main lights went off, and with Burnhammer distracted, watching the drones in amazement, we snuck behind a handcart in the hangar, then put on the jets, running for one of the manned fighters.

"Hey!" Burnhammer shouted. "Maggy! Félix!"

It didn't matter, she couldn't stop us. When we were close enough, I could make out the etching USAF SF-1 SPACEFALCON on the manned ships. The white bird looked eager to see some action. At the rear of the ship, the ramp was already lowered, waiting for a squad of Mechans.

"This is crazy, Maggy!" Habi cried out. "We'll never be able to fly this thing."

"We have to try, Habi. We have to!"

"Stop right now!" Burnhammer's voice was barely audible over the din of the drones. "Don't, Maggy. Don't do this."

Halfway up the ramp I turned and faced her. "Why not?"

"You'll never be allowed to join the army if you do."

"That's a small price for rescuing my friends."

"You won't survive," she said bluntly. "There are too many variables against you. You don't know how to fly the ship. You don't know the enemy's defenses. You won't have any element of surprise even if you could board the mothership. And then there's the matter of thousands of those little furry guys you like to call alions. Remember them? They'll rip you to shreds the moment you set foot on their ship. Plus you have to find your friends and hope they aren't dead yet. It's all stacked against you, Maggy. It's suicide and you know it."

"Maybe suicide's all that's left for us." Our eyes, locked together, never faltered.

Burnhammer took a step onto the ramp. I retreated, my gun raised.

"Don't," Habi screamed, standing a meter behind me.

Burnhammer took another step, and I reacted in kind—one step back. We danced like this until she was all the way up the ramp, at the button to close it, or break it. No one would go anywhere then. "Maybe you're right," Burnhammer said. "Maybe suicide is all that's left. If that's the case, we better get on with it." As she slowly raised her hand, Vee appeared behind her, accompanied by ten Mechans.

"And where do you think you're going?" The Mechco hefted up his assault rifle and rested it on his shoulder.

"To the mothership," Burnhammer replied. "Now I order you to return to the command room and protect the soldiers there."

"I apologize, ma'am, but I'm going to have to reject those orders."

Burnhammer trained her rifle on the robot. "So you are malfunctioning. I guess that gives me some target practice."

"I promise you I've never been more functional." Vee advanced up the ramp. "I wasn't built to lollygag on the ground while others head into combat. I was built to fly this bird and kill the enemy. I was built to save lives. I was built for _this_ mission. And do you have any idea how complicated this is to pilot? You would crash and die a horrible death without me."

I lowered my gun. "Sounds like he meets all the qualifications." My mouth felt like it was splitting from smiling so hard. "Welcome to the team of disobeyers."

"We'll have to work on our name," Habi said. "That's pretty bad."

Burnhammer relaxed as Vee and his Mechans passed. She pressed the button and a green indicator light turned to red when the ramp sealed. "At the very least, this should be interesting."

"Dull moments cause viruses," Vee asserted. "Don't mind them, they know the drill." The ten Mechans sat in the ten available seats, five to each side of the aft compartment, and buckled in. Vee walked past me and entered the cockpit through a door.

Habi and I followed. The six-seater cockpit was arranged with two seats to the right, two at the front, and two to the left. Vee took a seat at the helm and began powering up systems. Burnhammer joined us, and after a quick inspection, she sat beside the Mechco. Habi and I buckled into the seats on the right.

"What's the plan?" I asked, deferring to the experts.

"We'll hang back with the squad for a bit as they head for the Mosaic, then we'll break off," Burnhammer answered.

"We'll never have a chance if we land in a hangar," Vee said. "Lucky for you we have a sealing tube in the back. I'll land on the hull and cut a hole big enough for the Mechans, then connect the sealing tube from our ship to the enemy's ship. I've got some backup coming too." He flipped a line of switches and the engines roared with life.

Before I could reply, Henderson's words erupted over Burnhammer's radio. "Corporal, what in the holy hell are you doin'?"

Burnhammer grabbed her radio. "You know what I'm doing, ma'am."

"Return to Geisler, Corporal. That's an order."

"I can't do that, ma'am. These kids are willing to die for their friends. I can't let them do it alone."

"For shit's sake, don't let them do it at all!"

"I'm sorry, ma'am."

"You'll be court-martialed for this."

"I know, ma'am."

There was a long moment of heart-stopping silence before Henderson replied. "Then give 'em hell, Corporal."

The tension in the cockpit released with audible sighs. "Will do, Sergeant. We'll make sure you get safely to the ISS before breaking for the mothership."

"Rodger. Geisler, let's get this show on the road."

"So we're really doing this?" Habi asked, sweating miserably.

Burnhammer looked over her shoulder at us. "Guess so."

Vee stood up and opened a lockbox built into the back wall, stowing his rifle. "I'll need your weapons. They'll be safe in here." We all handed over our weapons, though Burnhammer hesitated, her distrust in the robot obvious.

Once Vee returned to his position at the helm, he drove the falcon to the runway, in queue behind the other space fighters. Henderson's ship rolled forward, and we watched as it started driving down the runway, picking up speed at an unimaginable rate. Within moments, the ship entered the tunnel and was racing to break the atmosphere. One by one, the falcons took off. Before we reached the head of the line, the four swiveling side chairs rotated to face forward, locking into place. Habi and I would have a view after all.

"I can't believe we're going into space . . ." Habi beamed like a kid with an ice cream cone. "I've always wanted to go into space."

"This might be a bad time to tell you that I'm running on an experimental power source and could explode at any moment." The frankness in Vee's voice told us he wasn't joking. When no one said anything, he added, "But don't worry, I think I'm going to explode all the time, and I haven't yet. Oh, also, these ships run on the same power source."

I tightened my grip on the armrests. "We're going to have to work on your personality when we get back."

"If we make it back," the robot said. "I've calculated our odds of survival, and snow has a better chance to survive in the Sahara. However, optimism is a large part of my programming, and we have very big guns." Our turn came and Vee steered the ship into position. "All right, it's show time!"

I looked back at Habi's tense body and his mortified face. He'd probably leave nail marks in the armrests. The Spacefalcon gained momentum down the runway and into the tunnel, where Vee punched the accelerator. My gut sank in, roiling. The world grew ominously dark before the blinding sunlight seared my retinas.

The next thing I knew, I was staring at the sky and swirling white clouds, flying straight up. The sonic boom thundered in the cockpit, but the computer quickly dampened the continuous roar. It didn't take long to leave the clouds behind. The speed was unreal, completely fantastical. A hundred thousand stars twinkled at us.

Here we come, Darrel. Just a little bit longer.

#

SUDDENLY A BARRIER of red folded over the nose of the ship, followed by a white glow. It became as bright as day and forced me to close my eyes. Was it the ship burning up? _It's just science, Maggy. That's_ all, I told myself as I remembered an article from _Popular Science_ about how the temperature outside spacecrafts grew hotter than the surface of the Sun and how scientists and engineers had made it possible to leave Earth. What a feat, and now I was experiencing it. Within moments the hard vacuum of outer space engulfed us, black speckled with dots of white. So many stars. The breathtaking sight overwhelmed me for a beat. How could so many stars exist? A large satellite flew close enough for us to see, momentarily stealing the show.

"Initiating gravity stabilization," the computer reported in a smooth woman's voice.

My butt instantly sank into my chair while my arms and legs dropped like bricks. "Artificial gravity? But don't we have to be spinning for that to work?"

Vee piloted towards the other Spacefalcons. "I could try to explain it to you, but I'm afraid I'd run out of breath before you would understand the concept."

"But you don't breathe," Habi pointed out.

I shook my head. "He's saying we'd never understand it."

"Oh. Yeah, you're going to have to tinker with his personality, that's certain."

"While you're in there, do you think you could cut out some of these quotes in my programming? My creators thought they were funny, but I can't say I enjoy them all too much."

I laughed. "I might add more."

The Mechco glanced over his shoulder. "You wouldn't, would you? How cruel . . ."

"I can't believe we're in space," Habi said, astonished. "We're actually in space . . . I think we're the first teenagers to break the atmosphere."

"What about Blue and Penelope?" I asked.

"They don't count," he replied. "They were abducted. We came into space in a man-made craft by our own free will."

"I guess you're right." I gazed out the front window. "It's even more incredible than I imagined it to be. No movie gives it justice."

"It looks like Geisler pulled through," Burnhammer said. On the display hanging between Burnhammer and Vee, a hundred triangles appeared behind the Spacefalcon, with more popping up every second. "Can you turn the ship around, Vee?"

"Dee-lighted to, ma'am." Habi and I giggled at the game quote as the Mechco rotated us around, finding an array of white ships tailing in formation. The only word that came to mind: remarkable.

"How are the hawks doing?" Geisler asked over the radio.

"They look beautiful," Burnhammer said. "I just hope they're enough."

As if in response to her statement, an alarm drew our attention to the display. "Warning! Unidentified objects on trajectory to intercept," the computer alerted. Dozens of the unknowns were approaching fast.

Vee spun the ship so that we faced the direction of the mothership, which wasn't visible from so far away, but the advanced radar tracked its movements. From the mega ship, fighters launched from two hangars, zooming our way. There were surprisingly few interceptors to fend off; it was as though they were undermanned for such an incursion.

"We've got company," Henderson announced over the radio. "Geisler, engage the drones."

"Yes, ma'am." The drones burst ahead. The Whitehawks shot hordes of missiles that lanced across space. The alion Hellcats launched the sparkling yellow balls of death. Ships exploded in huge clouds of fire that evaporated an instant later; the detonations ejected a million shards of shrapnel in every direction, cutting into the frames of nearby ships. The drones performed with precision, dodging attacks and returning fire, pursuing alion fighters in tight, well-formed packs.

"We have to help them make it to the Mosaic," Burnhammer yelled. "Can you give us weapons?"

"Do Goa'uld eyes glow?" The robot possessed only a one-piece visor and lacked any facial features, but despite this, he seemed to raise a wry eyebrow.

Burnhammer scowled at the robot. "What?"

"The answer is yes," I replied. "It's from an old TV show. He must be chock-full of sci-fi information."

"Indeed. Corporal, you'll have to go to the console behind me." She did as instructed, wearing an unamused expression, while he worked the controls. "You're most likely the best aim of the bunch, so I'll bring up the high-velocity autocannons on your screen. Maggy, you can control the missiles. Félix, I'll give you the laser systems."

"Lasers!" Habi shouted with enthusiasm.

"Want to switch?" I asked him, but I already knew his answer.

"Switch a laser for missiles?"

"That's a no, then? All right. Just thought I'd ask, you know, to make sure."

He laughed as our chairs unlocked. He swiveled to face the console, gripped the controls, and examined the screen in front of him.

The screen before me presented ten Hellcats closing in fast. I grasped the controller that guided the targeting system. The aiming pointer would align with a fighter for half a second before it strayed out of range. Up and down, side to side, it wouldn't stay in one spot for long, and finally I had to take a chance, predicting when the pointer would turn green and firing the missiles. I only managed to damage two of the targets; the rest raced after Henderson's ship.

Two more disappeared off the display, signaling that the other Spacefalcons were in the fight. "We're nearing the station," Vee informed us. "There are still six ships chasing them."

"On it," Habi shouted. I watched as he pressed a button that targeted a ship with a laser, then fired an invisible beam where the first laser directed it. The interceptor vanished from the display. "Got one," he announced.

Burnhammer unleashed the autocannon turret. The remaining five exploded, and she cheered as the diodes winked out on the screens. "Bye-bye, bitches."

"Burnhammer, we are set to dock with the station. Cover our asses," Henderson requested.

"Yes, ma'am. Got your back. Vee, you heard the woman." Vee circled around, maneuvering between two more fighters, and the corporal destroyed several more targets.

I launched another missile. It caught the wing of one, and the interceptor collided into a second, blowing them both to bits.

Habi fired the laser again, targeting the rear of a Hellcat and the crimson gas that jetted out behind it. The explosion nearly caught us before it evaporated.

Vee dipped the falcon, and I briefly lost focus, as my eyes drifted from the screen. Once my eyes adjusted, I found a new target, aligned the aiming pointer, and pulled the trigger. Our ship dipped again, then twirled, dodging a yellow ball that combusted on a drone. I lost track of the missile and couldn't find it on the radar. Hopefully that meant it found its target.

"Our falcon is secured to the station," Henderson informed us. "The Mechans and the drones will get our backs. You go and bring back those civvies."

"Copy that," Burnhammer replied. "En route to the mothership."

We flew through a melee of fighters; it was a field of short explosions, as dangerous dogfights blasted each other out of existence.

"We have four on our tail," Vee yelled back to us.

I licked my lips and pulled down the trigger when the pointer flashed green. "Got one."

"Got another," Habi called out.

Then suddenly we flipped over. I about threw up, but it stopped halfway up my throat, rushing back down, burning as it descended.

"Apologies. I was programmed for combat flight with Mechans," Vee said. "I always have to remind myself that humans can and will regurgitate their stomach contents." He dodged another attack. His reflexes were impressive to say the least, if only my stomach could keep up.

I fired two missiles to finish the chasing Hellcats. Eventually we left behind the fray and no more of them hunted after us. I was glad for that, but I didn't drop my guard, eyeing the screen as it continuously updated.

Burnhammer fiddled with her screen. "How will we find your friends?" Reaching into my pocket, I extracted my phablet, loaded the app, and handed it to the corporal. "Your phone, are you kidding me?"

"I jacked into the base's comm system to use their antennas," I said. "It enabled me to boost the signal range to locate their trackers. That's them right there, ahead of us."

"It's just a black screen with two blinking dots?"

"Yeah, well, the GPS system isn't up. The program normally looks a lot better, trust me." I had her pass on the phone to Vee so that he could get as close as possible to their location. "Thank you, Corporal, for helping us."

"Don't thank me yet." She nodded at Earth's bane as the mothership, red against the blackness, came into view. It promised doom to all. "What the hell?"

I followed her gaze to a colossal hole, only now visible, stretching across the far side of the mothership. Blue lights sparked all around the damage. We flew close enough to see alions in suits performing repairs on the devastated section. "What do you think caused it?" Habi asked.

Burnhammer shrugged. "Hard to say. Maybe a missile attack?"

"Missiles wouldn't cause that kind of damage in space," I said. "They're good for shooting down small fighters, but not for exploding large ships, unless you unloaded thousands of them. No, it looks like it was blown up from the inside."

"Very perceptive, Maggy," Vee applauded. "I would have to agree with you. Based on my readings, it happened several days ago."

"Maybe they have a traitor on board," Habi laughed. "Dun-dun-dunnn."

"This could be good for us," I said, glossing over Habi's comment. "One thing we never thought about was if they have proximity or anti-collision alarms."

"That's not necessarily true," Burnhammer said. "I did warn you that you wouldn't have any kind of surprise and that you'd be ripped to shreds the moment you stepped foot on their ship."

"Yeah, I guess you did say that . . . Anyway, maybe since they're doing repairs, maybe those systems are down, taken out by whatever caused the hole."

"We're about to find out." Vee worked at his screen in robotic fashion.

Thrusters around the ship slowed us to less than a crawl. "Velocity matched to external object," the computer reported. "Proceeding with docking preparations." Soon the Spacefalcon touched down with mathematical and mechanical precision that was a mere brush. "Contact." The woman's voice reminded me of Blue's mom, but I couldn't say why exactly, it just had her motherly quality.

"Whew," Burnhammer blew out a long breath.

"We're still alive," I said. I unbuckled the harness that strapped over my shoulders, chest, and waist, hopping out of the comfortable chair. "It feels strange not to be moving so fast."

Vee stood up and withdrew our weapons from the lockbox. "Did you think I was going to crash us?"

"No," I lied, scooping up my phablet with two pulsing dots and their distance from us on the screen. "I didn't doubt you for a second."

He tilted his head to the side. "Your confidence is overwhelming me." Heading into the aft compartment, he turned back. "I'll go connect us to the ET01 vessel. Be ready to eviscerate the enemy in T-minus two minutes."

"Good luck," I told the Mechco.

He gave me two thumbs up before he crossed into the back.

Habi stood and wobbled a couple of steps. "Whoa, that's weird."

"You're telling me," Burnhammer echoed his sentiment when she got to her feet.

The door between compartments sealed. I walked over and watched the robot. The Mechans sat motionless while Vee depressurized the room, opened the hatch in the middle of the compartment, where a mechanized ladder lowered to the mothership, and set about his task. He waved to us before he receded from view.

"You ready for this?" Habi drew my attention.

"I have to be," I said. "We're all they've got. We can do this, we can save them."

Burnhammer put a hand on each of our shoulders. "Remember not to panic when we see trouble. Keep it calm. I know that's easier said than done, but you two are strong. And remember, as Vee pointed out, they have _really_ big guns." She indicated the Mechans, who were holding their extraordinarily large assault rifles between their metallic laps.

The Mechco re-emerged and waved us in.

I hit a button and the door unlocked. "Did you do it?"

He pointed to the open hatch door. "We're connected and pressurized. It's a go."

"And I thought One-zero-one was badass," Habi said, inspecting the tubing that joined the ships. "You're flat-out amazing."

I glanced at the robot's handiwork. "Pretty impressive, I agree. Do you think the alions have noticed us?"

"Alions?" The Mechco grabbed his rifle. "Is that the vernacular word? I'll have to overwrite the boring Species-ET01 appellation. That could take some time."

"We've already wasted—"

"Done," he said. He addressed Burnhammer. "Are we ready to roll out?"

In charge, Burnhammer assessed the sealing tube, then us. "You two good?" We both nodded. "Then let's pop some cats."

"Mechans, let's burn," Vee shouted. All ten units rose at once. They gathered around the hatch and, one by one, climbed down the ladder. "We'll secure the immediate area first." The Mechco jumped down the tube after his mechanical soldiers.

The three of us stared down the hatch. "If only I'd brought my axe," I said, saddened by the thought. "But I guess a submachine gun will do." I grinned at Habi.

He raised his KRISS VP55 to his narrow shoulders. "Let's hunt some orc."

All of a sudden I felt like spitting out movie quotes but refrained; Vee was already doing an excellent job at that. "Aye."

Burnhammer stepped over the hatch lip and started down the ladder until our faces were even. "Stay behind me unless I say otherwise. Clear?"

"Clear," we said simultaneously.

"Then let's hunt some alion," she spoke in a dark tone, winking. She descended to the bottom of the ladder, but it didn't extend all the way, forcing her to drop three meters or so to the mothership.

"I'll go first," I told him. I climbed down until I was hanging from the last bar, nervous about the descent. "All right, here I come." I released my fingers in a flash of boldness. Burnhammer tried to catch me, but I dragged her down to the floor. When I glanced up at Habi, he was smiling, his crooked spectacles a bit humorous.

"Fun?" he asked.

"You'll find out," I said. "Hurry up." I clambered to my feet, using a wall to steady my shaking body.

Despite his feathery weight, he fell like a boulder. Burnhammer and I both had our hands out ready to catch him, but we still managed to fall to the floor. We all jumped to our feet.

"Rough," he spoke in a hushed voice.

I nodded at him, then turned my attention to Burnhammer, who scouted out the next room with the Mechans.

She returned with Vee, accompanied by more Mechans than what we started with. "Where did they come from?"

"I invited them to the party," Vee said. "I had a second ship bring reinforcements. Now we're at twenty-six Mechans. What now, ma'am?"

"It looks like Maggy was right about the detectors being down, unless they're waiting in ambush somewhere else, but that's the chance we have to take." Burnhammer withdrew her PocketPad from a pouch and tapped the screen. "This'll map out our route so that we can get back. Maggy, your phone." After I gave her the phablet, she continued, "With this we'll find the taken. They're less than a hundred meters from our position, so this should be quick and clean, if we're lucky. Come on, this way."

We were at her heels through the next four corridors. I leveled my gun, finger on the trigger, bracing for a sudden attack. "I've been thinking about what the senator said in the auditorium, about how the alions are here for food, but that just doesn't add up. A species that can travel the galaxy has to be able to grow a sufficient supply, we all know that, so they must have some ulterior motive."

"But they're at war, remember?" Habi said. "There's always a shortage of food during wartimes."

"That was probably just another lie. They also said they'd only take a small percentage of the population."

"Then why else are they here?"

"Well clearly they want us for something."

"Cut the chatter," Burnhammer hissed as we came to a long, long hall with sleek black capsules. I gasped when I saw what lay trapped inside: humans—they were men, women, and children of all ages. Placid eyes stared at us through transparent white doors. No plea for release fought its way out, no awareness, no thoughts whatsoever.

I put my hand to the capsule. The eyes slowly followed, delayed. "So this is what they do with us," I said, horrified. "This is why the alions increased our population, to take us away. What do you think they're planning on doing with them?"

"We'll have to save the speculation for later if you want to save your friends," Burnhammer said.

"We can't let them stay here, not like this," Habi shouted. "We have to try to free them."

"Look, there's a console." Burnhammer pointed to a station with illuminated buttons. She pressed a couple, but nothing happened, then she hit them all, earning the same results.

"Let me try." I scrutinized the console, poked around a bit on the screen, but the seconds ticked away and it became apparent nothing I did would release them. "We'll just have to break them open."

Burnhammer nodded. "Vee, could you?"

"Only because you asked so politely." The Mechco seized the side of the capsule. His strength alone couldn't open it, but with the added might of two Mechans, the door yielded. A blue fog rushed out, dissipating soon after.

An alarm rang out: RAWRK . . . RAWRK . . . RAWRK.

The man's body started to violently convulse. Burnhammer grabbed him and pulled, but he was stuck inside, secured by some unknown means. It was a painful sight, watching his body contort within the cell. A second later he lay motionless. She checked his pulse. "He's dead."

"We killed him," I whispered.

"He was already dead," Habi said miserably. "Trapped in there, waiting for the alions to consume him or whatever . . . he was already dead."

"We should keep moving. This area will probably be crawling with alions soon," Burnhammer predicted. She headed down the corridor, turning left at the end through an open door. Vee and the Mechans chased after her.

_Are you here, Mom? Is this what's happen to you?_ Habi tugged on my arm as the thought tore into my gut. "We can't fall behind."

I cleared my mind as we rushed after the corporal. The alarm faded into nothing. When we entered the next hallway, a company of alions waited for us, the trap set, more springing out of nowhere behind us. The Mechans fired their super-sized rifles, targeting the beasts with such accuracy it seemed more my imagination than science. Blue blood splattered the corridor. Guts and brains exploded over the walls. A Mechan fell beside me, its head riddled with bullets, the visor shattered. The scene of death happened so fast I could barely follow it. A bullet pierced a pipe and a teal smoke flooded the room. I dodged a Mechan as bullets knocked it backwards. It tripped over a corpse and collapsed in a heap of dented metal.

My lungs burned, and I fought for air, hunkered between capsules, firing at the alions behind us. Vee appeared, filtering out the smoke with a device built into his forearm. His arm returned to normal when the smoke cleared. He saw me coughing and gave me another thumbs up.

An alion charged his back, leapt into the air, and tackled him to the grating. Vee and the beast rolled, the alion clawing at the Mechco's unblemished armor, carving deep grooves into the metal. The robot placed his feet under the alion and kicked with the force of fifty legs. Launched across the room, the alion's body snapped like a pencil against a capsule.

Bodies fell all around me. I searched around for Habi but couldn't find him in the chaos. Reinforcements surged into the hall. I couldn't hear my own thoughts, drowned out by the gunfire and the savage alion cries for blood. One of the beasts bulldozed a Mechan, coming face to face with me, malice in its eyes, a snarl showing off its deadly teeth. We both pulled the triggers to our weapons but fired nothing. Empty. Reloading wasn't an option. And unlike the alion, I didn't have organic weapons that could slice through steel, or rip out the throat of a horse.

I did have Habi though. He materialized at my side sprinting at full speed. The submachine gun unloaded ten rounds into the beast before my heart could even pump once. The alion, blown off its feet, crashed into a second one, pinning it to the floor. A Mechan drove a bullet into its brain as it struggled to escape.

By the time the robot searched for its next target, an alion was dragging it down, tearing off its visor to wrench out the wires and hardware within. Oil stained the alion's maw when it glanced up. And there was Burnhammer, standing over it, her rifle a centimeter from its cheekbone. The concussive force of the gun blast devastated its face. I grimaced in pure revulsion at the explosion of blood and bone and fur.

Nine Mechans lay destroyed by the end of the attack. Vee mourned them, collecting a nut from each one, promising that they'd be remembered for their sacrifice. Habi and I made sure we were both physically unscathed. Emotionally we were shaken, but we met it with unflinching valor, keeping our nerves level like the corporal, who led us on without dawdling.

"We're getting close," she said. "Should be just a few more rooms away."

In the next corridor, two alions guarded a door, their guns raised. A shot to the chest knocked me off my feet and stole the air from my lungs. After a few seconds of heavy gunfire, Habi kneeled over me. "Maggy? Maggy! Are you all right?"

I squinted up at him, rubbing my chest. "Cockwaffles," I muttered, sucking in air. "That hurt."

He helped me sit up, laughing. "I've heard cockwaffles will do that to you."

"You have to be more careful about checking corners," Burnhammer admonished. "I told you to stay behind me."

"The corporal is right," Vee said. "Let the Mechans take point."

Habi and Burnhammer lifted me to my feet. "Sorry," I said. "It won't happen again." The burning reminder of my breastbone made sure of it. With the door locked, we backtracked until we found an open route, circumventing the obstacle.

We met opposition in every room after that, bullets whizzing in the confined space. Their black bullets bounced off the Dragon Scale armor again and again, but none of us took a direct shot like the one that had me cursing and gasping for air. Vee accumulated parts as more Mechans perished in the short firefights. Tinnitus prevailed as the worst enemy of all, afflicting my ears and never letting up.

In the last corridor, Habi dodged a blue orb seeking his legs, while I discharged a stream of well-aimed shots at the threat. The bullets punctured the alion's furry chest and blue blood gushed like streaks of ribbon. The alion slammed into a wall and cried out before it died.

Habi ejected his magazine and replaced it. "Thanks for the save."

"Just repaying the favor." I reloaded my gun, too.

An alion burst through a side door, shooting wildly.

Burnhammer took care of the alion with one bullet to its head. She had switched over to the smaller assault rifle with the folding stock. It proved effective in the tight quarters, especially when she needed to whip around and fire in the opposite direction. We stopped before a locked door at the end of the hall. She stretched out her hand holding the phablet so that we could see. "The signal is coming from inside this room, I'm sure of it."

"How are we going to get in?" I asked. I slid my fingers across the door, feeling its smooth metallic texture. "Can we shoot the door open like Henderson did?"

"No, that was a special cartridge, designed for human doors with human locks," she responded. She studied the door. "These doors are all reinforced and slide into a gap between rooms, they're not the same at all."

"So we can't open it?" Habi asked, his hopes audibly sinking.

Vee stepped up and affixed a compact brown block to the top and bottom of the metal. "A door has never stopped me before."

"What if it kills them?" I said.

"By my calculations, the risk is minimal."

I turned to Habi.

"They would rather die in a rescue attempt than be eaten by these beasts," Habi said. "Do it."

"Get back." The Mechans retreated to the end of the corridor. Once we'd found cover, Vee activated the detonator. The blast filled the room with wisps of smoke that scorched my lungs. We ran up to view the damage. The door was blown off, smoldering less than a meter away in the other room. Burnhammer rushed through the gap, rifle primed. Vee, Habi, and I followed behind her, the Mechans at our backs.

Four alions crouched underneath large blue tables of shiny metal. Reacting, we all fired our weapons, releasing a wave of death.

I choked on a word, pointing.

"Darrel." Habi rushed to the table where Blue lay, immobile, as if in a deep sleep. "Bromigo, wake up."

I hurried to Blue's other side and shook his shoulder. "Hey, wake up."

"He must be sedated," Burnhammer said, drawing a pen-shaped object from a pouch. "This will perk him right up." She gripped his arm and stuck the pointed end into his elbow. A brief pressurized sound filled my ears.

Blue shot upright, screaming. He was loosing curse after curse. His eyes didn't seem to notice us, as he blankly stared ahead.

"Blue, it's all right. Calm down," I said. "We're here to rescue you."

He began wheezing, which quickly transformed into a harsh cough. He whipped his head in my direction and fell back, as if utterly shocked to see me. "I'm dead!" he shouted. "I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm frakin' dead!"

"No, bromigo." Habi grabbed Blue's shoulder. "You're not dead. Snap out of it."

Blue squinted at us, skeptical of our presence. He calmed his breathing, focusing hard on a routine. "The alarm," he said suddenly. He scanned the room this way and that. Most of the electronics were dead.

"The explosion must have fried some of the systems," Burnhammer observed. "But it's still unwise to stay here for much longer."

Blue glanced at all of us and registered the Mechans for the first time. "What. Are. _Those?"_

"They're Mechans," I answered. "We found them at the secret IPDA base. They're part of Project Ranger, robots designed to fly the Spacefalcons and fight the alions. This one's a Mechco, a commander unit. His name is Vee."

"Howdy, howdy," Vee said.

"His name is Vee?" Blue spoke slowly, befuddled.

I frowned at Burnhammer. "What did you give him?"

"I'm processing, okay? Jeez. Give a guy a break. I thought I was gonna die, and then you two show up with Captain Commando and a bunch of robots. How am I supposed to wrap my brain around that?"

"Quickly," I said. "Because we don't have time. You've got to catch up, you've got to do it now."

He sighed. "You're really here to save us?"

"Swear to Bigfoot." I knocked on the sole of my shoe. "We're really here to save you. Now get your ass in gear."

He slid from the slab and hugged Félix, then me. "You've no idea how good it is to see you guys." His vision darted to the table beside us. "Penny!" he squeaked as he ran to her side.

Penelope lay unconscious on the blue metal, her chest rising and falling peacefully. A shoe was off her foot, and her skin was marked with black lines running from between her toes to her ankle.

"What were they doing to you in here?" Habi asked.

"Experimenting, torturing . . . at least that's what they did to others," Blue explained. "I think they were gonna cut open her foot to map out the structure of it. They did that to another woman—but," he stammered, "but it was her goddamn brain."

Habi cringed. "You—you saw it?"

Blue slowly nodded.

"Do you have another one of those pens?" I asked Burnhammer, but she was already snagging it from her pouch.

She injected the substance into Penelope's elbow, and instantly her eyes popped open.

Blue stood over her, tenderly stroking her arm. "Hey, it's okay. We're finally getting the hell off this ship." He smiled at her.

Her breaths were sharp and irregular. "Darrel?" she said, as if her mind was catching up to her senses. She glanced around. "Maggy? Félix? What the hell is going on?"

"They found us . . ." He turned to me. "How—how did you find us?"

"Your trackers," I replied. "I was able to amplify the signal to locate you."

"The locator chips . . ." He shook his head in astonishment. "You're a frakin' genius, IQ. A frakin' genius." He turned his attention back to Penelope. "Home. We're going home."

She smiled weakly. "Or die trying," she rasped.

"Or die trying," he echoed, as if a motto.

We helped her off the table, and she caught sight of the Mechans. "Are those robots?"

"They're Mechans," Vee said. He stuck out his hand. "The name's Vee, the Mechco commanding them. Long story about how we got here. I'm sure your friends will fill you in later."

Penelope shook his massive metallic hand. "Nice to meet you, Vee. You can call me Penny."

"Slammin'!"

Blue peered up at the Mechco as though trying to place what he'd said.

Penelope shifted to Blue. "How's your ankle?"

He rotated it around. "It's fine. I don't feel any pain right now. Maybe it's the medi—"

"Ready to move?" Burnhammer cut in.

All of us nodded.

Burnhammer dispensed her handguns to Blue and Penelope. "The route back is gonna be rough since we made such a ruckus to get here. We came across a lot of locked doors, so we only have one path—"

"We could use a key," Blue blurted.

"A key?" I asked.

"The things around the alions' necks, those are keys," he stated. He walked over to an alion carcass and snatched a green disk hanging around its neck. "These disks open certain doors like an access card."

"Well, that might make it a little easier," Burnhammer said. "But don't count on it."

"I'm sorry, who are you?" Penelope asked, staring at Burnhammer.

"Corporal Burnhammer of the Fifty-sixth Infantry Division, United States Army." She nodded in greeting. "The woman who's gonna rescue your scrawny ass." She bent down and scooped up a shoe from the floor, handing it to Penelope.

Penelope smiled back at her and accepted the sneaker. "And I'm glad for it." She laced it up, snug and double-knotted.

"Good, now let's get a move on." PocketPad in hand, she navigated the maze of corridors. Three rooms away, Blue opened a locked door, only to find a group of alions, but our firepower made quick work of the surprised beasts.

Almost to the falcon, a company of alions rushed us from behind, and several Mechans fell in the skirmish, but we eventually vanquished those in the hall. One of the alions wore a funny helmet, which Penelope seized, fitting it on her head as best she could, as it bore no back. She had to hold the visor part up since their eyes didn't match up with the top of our heads, their skulls much larger.

"Oh, by the way, they can make themselves invisible," she said in a nonchalant tone. "But I think they also have a way of detecting invisible objects with these nifty helmets. I just have to figure out how to use them." She pressed a button. "There are several different types of vision. Even a heat sen—" She screamed before she could finish her sentence. Behind us a Mechan's head flew through the air, severed, wires sparking as it landed. She emptied an entire magazine at seemingly nothing.

"Alion?" Blue asked, picking up two alion guns from a non-invisible corpse. He handed one to Penelope.

"Two," she replied. She returned the empty handgun to Burnhammer. "How close are we to the ship?"

"The hallway should only be two or three rooms away," Burnhammer said, regarding the PocketPad screen. "We can make it! Hurry!"

Inhaling a deep breath, we continued on, sprinting the rest of the way.

We huddled under the hole in the ceiling. "How are we going to get back up?" I asked.

"Damn," Habi yelled, his voice crisp. "I wish we would've thought of that _before_ we left the ship."

"It's no problem." Vee grabbed Penelope and lifted her up to the ladder. She protested for a second, but then understood. "Climb," he ordered. She didn't hesitate. One by one he hoisted us to the bottom rung. Once aboard, the Mechans followed, easily jumping up to the ladder. Making sure he lost no more soldiers, Vee came last, throwing a smoke grenade to each end of the corridor.

I closed the hatch after the Mechco cleared the lip.

When we sat down in the cockpit, the radio started spitting out words muffled by static.

Burnhammer clutched the radio. "Repeat transmission. I say again, please repeat transmission."

The static disappeared for a second and I recognized Geisler's voice. I listened carefully as the static dropped in and out. "They—all—dead—sur—tack—they're all dead!"

#

"WHO IS DEAD? Geisler, what are you talking about?" Burnhammer spoke into the radio.

I sat in a chair to the right of the front two. Penny had plunked down next to me. Everyone in the room listened with attentive ears.

"Henderson, Fox—vera, Lakes, Tasper, all dead. Vader isn't responding either. It sounded like they didn't see—coming." The soldier Burnhammer called Geisler was cutting out less frequently now. "You have to turn on the PDN."

Burnhammer flopped back in her chair. "All dead . . ." she said quietly, directed at no one in particular. She looked over at Maggy. "All of that for nothing."

"Corporal, you have to—" the voice cut out again.

"What do ya say, are you up for it?" Burnhammer glanced around at all of us, so much rage in her eyes, her restraint from crying evident.

"How can we succeed when they failed?" Maggy spoke up.

"I'm surprised you haven't figured it out yet. The alions were cloaked, that's why the squad didn't see them coming. They never had a chance. We have an advantage: the helmet. Vee, how many of your Mechans survived?"

"Only nine."

"Nine is plenty for this," the corporal said. "There can't be more than a dozen alions aboard the ISS. We can pull this off. We can save earth. We can save _humanity."_

"What are you talking about? What is this plan?" Penny asked.

Maggy explained how they had intended to destroy the alion vessels by powering up the inoperative PDN, and also how the alions were permitted—sanctioned by world leaders—to abduct a percentage of our population before they went and took almost everyone. She also related what they'd found at the IPDA base, including a tidbit about the alions introducing a virus into the atmosphere to make our population explode. Most of the information I had to shuffle to my mind's attic or risk suffering a catastrophic overload.

Penny and I ultimately agreed to the mission. We didn't really have a choice, though; if we didn't go, all hope would be crushed, the war over and lost.

"Geisler, have you reached command at Mount Baldy?" Burnhammer asked the soldier on the other side of the radio.

"About fifteen minutes ago we established a comm link," he answered. "They survived the assault, but there were heavy casualties."

Burnhammer processed this with a stoic face. "Thank you, Sergeant. Inform command that we'll finish the job."

"Ask about the Care Center," Maggy said forcefully. "Ask about Jane and Amanda."

"We didn't get any specifics," Geisler replied to Burnhammer's inquiry. Everyone remained tense at this lack of news. Relief would have to wait until we returned. Penny squeezed my hand, racked with anxiety, and I squeezed back.

The corporal paused before she continued, "Sergeant, there is something you should know . . . there are hundreds of people trapped on the orbiting ship in some sort of suspended animation, we can't just kill them."

I wanted to correct her and tell her that there were probably millions aboard the ship, possibly billions, but the words never came.

"Can you rescue them?" Geisler asked.

"We tried, but we couldn't figure out how. Maybe if we could get some help, someone who knows electronics and mechanics better."

"This is our only chance, you have to power up the PDN. Do I have to order you to do it?"

Another pause. "No, sir. We'll be back before you can say hold onto your panties. Over and out." Burnhammer replaced the radio on the console. Geisler gave no reply, or if he did, the radio was turned down enough so that I couldn't hear it.

"So we're going to leave those people there to die?" Penny asked. She'd already ruled out any of them surviving on our quest for explosives, but now reality hit us hard in the stomach, on the outside of the action, spying through a window instead of accompanying them into the void.

"We would have to know how to work the alion systems," Maggy said. "Otherwise the people die if we attempt to release them any other way. Trust me, we tried, it was terrible."

"Which brings us to the question: how did you escape the capsules?" Félix asked.

"The capsules, you mean the pods?" I asked.

"Sure, whatever, the pods. How did you get out of them? Or were you never in them?"

"Oh, we were in them all right," I told him. "But there was a _malfunction_ "—I air quoted—"with Penny's pod, and she escaped, killed an alion, then by some great luck, released me. But before we were both captured, we found a room that had several computer monitors showing all the places we had been on the ship. They wanted us to know that we were being tested by them. They let Penny loose on purpose, to see what she would do, how resourceful she was, like an experiment. Since she survived, they allowed her to release me, and the experiment went on and on, until I guess they learned all they wanted to and called it off. Honestly, it's some crazy shit."

"That's fraked up," Félix agreed. "Sounds like you had your share of problems. More than your share, really."

I nodded, still groggy from the aftereffects of whatever Burnhammer had pumped into my system.

The corporal turned to the robot. "Vee, if you wouldn't mind, set a course for the ISS."

"Ab-sol-lutely!" the Mechco bellowed with enthusiasm.

I immediately recognized the line. "That's from—"

"StarCraft," Maggy finished for me. "Did we forget to mention that Vee's creators filled him with sci-fi quotes?"

I chuckled. "That's probably what I'd do too."

"I'm glad you find it amusing," Vee said. "I on the other hand wish that I could turn it off."

"Docking systems disengaged," a woman's voice said over the speakers. It reminded me of Mom, but I quickly put that thought out of my mind, unwilling to test my emotional stability in front of so many, even if most of them were my closest friends.

Vee piloted the spacecraft as we zoomed through infinity. It was unbelievable, the stars, the mothership, the orbiting satellites that were tiny specks until we were within meters of them, all of it astounded me.

Luckily no alion space fighters hunted us, as there'd been an epic space battle earlier, one Félix described with fondness and enthusiasm, telling us how he had operated the ship's laser system.

I supplied them with the full story of how we escaped, living in the duct systems, finding the alion technology, the Tactical Operations Center, killing the alion assistant or whatever it was, the freezer, how Penny was captured and how I was tested to see what I'd do to save her, which I did, only for them to catch us both after we crashed one of their ships, squeezing in every agonizing detail that I could remember. Penny helped out when I misremembered something, but kept quiet for the most part, a bit dazed.

"What I don't get is why they haven't blown up the ISS," Maggy said. "What's the point of keeping it around and giving us a chance to retaliate?"

"Don't you get it?" I laughed. "We're just lab rats to them, and no scientist thinks their rats are suddenly gonna take them down. We're not a threat to them no matter what we do. That's why they haven't blown it up."

"They might also need it for something," Penny put forward. "They might be using it."

"We're nearing the Mosaic," Burnhammer apprised us of our closing proximity. No one said anything more on the subject.

I gazed out the front window. All I saw were lights in the distance, stars twinkling in the forever night, or if you were a geek like me, _the Black_. As we drew closer to a certain star, I realized what it was, able to make out a few details of the city in space. Known as the Mosaic for the different nationalities that worked and lived aboard the space station, it spanned longer than the height of a forty-story skyscraper, measured twice as wide as it was long, and cost more than anything we humans had ever built, as it had been expanding ever since the first piece of it was launched fifty years ago. National flags, painted all over the exterior, designated all participating countries in the joint program. Entire sections of the station constantly spun around to create artificial gravity.

"There are still drones circling the station," Burnhammer noted. "But I don't see any falcons. They must've all been destroyed. I also don't see any alion ships docked, so the alions that killed the rest of the platoon must have already been on there. Hopefully that's a good thing for us."

"A good thing?" Maggy questioned, preparing her submachine gun.

"If they were already there, then maybe that means only a few are monitoring the station," Burnhammer said. "Posted there to make sure a group like us doesn't come along with a bright idea like ours. They probably never actually thought we'd be coming since they took away almost everything we had to fight them with."

Vee slowed the ship, pulling up alongside the giant station. He approached a funky port that reminded me of the sockets Christmas lights fit into. Apparently we were the bulb. The robot pressed a button on a touchscreen, and the ship adjusted its course and speed.

"Velocity matched to external object, identified as the International Space Station," the computer communicated. "Proceeding with docking preparations to Airlock Four." We could hear parts moving in the closed-off aft compartment. Penny eyed me, a bit worried and perplexed.

Without warning, I felt a slight jolt, like a cat nudging up against your leg.

"Contact," the computer woman said. She also relayed that automatic clamps had locked us in place.

Maggy unbuckled and stretched out her legs. "Now what?"

Burnhammer turned to the Mechco. "I don't know. Vee, anything?"

"Let me check my memory bank." He sat there, stationary, for half a minute. "It would appear that normally someone inside the station would engage the autosync and depressurizing systems, but since no one's there, I'll have to board the ISS and do it manually. We'll need access codes to open the doors. Perhaps Sergeant Geisler can help us with that?"

Burnhammer radioed in the request, which took some time for Geisler to fulfill, but he came through in the end. "Transmitting code to your PocketPad, Corporal. When you're ready, I'll walk you through what to do next."

"All right, thanks, Sergeant. I'll radio you soon. Over and out." Burnhammer gave Vee her PocketPad, and he transferred the code to his system, then embarked on his hazardous task.

"So tell us what happened after we were taken?" I asked while we waited. Maggy had already talked about Penny's sisters, but she hadn't mentioned Jacob at all. "How's Jacob?"

The two began to tear up at the mention of Jacob's name. "He, uh . . . he didn't make it," Félix said with a lump in his throat. "He died in Portland."

I cleared my throat. "Died . . . how?" I sat down, lightheaded.

"He had gotten pretty sick, and he was exhausted, which slowed him down," Maggy said. "He was put in, well, it's hard to describe, but it was like a big blue cloud—"

"Yeah, we know those," I interrupted.

"Okay, well, after they trapped him . . . yeah." She sniffled. "I—I watched it happen. I thought he was right behind me, but when I turned . . . he was so far back. I should have kept a closer eye on him. It was my fault."

Burnhammer shook her head. "No, it was my fault. I promised I'd keep him alive and I failed. It was me who should've stayed back with him, but I thought he was safe with Specialist Miller. I was wrong . . . You can't blame yourself, Maggy."

Félix grabbed Maggy and put her head to his shoulder. "It wasn't anyone's fault. It was the alions. They did it, not you. If either of you had stayed back, you'd be dead too. No one could've stopped that blue field. No one."

As the mood shifted from optimistic to dour, I reflected on my friendship with Jacob. I hadn't known him all too well, but still, his death pained me a great deal. The world just kept shrinking and shrinking, and soon there'd be no one left, with the human species snuffed out for good.

"Oh my God," Félix gasped, pointing out the front window. My memories of Jacob were thrust to the back of my mind as movement in the distance drew my eyes. "The ships, they're leaving."

We all stood up and gaped at the alion ships as they broke through the atmosphere. One by one they winked out once they entered orbit, gone in a flash of light.

"They didn't all leave," Maggy said, touching a screen, the enemy ships highlighted, all monitored by some advanced radar. "The mothership is still there, and look, a few along the west coast of North and South America haven't moved."

"Why wouldn't they all leave?" Félix asked.

"Probably cause there are still survivors," I guessed.

A jarring clink drew us to the aft compartment. Vee stuck up his thumb. "Life support and artificial gravity are still online," he reported when the door opened. "Along with secondary lights and some other minor systems. The mission's a go."

A long pipe had extended out to connect the ship to the Mosaic. I stared down at a walkway into the space station, something I had never thought I'd do. The ladder spanned the entire distance, so we didn't have to worry about Mechans boosting us up, which had been a little awkward, being handled like a doll.

Burnhammer grabbed her radio. "Geisler, we're ready for instructions if you've got some free time."

"I've got the schematics up and we're all good to go on this end. From the airlock, you want to take the first left, following a skinny red pipe, then take the next right. You'll come to a door."

Instead of responding, Burnhammer walked up to Penny. "Do you mind if I wear your fancy helmet? I'm trained and I should be the one to go first."

Penny nodded, handing it over to the soldier.

"Can't you set it up so that Vee could see the same as the helmet?" I said to Maggy.

"Probably, but it's alion tech, and meshing the two will probably take days to months, and we obviously don't have that."

Burnhammer eyed the hatch. "No we don't. If the alions send reinforcements, or they decide to blow this station to bits, then we probably don't have more than a few minutes. So we better get to it."

"Corporal?" Geisler checked in, apprehension straining his voice.

"Rodger, Sergeant. Sorry. We're heading there now. I'm going to hand you over to Maggy, I'll explain why later." Burnhammer offered Maggy the radio and PocketPad. "I can't hold up this helmet, my gun, and those at the same time."

Maggy took the devices with eager hands. "I can handle it," she assured the soldier.

"Ready?" Burnhammer glanced around at us.

Everyone nodded. The Mechans rose from their seats and descended the ladder first. Burnhammer went next with the alion helmet. Looking up, she yelled, "Clear."

Eventually we all found our way down into the open airlock, huddling together in the confined space, elbows bumping occasionally. The stale air was tainted with rot, but there was nothing any of us could do about the horrible reek. I wanted to puke but held it back. _You can do this, Darrel. You're not the same scared-shitless teenager you were when you stepped onto your porch with garage weapons and kitchen knives._ My breathing picked up as I stoked my anger and courage. _I'm not a wuss. I'm not a candy-ass chickenshit. I'm a man, dammit. I'm a warrior. I'm a hero._

I will save everyone.

Burnhammer began tiptoeing down the corridor, turning left, then right, into the maze. The airlock door closed behind us. We stopped at a door with foreign words displayed across a high-tech screen.

"Language set to English," Vee said. Instantly the words translated into English, reading: Welcome. Laboratory 1 ahead.

"Geisler, we're at the door that says laboratory one."

"All right, I'm transmitting the code to open it." The radio was loud enough that we all could hear.

The PocketPad lit up, flashing: DOWNLOAD COMPLETE. Maggy lined up the device with the scanner next to the door and transmitted the code. The door slid open in a flash. A room filled with dead consoles greeted us. "Okay, where to now?"

"Go through the laboratory, continuing straight for the next three doors, I'll give you the codes for each."

We continued on. With every advancing step, my nerves grew more frightened, and my entire body tensed up. I could feel knots of dread building up in my shoulders. I scanned behind me every other second, sweating.

The third door was marked: PRIMARY CONTROL ROOM. Maggy lifted the PocketPad to the scanner and the door slid up, just like all the rest, but the room on the other side was larger and much darker than the previous ones. A fetid odor accompanied the blackness; the smell was so bad my stomach threatened to climb up my throat.

I spooked myself gazing into the shadows of the room. My throat closed. I tried to relax, breathing slowly.

Penny wandered into the darkness. "The smell gets worse over here," she said. A heartbeat later, the crunch of bones underfoot echoed in the compartment.

#

"JESUS!" Penny sprinted back into the light of the walkway that connected the rooms.

"A soldier?" Burnhammer asked.

Penny nodded, bending over and resting her hands on her knees, ready to puke.

"I wonder where the rest are—" Burnhammer started.

"Did you hear that?" Félix shrieked.

"Yes," I replied. "I think it came from over there." I pointed to my left, behind several consoles engulfed in darkness.

Burnhammer shifted in the direction of the consoles. "Down," she yelled.

I ducked.

Using a small assault rifle, she fired one bullet. One bullet was all it took. She crept forward towards an invisible furry body and cut its throat with a twenty-five centimeter knife. "One less," she said, replacing the blade. Earlier, she had advised us not to shoot unless we had a clear shot, since a bullet could damage vital equipment, or possibly even pierce through the hull, venting our oxygen and exposing us to the deadly vacuum that surrounded the station.

Burnhammer and the robots inspected the room while Maggy asked for further instructions. The four other soldiers were strewn across the darkness in a bloody mess. Parts of Mechans littered the floor. Vee found Vader's severed head crushed in under another Mechan. "He had the personality of a rock, but he was a good Mechco nonetheless. He will be missed."

"They'll all be missed," Burnhammer said.

"Okay," Geisler unknowingly cut in. "Here you'll need to power up the solar panels. Go to the console labeled four."

We fanned out in search of the console.

"Here," Penny shouted. She stood to the right of the door, next to a lifeless control panel. On a shelf beside the panel, a vibrant-colored display was propped against the wall, resembling a tablet computer except inexplicably more sophisticated. Images rapidly flashed on its screen. "Those are pictures of people."

"It would appear they're studying humanity," Vee speculated.

"Looks like it," Maggy supported the notion.

Penny gasped. "That's probably why they didn't destroy the space station. They're researching us using the world archives, the one place where information from across the globe is continuously backed up."

"But why study us?" I asked. "They took what they wanted."

"To better learn how to hunt us down in their training," Burnhammer guessed. "But who knows? We don't, and we sure as hell don't have time to find out. Get on that radio."

Maggy nodded. "Found it," she informed the sergeant.

"Good. Under the console there's a group of wires," he explained. He detailed what to do, and Maggy followed his directions, as we stood guard.

After several failed attempts to power up the station, she finally got it right. A moment of excitement washed over all of us, especially Maggy. The main lights flickered on. Consoles lit up with colorful buttons. Machines started beeping and thrumming with life. I hadn't even noticed how silent the halls of the Mosaic had been until irritating noises attacked my ears from all directions.

The space station demanded an experienced crew to silence the equipment. Sadly, it wasn't us, and the sounds drowned out our communications, until one by one, most of the noises quit, falling into a standby status.

By the time the racket from the machinery died down, another note took its place, one that rattled my chest.

My heart shifted into overdrive as a roar resonated through the halls.

"Which way are they coming from?" Félix asked.

"Cover both entrances," Burnhammer ordered.

"Maggy, are you there?" Geisler's voice came over the radio.

"Hold on!" Maggy replied. She lifted her submachine gun and aimed at the door we had entered from, the same one I pointed my weapon at.

Vee and four Mechans trained their hulking assault riffles on it too, while the other five robots covered the other one with Félix and Penny. Burnhammer alternated between doors, glancing back and forth, checking to make sure nothing invisible snuck up on us.

Suddenly a giant mass filled the hallway in front of me. "This door!" I screamed. I fired the alion gun, spitting black rounds at the beasts.

"This door!" Félix shouted, shooting at the opposite door.

As soon as the skirmish had started, it had ended, with two dead alions by each door and three slain Mechans. The canisters of my alion gun still spun around, my fingers clenching down the triggers, but they fired nothing.

"It's okay, Blue." Maggy patted my shoulder. "They're dead, bromigo."

I gaped at the alions. "Right," I said, somewhat distant and out of focus, then released the triggers.

Penny bent down and tossed me a new alion gun to replace the empty one I held.

"Thanks," I told her, shooting her a queasy smile.

She grabbed my hand and squeezed. "We're gonna get through this."

"Get Geisler on the radio!" Burnhammer commanded.

Maggy knelt, resting her gun on the floor and snatching up the radio. "Sergeant, come in. We need to know what to do next."

"From the control room, take the next two rights. That should be the Planetary Defense Room."

"You heard the man, move!" Burnhammer yelled.

Two rights later we entered a skinnier room filled with equipment. Buttons blinked all around. It didn't look like anything special, but apparently these few essential consoles could operate the most advanced defensive network humanity had ever built.

"Here," Maggy said. "Now what?"

"Hold on," Geisler replied. After a long pause, he came back on the radio. "Go to the console labeled two."

"Found it," Maggy informed him.

"There should be a green—"

Geisler's words were lost in a powerful roar that quaked the room. Terror ran throughout my body. Again there were two doors to defend.

"Maggy, keep going," Burnhammer ordered. "Darrel and Penelope, watch that door." She pointed behind us. "Félix and Vee, get that door, and split the Mechans. I'll make sure nothing invisible gets the upper hand."

I positioned myself off to the side of the door, so that the alions would have to turn before they attacked, instead of head-on, where I had mistakenly placed myself in the previous room.

Penny knelt on the opposite side of me, alion gun targeted on the middle of the small entrance for prime destruction.

Insanity struck a second later. Roars threatened my grip on the weapon, as the awkward hold loosened in sweat, my nerves shaking nearly out of control. I held down the triggers. Blood splashed my eye.

Alion claws reached out for my face, lashing and swiping in fury. The beasts were just too quick. The second one that entered slapped the gun from my clutch, sending it to the wall. I dove to the side.

Penny launched a stream at the alion's back.

I rolled over before the alion crashed on top of me. Its body fell, smashing into a console.

"Help! Help!" Félix cried out, then a soaring scream.

I spotted my gun and rushed to pick it up. Weapon in hand, I shifted back to the door, blasting teeth out of a furry head. A Mechan rammed into an alion, but the robot was thrown against the far wall and didn't rise. The alion targeted the Mechan next to me and discharged its magazine. The robot's head jerked back, and then its legs gave out, and I dodged out of the way before it struck the floor. The third Mechan fed the alion a meal of oversized bullets.

"I got it! I got it!" Maggy's voice rang in my ears. "What next?"

A gut-wrenching roar deadened any reply from Geisler. I clenched the trigger until nothing fired. "Out," I yelped. I could see the instruments that would carry out my death sentence, five scything claws so long and sharp they put my mom's cutlery to shame. The paw darted for my chest, aimed at my wildly pumping heart, less than a meter away. A strong arm controlled it, corded muscles flexing, throwing enough force my way to knock me back ten meters.

I couldn't breathe.

_This can't be it,_ I thought as I watched the world in a strange slow motion, like I had the ability to control time. _This can't be the end. I'm supposed to save everyone. I'm supposed to._

Suddenly blood showered me once more. Before I could close my eyes, I saw the paw explode, several bullets tearing it to pieces. A bullet penetrated the alion's head, and its body wrenched to the side before its bulk slammed me to the ground.

Penny stared at me, the cylinders of her gun rotating endlessly but ejecting nothing. "Thanks," I mouthed.

Then Maggy's voice obliterated all sounds. "Online! The network is online!"

The deafening noises of the alions ceased. No more advanced, and I hoped it was because they were all dead, not because they were devising their next move.

We all turned to Maggy. "It's done?" Burnhammer asked, covered in viscous blue.

"Geisler said Mount Baldy will take over," Maggy reported. "They have control of the system now."

"We can go home?" Penny asked.

"Maggy, help Félix." Burnhammer pointed to Félix, who was lying on the floor with a gash down his shin, bleeding. "Let's get the hell out of here."

Maggy eyed Félix with horror and dashed to his side. "Are you okay? I didn't know . . . I should have . . ."

"You did what needed to be done," Félix responded, coughing. "It was invisible, I couldn't see it."

Maggy stripped off her camouflage jacket and ripped a sleeve from it. She wrapped Félix's leg. Helping him to his feet, she carried most of his weight.

He screamed in agony when they took a step.

I rushed over to his other side, positioning my body so that he didn't put pressure on his leg at all. "You're gonna be all right, dude."

He nodded at me, blood smeared across his face.

Burnhammer grabbed the PocketPad off the floor and handed it to Penny. "Get us back."

Penny accepted the duty with pluckiness. She navigated the route back to the airlock. No Mechans had survived the fray, only Vee, who now had twenty-six different nuts from his fallen mechanical soldiers. The Mechco guarded the rear while Burnhammer continued to check both attack points.

A skinny tunnel never looked appealing to me, but all I wanted to do was climb through this one, the promise of safety on the other side. It was a bitch to get Félix up the ladder, but we did it, though all my muscles burned afterwards. Vee lifted him over the hatch lip and strapped him into one of the Mechan's chairs.

With everyone aboard, I closed the hatch, and Burnhammer was running for the flight deck, Vee at her back. Penny and I tailed them.

Vee, seated in the pilot chair, was suddenly, violently decapitated. His head was hacked clean from his shoulders; it bounced off the console and rolled to the floor. A scream echoed throughout the ship as an invisible claw sliced at Burnhammer's elbow. With her short assault rifle, she shot the air, until a body bumped me, taking me to the ground.

I groaned under the weight.

Burnhammer howled, blood pouring out her severed limb.

Penny glanced between us and decided to help me first. She took up Burnhammer's fallen helmet and found the alion corpse that was crushing me. She kicked the body off me as I pushed.

Freed, I turned to Burnhammer, who had blacked out. Her detached forearm and hand rested nearby. "We have to stop the bleeding," I yelled.

"There's a locker in the back with a red cross on it, I bet it has a med kit and some towels," Penny said, running off. She returned, jumped down to her knees, and wrapped the bleeding stump.

I squeezed around the end, attempting to stop the outpour, but it was little use. Blood soaked through all the towels. "What do we do?" I asked.

Maggy entered the cockpit. Her eyes grew wide at the messy scene. "What the—"

"An alion hid up here, invisible," Penny cut her off. "We have to get her to a hospital, to the facility you came from."

"To Mount Baldy?" Maggy shook her head. "I have no idea where it is."

"Well, someone has to fly us there," she replied. "Vee's down, too. Darrel, you could do it while I keep the pressure around her wound."

I stared at her. "Maggy would—"

"Maggy has to take care of Félix. He could bleed out just like Burnhammer. You have to fly us there. Use the radio to ask for coordinates to the base. Hurry!"

This was it: the time to be a hero or a coward.

I leapt up. "Okay." Ensconcing myself next to the headless Mechco, I analyzed the touchscreen between the seats, searching for a tutorial or autopilot or some kind of guidance system.

Maggy appeared at my side. "I think it's this." She pointed at a button in the lower left of the screen: AUTONOMOUS AVIATION ASSISTANT.

I pressed it, and the computer reported, "Autonomous Aviation Assistant activated. Please select from available maneuvers." A list of actions replaced the main menu.

"I guess the system isn't completely autonomous," I laughed.

"It's probably supposed to be more of a co-pilot," Maggy theorized.

"Docking systems disengaged," the computer said after I pressed the right combination. We slowly floated away. I was searching for the propulsion start-up system when I noticed movement out the window. The satellite within view started to reposition itself towards the mothership. Then the drones broke their patrol and assumed a diamond pattern, also facing the mothership.

Nothing visible shot out of the satellites or drones, but a second later, sections of the mothership exploded. Fires mushroomed into space, long jets of red that lasted a mere beat before evaporating. Missiles launched from the drones and the network of satellites, the rockets zipping through the Black, targeted for the holes created by the invisible weapons, detonating upon impact. Giant chunks of the ship broke off. More missiles rocketed towards the disconnected pieces.

It was the best fireworks show that anyone could ever watch, silent as it was.

Penny and Maggy were observing the phenomenal event, mouths parted.

"Tactical high-energy lasers," Maggy gasped, gazing at the only viewable satellite. "Undetectable to our eyes. Looks like a nice one-two punch with the missiles penetrating deeper into the ship."

Suddenly the realization of all the deaths taking place struck me. "All those people," I whispered. An image popped in my head of the interminable room with the countless pillars of stasis pods and all the souls trapped within them.

"There was nothing we could do . . ." Penny reassured me. With the daze fading, she returned her attention to Burnhammer. "Get us out of here, Darrel."

"All right, all right. I'll try." I located the correct button and the propulsion engines fired up. Now we needed a place to go, so I chose random coordinates near Pasadena. The computer spun the falcon around and flew towards California.

"I'll be with Habi," Maggy said.

Focused on the controls, which were designed similar to the Apple iVolution VR aircraft controller, I barely heard what she'd said. We flew meters from satellites aimed at the mothership and the invisible lasers destroying it. The screen showed the satellites turning towards the planet, and hundreds of black clouds erupted across North and South America, signs of devastation.

A smile broke on my face.

"It's working," I mumbled. Penny gave no reply. Unprepared, their ships felt the full force of our weaponry, most of which I'd never known existed, built more to keep nations from blowing each other up than for protecting us from space invaders. I grabbed the radio, trying to remember the man's name before I asked for help. It popped into my head a moment later. "Geisler, come in . . . Geisler, please come in."

"This is Sergeant Geisler, who am I talking to?"

"This is Darrel Reid from the mothership. Burnhammer is out of commission, and she desperately needs medical attention. I'm flying the ship right now, but I don't know how to get to Mount Baldy."

"Copy that, Darrel. Hold on a second," Geisler said. "I'm transmitting the coordinates to Burnhammer's PocketPad. You'll have to transfer them to the ship's navigation system."

"Thanks." I turned to Penny behind me. "Where's the PocketPad?"

"I had it here somewhere," she replied, clutching Burnhammer's stumpy elbow with one hand, rifling through the med kit with the other. She patted her pockets and eventually found it on the ground half a meter away, blue and red blood pooling around its casing. "Hope it still works." She tossed it at me.

I caught the slippery device, wiping it on my shirt, then began trying to send the coordinates to the computer. A window kept popping up on the touchscreen, requiring a code to transfer the data. I hadn't a clue what it was.

I had to put the transfer on hold as the ship started its auto re-entrance into the atmosphere. The blinding light made it impossible to keep my eyes open. The thunder around us must have been dampened, as my ears didn't bleed like I thought they would.

When the intensity dwindled, I glimpsed a yellow deathball fly past the right wing. Several more zoomed by. "Shit, we're under attack!"

"Fire back," Penny yelled.

The ship suddenly jolted. Systems flashed and we began to nosedive. I yanked back on the yoke and prevented us from spiraling into a cataclysmic plunge. I'd already done that once this week. The falcon leveled out and I evaded the deathballs as best I could. "Autonomous Aviation Assistant offline," the computer said.

"Oh boy, that's not good. Maggy! Maggy!" I cried out. She'd know what to do.

Maggy rushed into the room. "What?"

"We're under attack and Triple A went offline," I panted. "Do you know how to use the weapon systems?"

"Yeah, hold on." She plunked herself down in a chair behind me and buckled up.

I rolled the ship on accident. My stomach hated that. A deathball nearly hit the left wing. I started to curse as my panic peaked. I dipped the ship this way and that, abruptly changing directions, avoiding barrel rolls and hard dives. Obviously it wasn't an F-16 because I couldn't feel much of anything like I knew pilots did, and I was glad it was an advanced prototype spaceship because of that fact—otherwise my vomit would've plastered the cockpit.

I glanced over my shoulder. Medical supplies covered the floor and Penny had Burnhammer pinned down as she held onto a bar. I'm sure Penny's stomach despised me as much as mine did.

"Missiles away!" Maggy declared.

"There's another," I yelled.

"We're out—out of missiles." She began cursing but didn't stop working at the terminal before her.

"What do we do?"

Her fingers were speeding as rapidly as the ship was bolting through the air. "There's a machine gun and a laser. Don't worry. I'll get it."

The next thing I knew, debris was hurtling past the ship, wreckage millimeters from the tail, reported by the computer's proximity alert.

"Thanks, we'd be dead right now without that brain of yours." The flattery sounded a little thick, but it was the truth.

"I don't think we'd be alive without a pilot either," she replied.

"Can you transfer the coordinates to the navigation?" I indicated the PocketPad, shrugging off her comment.

Unbuckling, she sprung from her chair and set about the transfer. "Done," she said a blink later. A dot appeared on the navigation screen above the window. Circles expanded from the dot like ripples in a pond. "I have to get back to Habi." She patted my back and dashed away.

I followed the navigation arrow. Pulled back on the yoke and leveled out. The attitude indicator showed the wings even across an electronic blue-sky horizon. The crust of the earth lay a thousand meters down. Smoke clouds blackened the real horizon. We were closing in fast on the coordinates, and hills began to populate the terrain underneath the ship, which soon grew into mountains, spots of white snow upon black rock and dark evergreens. The dot pointed me to a valley below the snowline.

"Geisler, I'm approaching the base. Where do I land?"

A long pause ate away at my nerves, worried that no response would come. I radioed again.

"Darrel, I'm transferring you to someone at Mount Baldy who should be able to help you better at this point. Get them home safe, and good luck."

A gentle woman's voice replaced Geisler's. "Darrel Reid, this is Private Albores, come in."

"I'm here! I'm here!"

"Hi, Darrel. Sergeant Geisler filled me in on your situation. There's a landing strip on the northeast side of the base. Some of the tarmac was demolished in the battle, but there should still be enough for you to land safely. I'm sending the coordinates to the PocketPad Geisler gave me the info for. It's not far from your location."

The PocketPad lit up, and thanks to Maggy the transfer was already set up, taking the press of a button to complete. The dot moved slightly on the navigation screen. "Got them, thanks! I have another problem though, I'm pretty sure the autoland isn't going to work because the autopilot system was damaged."

She cursed in frustration. Was I supposed to hear that? Probably not. "Copy that, Darrel. I'll try to find a pilot to talk you through it, but it's chaotic down here, so I can't promise I'll find one. Try the autoland first, and radio back if it doesn't work. Over and out."

That wasn't music to my ears. "Uh, okay. Will do, thanks." I didn't know what else to say.

Satellite towers of the base appeared soon after Albores parted. The complex itself was harder to find, hidden well within the tall conifers. Watchtowers and a long, thick wall gave away the base's location. I circled the area without a sign of the runway, despite the flashing dot telling me we were right over it. The trees concealed it too well for my exhausted eyes. I desired sleep more than food or water, or anything else that I could think of, except for maybe one last kiss from Penny.

Deciding to try my luck at a lower altitude, I glided along the treetops, and at last, a strip of black materialized out of nowhere. Climbing a little to get a better view, I could see the white lines that divided the tarmac evenly. As I circled the runway, I sifted through the computer, on the hunt for the autoland button. Ugh! Where was Bruce when you needed him? I'd no idea what the name of the software intelligence could be for such an advanced system.

"Found it!"

Penny screamed so loudly I jounced in my seat. "Found what?"

She held up a plain white packet with blue print. "A cauterizing agent. You see a water bottle anywhere?" I shook my head. Shuffling through backpacks she found a tan flask, sniffed its contents, then poured it into a round plastic dish that had come from the med kit. She mixed the cauterizing agent with the water and slowly poured it over Burnhammer's bloody stump. "It's working! It's working!"

Would she be mad if I tried to give her a fist bump? I settled on, "Keep up the good work, champ." Nah, not really—I wasn't that corny. I actually said, "Nicely done. Now if only I could find the autoland button . . ." And then my own silly thoughts led to an idea: if Vee's creators built him with a lot of humor in mind, maybe the people who made the flight systems did too. There was only one way to find out. "Triple A, initiate autoland."

"Unable to comply," the computer said. "Autonomous Aviator Assistant offline due to damage. Bringing up diagnostics for repairs." The screen began listing the disabled systems.

I laughed at the comic nature of the software intelligence's name, but the satisfaction of guessing right lasted about two seconds before the realization sunk in that we were stuck in the air.

Penny gave voice to my sentiment. "You're kidding, right? We made it all this way, and now we can't land?"

"Not by using the computer alone, no. But hold on, I'll radio Albores." Into the radio: "Albores, are you there? This is Darrel again, please come in . . ."

"I'm here, Darrel. You land yet?"

"Yeah, about that, it looks like I'm gonna need that outside help. The autoland isn't working."

"We're still looking for someone to help you. You'll have to circle the base until we can find a pilot. I'll get back to you soon. Over and out." I didn't bother with a reply.

"You might have to land it by yourself," Penny said.

"Yeah right, like that's an option."

"Did you ever play _Wings of Salvation_?"

"Well, yeah, but that's totally different. That's a video game. No one's life is at stake."

"But the game was designed to simulate real takeoff and landing procedures," she insisted. "There was an article in _Future Gamer_ all about it."

"Doesn't matter, I haven't played that game in like five years. You know how much you forget in five years? _A lot_."

"So what then?"

"Let's wait for Albores and go from there."

The waiting began. I passed over the airstrip half a hundred times before Albores came over the radio.

"Darrel, you there?"

"I'm here! I'm here!" I screamed into the radio.

"We found a crop pilot who says he knows everything there is to know about landing a plane, big or small. I'm going to pass you over to Lenny Gortel. Here he is."

A harsh smoker's voice took over Albores's soft, musical one. "You there, kid?"

I had never agreed with the term "kid," not since I was ten. "You the crop duster?"

"Sure am, kid. I hear ya need some advice about how to land a plane."

"Not a plane, a spacecraft."

"Does it have wheels?" he asked.

I'd found the semi-automated landing program during the long wait and deployed the wheels. "Yeah," I replied. "It has wheels."

"Then it's the same damn thing," he said curtly. "All ya need to do is listen and not jerk the controls. Don't jerk the damn controls. Ya hearin' me, kid?"

I didn't want to answer him; his tone irritated me. "I hear you, crop duster." My voice faltered over the words. Even though I couldn't see him, he made me nervous. I tried to emphasize _crop duster_ the way he was calling me _kid_ , but I didn't think it was working.

"All right, good. This is probably goin' to be a rough landin', but you'll survive. Line up with the tarmac."

"I did but the wings keep dipping," I reported.

"Bring her around and hold her steady."

I looked back at Penny.

"You've got this, Darrel!" she shouted.

Nodding, I circled again. I swallowed hard, aligning the ship with the tarmac. "Aligned."

"Now pull back on the throttle," he said. "Ya may have to push the yoke to dive. Keep the airspeed within the green arc."

I pulled the throttle and dipped the nose of the ship, pushing on the yoke. I held my breath. _Holy shit, you're gonna land a plane. Just relax, man. It's easy. No big deal. Everyone's life isn't in your hands right now. No pressure._

Dad's voice entered my head from nowhere. _When have you ever been good under pressure? Remember your lousy SAT scores?_

_I'm not the same person, Dad. I can do this. I'm manning up, just like you always told me to._ Was this really happening right now? Was I having an imaginary conversation with my dad? I could feel all my muscles tensing up.

"Breathe," Penny encouraged.

I exhaled until my lungs were empty. _This is it. Just do it._ "Done," I told the crop duster.

"Good. Now to slow the plane without losin' lift, you'll have to use the slats and flaps. Their controls should be next to the throttle."

A slats and flaps button on the touchscreen was flashing, so I let the computer handle that. "Okay."

"Almost there, just hang on, kid." He guided me well enough and the plane slowed. "Just before ya touch down, ya have to flare the nose, or raise it, pullin' back on the yoke. Not too much though."

I remembered that part from _Wings of Salvation_. Pulling back on the yoke, the nose angled up. The ship must have been centimeters from the ground, though it was hard to tell. I breathed out again as the back tires touched down. The front tires seemed to take forever to connect, but eventually they tapped the ground, bouncing up, then touching down for good. "Down," I yelled into the radio.

"Activate reverse thrusters!"

I did as told. Rapidly decelerating, the ship rocked from side to side as I held the yoke as straight as I could, and every second I hoped that the plane wouldn't fall apart or hit a lethal object that would pop a tire. My nerves calmed when the wheels came to a stop. I tapped a sequence of buttons to deactivate the propulsion engines and pulled the throttle all the way back while the system powered down. "We've stopped! We made it!"

"Well hey, ya sound like ya got it under control there, kid."

"Thanks. Thanks for everything, crop duster. Could you put Albores back on?"

"Sure thing, kid. And you're welcome. Glad ya made it all right."

"Darrel, this is Albores. A team is waiting for you at the end of the runway."

"Got it," I said crisply, though it was not my intent. "And thanks for all your help!"

"Help me carry her," Penny said, almost as if an order.

Without another word to Albores, I darted to Burnhammer's side. Lifting with my knees, I groaned from the effort. The corporal was much heavier than she looked. The ramp at the tail was already down when we lugged her back there. A group of soldiers rushed up and grabbed Burnhammer with ease, running her down to a stretcher on wheels. They loaded her into a van that drove away faster than a lightning bolt. None of us could even get a word out before it disappeared.

Félix was moaning, drenched in sweat. Strapped into a seat made to accommodate a Mechan, he'd been hanging on to a bar for dear life while I maneuvered the ship. "What about me? They forgot me."

A soldier walked up the ramp. "Maggy Li?" he said, eyeing Maggy. The man was a tower.

"Yes?" she answered.

He stuck out a strong hand. "I'm Major Henry Higgans. Sergeant Geisler told us all about what you did. I cannot tell you the debt this country—this world owes you. Without the Planetary Defense Network, we'd be sitting ducks, with a snowball's chance in hell of defeating the enemy. You saved us, Maggy Li."

Maggy accepted his massive hand and gripped.

"And that goes for each and every one of you up there—"

"My leg," Félix interrupted the major. "My leg, my leg, my leg!"

The major swiveled around. "Privates, get this man to the base ASAP!"

Two soldiers bolted up the ramp and hauled Félix away to a nearby jeep. The entire way he complained about the gash in his leg.

"Let's get you three some food and water, and anything else you need."

"A shower would be nice," Penny said. "And some lip balm."

The major nodded with a tight smile, pointing the way down the ramp. He followed behind us, jumping into the front of the jeep once we were all loaded and secured.

I heaved a massive sigh. "We did it."

"You did it," Penny said, punching my arm tenderly. "You got us back." She kissed my cheek and grinned. Emotion took over after that and I kissed her so hard and long that I didn't know if it would ever stop.

And I didn't want it to.

#

NIGHT PASSED AND a new morning arrived. After trying to sleep in and failing, I joined Maggy, Penny, and her sisters in a cafeteria several floors below the ground. Penny had been reunited with her sisters the moment we reached the complex. Tales of Amanda's heroism filled our ears, how she picked up a fallen soldier's sidearm and killed two alions that had breached the Care Center's defenses. She had saved over twenty people, and she didn't let anyone forget it, reminding us all that she wasn't a little girl that needed to be coddled. Jane on the other hand didn't mind Penny's doting affection.

The complex amazed me. If the elevator panels were to be believed, then it spanned seventy-five levels, which could be summed up in one word: monstrous.

"You ready to go visit Habi?" Maggy asked, finishing a plate of spaghetti.

The cooks made us special meals that morning, anything we desired. That was it. Just breakfast. No award ceremony or medals for saving the world. No big crowd cheering and clapping. I reminded myself that a mothership wasn't a Death Star. I didn't really expect anything more, but I'd be a liar if I'd said I wasn't hoping . . . The alions had spoiled any kind of victory festivity, for they had relentlessly attacked the base with as much fury and determination as those who defended it. More than half the soldiers and civilian volunteers protecting it were now dead. Which meant there wasn't time for medals and celebration.

Penny ordered a bison steak and a plate of vegetables—too healthy for my tastes. The cook brought the twins a stack of giant pancakes as tall as their heads. I ordered my favorites, a bowl of sugarcoated wheat flakes and a dozen jelly-filled donuts—I only ate half of them.

"Yeah, I'm ready to head down to the hospital." I pushed aside the empty bowl. Turned to Penny. "You?"

"Yeah, hold on." She stuffed a huge chunk of bison meat into her mouth.

As we sat there, I reflected on how it used to be, and how wars had always been a part of history, but that this was something so different. "Do you think . . . do you think people fifty years from now will be playing video games about the invasion like World War II games at the turn of the century?"

"You can count on it," Penny said, gulping down her last bite. "You can count on it."

"Probably twice as violent, too, if it's possible," Maggy added.

I nodded as another question popped into my head. "How did you figure out the PocketPad's password to send the coordinates from it to the ship? You did it so fast it was like you already knew it."

"I did know," Maggy answered, "or at least I had a pretty good guess and it turned out to be right. Burnhammer's platoon is called the Shadow Stalkers, and they say it all the time, so I just figured I'd try it first."

"That was lucky," I said as we got up to leave. "Without that code, Burnhammer would probably be dead right now." They both nodded in agreement. An elevator brought us to an infirmary where they were keeping Félix and Corporal Burnhammer. We met Burnhammer first, who was in an isolated recovery ward. The doctor had saved her arm, but at her elbow, only a stump remained. I had feared they would have to amputate the entire limb even though Penny was able to stop the bleeding; it looked that bad.

Sergeant Geisler, who had been relieved from his post at the secret IPDA base, sat in a chair beside Burnhammer. The corporal greeted us with a warm smile as the twins rushed to hug her. "It's good to see you too," she spoke softly. "I may have lost part of my arm, but we saved the world."

"Not completely," Maggy said. "Even with the ships destroyed, there are still alions on the ground that need to be dealt with. My enlistment is now official, and I'm ready to make sure we get them all."

"Good for you. I'll probably join you if you save some for me." Burnhammer winked at Maggy.

"I'll try," she responded. "On another note, as a special privilege I get to help put Vee back together. Right now he's not looking so great with his head detached."

"You're going to take out those quotes, right?" the corporal laughed.

"Darrel wants me to leave them, so I'll let you two settle that one."

Burnhammer adjusted her bed to sit up more. "Did anyone ever figure out who put that giant hole in the mothership?"

"Not exactly," Maggy said. "We've been told guesses, one of them being that it was most likely a bomb that malfunctioned. These two"—she jerked her head at Penny and me—"think it was another experiment on humans gone wrong. Whatever or whoever it was saved us all. If the alions hadn't been distracted with the problem, and if their shields and sensors had been online, we would've been toast."

"We might never learn the truth," Geisler said. "Though a team is going over footage shot from the ISS as we speak. Maybe they'll find something, maybe they won't."

Maggy squeezed Burnhammer's arm. "Rest up, we'll be back tomorrow to check on you." The two exchanged smiles, then the corporal reached out for Penny.

"Thank you," she said. "I told you I'd save your ass, but you saved mine instead."

Penny stepped up to the bed. "Without you, we wouldn't have even been there." The moment turned sentimental, and Burnhammer waved us out of the room before she erupted into tears, Geisler at her side to give her the comfort she needed.

We left Burnhammer to check on how Félix fared. He had a minor fever, but the attending nurse assured us that it was normal and would decline within the day.

"How's the food down here?" I asked him.

"Had vegetables and bread this morning." He grinned. "But I enjoyed them."

"Have you heard about the new colony starting up in Santa Barbara?" Maggy asked.

"Yeah, I did," he said, adjusting a new pair of black spectacles. "Apparently it's the best place to rebuild because it's free of debris from Los Angeles and San Jose. I'm not sure why all the survivors aren't enlisting to hunt down the remaining alions though. That's what we're doing, right?"

"That's right," Maggy answered. "Soon as your leg starts to mend."

"Actually . . ." I started, taking a breath. Penny seized my hand as I cleared my throat. "Actually, Penny and I are gonna help out in Santa Barbara."

"What?" Maggy spat. "You never said anything before!"

"I didn't think you'd like the idea, but it's safer for the twins . . . It's where we need to be."

Her eyes glistened with tears, but she nodded, understanding that I desired a fresh start. "When are you leaving?"

I cleared my throat again. "A caravan is leaving tomorrow, we're going with them."

"I can't believe you're leaving, bromigo," Félix said, completely shocked. "When will we see you again?"

"Probably when you finish off all the alions, I'd imagine." I gripped his arm and embraced him. "But who knows, man, maybe sooner."

I hugged Maggy, tears in my eyes.

"I'm going to miss you, bromigo," she said with a snuffle.

"It's not goodbye forever, just for a while. We'll see each other soon enough, you'll see."

"It's just weird to think of you going away," she said, grinning. "Especially since we just got you back."

I patted her shoulder. "I need to do this. There are plans to build a memorial for friends and family, and I wanna help put up Jacob's name. I wanna be a part of the community, you know? And don't worry, we'll still grow old as neighbors."

"I'll hold you to that." Her grin expanded, enveloping her face from ear to ear.

A nurse walked in then, carrying a platter with a chocolate layer cake, and I ran to her to accept it while blocking Maggy's view. "In the meantime, we've got a surprise for you." I turned around.

And we all yelled, "Happy birthday!"

"Holy crap, I completely forgot!" She beamed at us all as we burst into song, blowing out the candles afterwards.

"Well, yesterday was quite a day," Penny said.

Maggy took a plate with a slice of cake. "I don't know if I'll ever have another birthday like it."

"That's certain," Félix agreed.

After we devoured the entire cake, I unveiled a deck of cards that I'd found in a rec room. "Poker?"

"Poker," Félix and Maggy said at the same time, and the six of us settled in for one last day together, jokes flying, tears streaming, and laughs filling the entire wing.

#

AFTER THE NIGHT of long goodbyes, Penny and I packed up some fresh clothes and headed for a truck preparing to depart for Santa Barbara, about a three-hour trip in normal conditions, and nothing about the world was normal. The twins settled in, with their bags stuffed full with new clothes, and a few other things they couldn't leave behind.

Shafts of light penetrated the dark clouds. The sky was mostly black and smoky. I searched the horizon to the west. When I glanced over at Penny, I saw a troubled face. "You look like something is bugging you, what's up?"

"I've just been thinking . . ." She paused.

"About?" I prompted.

"About what Maggy told us."

"You mean the video?"

"Yeah, that and the virus." Her voice tensed up. "And I can't get the image out of my mind of all the ships leaving before we turned on the PDN. There were _so_ many. We didn't even take out a quarter of them. And all that leads me to think about the giant rooms and the columns made of stasis pods, and the real question."

I stroked my freshly shaven cheeks. There was nothing like feeling clean after living a week in the duct system of an alien ship. "What are they going to use the taken for?"

"Exactly." She surveyed the clouds in distress. When our eyes locked, hers bore a grave quality that I had never seen before. "I just don't get it, if they are preserving us in the freezers, what are the pods for? And why are only humans in them?"

A chill shot down my spine. I hadn't given it much thought because of a mental block, a wall that separated the big picture reality and the narrow scope of my in-the-moment life, established to survive without breaking down into a mess of emotions. Nah, that was for someone else to figure out, someone like Maggy, who probably had a hundred conceivable ideas.

She continued when I didn't respond. "Clearly they don't need to waste all that room to keep billions of individuals alive in stasis, but they are . . ."

"I don't have an answer," I said. "They want us for something, something more than food. Maybe more experiments. Maybe it has something to do with the war they're fighting." I shrugged. "Who knows?"

She nodded, raising her eyes to the view out the back of the truck. "I hope we never find out that purpose."

I followed her gaze. "So do I." My voice trembled. "So do I." I put the bleak and disturbing thought out of my mind and enjoyed the rays. A large black bird flew through a sunbeam, lit up like some magical creature, then it disappeared a second later, lost in the shadow that haunted Los Angeles. I smiled, hopeful for the days when sunshine prevailed, and animals returned to the world, for a time when I could lie out on a beach and bathe in the peaceful warmth with Penny by my side.

End of the first book in

the Remnants Trilogy

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Flip the page to read an excerpt from _Black Blood_ , a spellbinding cross-genre mutation unlike anything you've ever read, weaving paranormal fantasy in a post-apocalyptic world.

# An Excerpt from Black Blood

CHAPTER ONE

BLACK VEINS

T **he scientist's back** hit the floor and blood spurted out of his mouth, a plume of red that scattered across his lab coat and chin. Aberdeen glanced down and saw that her steel restraints lay shattered on the floor. She'd had this dream since she was fifteen. The same dream for over three years, and for over three years she had woken up screaming, soaked in sweat so cold it chilled. But today it wasn't a dream.

She fought to reclaim her breath, her heart cracking her chest each time it pounded against her ribs, its beat growing ever faster.

"Shh," a second scientist tried to calm her, stepping closer to the upright table she'd been pinned to. "We're here to help you, Abby. We only want to help." His voice was low and soft like a wise grandfather.

"Liar!" she screamed, jumping off the footpads. She felt the wrongness of his words, felt it in her blood, like a whisper in her ear. It was a soft song. Yet she had never heard a song. Not once. No one ever sang in the Sanctuary, the last shelter for those who had survived the third World War.

"Please, Abby, let us help you," he pleaded. "Your emotions will be your undoing. You need help." Despite the snow-white hair that was brushed back from his face, and the fuzzy white beard that spoke of old age, the tall man looked strong, strong enough to hold her down and do what he liked with her. "You're not healthy. There's something wrong with your blood—it's . . .  _abnormal_."

Just yesterday she'd been a normal young woman. Well, not _normal_ , but almost. Close enough that no one ever questioned her slight variations from the ordinary, besides her aunt. But now she _was_ different. All she had to do was look down at her arms and their black veins for proof.

Abby peered at the dead man before her feet. She had never seen a dead person, as corpses were always carried off quickly when someone passed away, and all was done in secrecy. The man looked strange with his pale blue eyes open and glazed, staring at the ceiling through thick black-rimmed glasses, his body utterly still—too motionless, like he might twitch with life at any second. But he never did: he just lay there, and it was her fault he was like that. The dead scientist was younger than the man standing before her, his black hair salted with white flecks, his skin noticeably smoother.

Repulsed, Abby turned away. "What's happening to me?" she asked, scared and confused. Then she suddenly realized she did not know either of these men, and she knew all the Endurists who lived in the Sanctuary, for there had been few enough names to learn in her eighteen years. A spell of dizziness attacked her head, persistent.

"You've been infected and a fever has taken you. You need rest and fluids." The man smiled, but without any genuine empathy, a trace of guile hidden in the curve of his lips.

_A trick,_ her heart seemed to say. "Is it poison?" she blurted, ignoring the warning. "Am I dying?"

"It's a virus," he answered, adjusting his round glasses, a glint in his unsettling eyes. "A poison to us all. But we can help you, I promise. All you have to do is let us."

Abby scanned the room and recognized that they were not in the infirmary. In fact, they weren't in any room she'd been in before, and it was too large to be someone's living quarters.

"This is the Restricted Zone. I'm not supposed to be here," she heard herself say, the words distant, echoing in her head. "You're a Savior . . . you brought me here to kill me."

"No, sweetie," the scientist said, his low, calm voice soothing, hypnotic. "We brought you here to cure you, not hurt you. You remember your history—about feeling? You are feeling and we want to help you." He raised a hand, holding a syringe, the needle long and frightening. "I understand that you're scared, but if you resist, you could die, Abby. And you could infect—and kill—everyone else in the Sanctuary."

Aberdeen's blood boiled at the deception in his voice. Her veins pulsed, visible in her hands, arms, and shoulders—all around her body they erupted, black and hideous. _Abnormal_. The room was cold but her skin was a furnace, her black veins streams of molten obsidian.

All the equipment looked foreign, as if she were on a completely different world, and the sight of it made her heart race. In the face of his lies, she knew one truth: she had to get away, had to escape. "No," she yelled. "You're lying, I know you are. I know it. You brought me here so you could kill me!" When her eyes caught sight of the corpse, her stomach turned, and she reeled back. "Just let me go—let me go back to my room."

The lines on his face sagged in disappointment. "You've given me no choice, Abby." He reached for a new tool lying in a silver pan. When he pointed it at her, she saw its indelible shape, his finger over the trigger.

She raised her hands out in front of her. "No, please! I didn't do anything. I didn't!"

"You killed Dr. Schovog, Abby. Your emotions killed him." His finger twitched on the trigger, snapping it back with a click.

A two-pronged dart sunk into the flesh of Abby's arm, stinging the surface and sending a seizing jolt to her heart. She winced, letting out a sharp cry before she swatted the needles away, black dripping from the tiny punctures. From the look in the scientist's eyes, whatever the dart injected into her blood was doing the opposite of what he had expected. Sweat poured out of her skin as if she were a shower nozzle. She had never known rage before; it was an emotion, and no one who lived in the Sanctuary felt anymore—except Aberdeen. The anger built inside her, hot and powerful, and it made her feel more alive than she'd ever been in her life.

She clenched her teeth together so hard she was afraid they'd all shatter. An animalistic growl emerged from the back of her throat, terrible and deafening. She could feel the energy building up inside, the same energy she'd conjured up a minute ago when she had released it on the younger scientist who had made the mistake of sticking a needle in her neck and pumping her full of drugs.

The scientist's hand began to shake. He searched blindly for another dart to insert into the gun, his eyes locked with hers, never straying for a second.

Aberdeen could taste his fear, and in that moment, she unintentionally released the energy. Glass shattered around the room as the shockwave exploded out from her body, hitting everything within sight, reaching out like a ripple in a pond caused by a throw of a stone.

The man flew back as if shot. Blood gushed from his mouth, and his eyes glazed over, the same as his dead companion beside him. "You're a liar," she cried, tears and sweat drenching her face. She wanted to curl up and sob, but that's what children did, not adults—not full-grown women. She was stronger than that.

For the first time since she'd opened her eyes, she noticed that she was stripped down to her underwear. Scanning the room, she found her jeans and tank top folded on a counter, but where was the long-sleeved shirt she'd been wearing? Her socks were rolled up beside her clothes, her dirty boots on the floor. She dressed as fast as she could, her hands shaking as she tied her laces, the whole time trying to ignore the two dead bodies not ten feet away.

She glimpsed the sickle-shaped scar on her right forearm, a mark she'd carried since birth, and she grazed the white patch of skin with a trembling finger. Most of the time she forgot it existed, but gazing at it now shot an odd chill down her back. It meant something, but she couldn't grasp what. It was like looking at a foggy mirror after a shower, the outline was there, but the details were blurred.

The dead bodies drew her attention, and a sense of urgency, coupled with revulsion, drove her to flee. Leaping over the corpses, she bolted from the room, entering a familiar hallway. The eight halls of the Sanctuary were all identical: gray walls and gray floors with three stripes painted down the center—red, blue, and green. Bulkheads reinforced the structure every twenty feet. Despite all the similarities, this hallway was not one of the eight she grew up walking every day.

Aberdeen ran the length of the hall, passing blue-gray doors, all evenly spaced like on the three dormitory levels that housed the four hundred and seventeen survivors of the apocalypse. They were known among themselves as the Endurists—those who had endured the end of the world. No one knew how vast the emergency survival shelter was, only that CAPA personnel, the scientists and engineers of the Crisis Aid and Protection Agency, affectionately called the Saviors, shared a portion of it with the Endurists, restricting everything beyond their eight levels. _The Saviors could live here. These could be their rooms,_ she thought. She wanted to peek inside through the small window at the top of each door, but she resisted the urge—she had to get home, back to her room on the sixth floor. There she could wait out the infection, or so she hoped.

_But how?_ The elevator would be risky, too easy for the Enforcers to shut down. No, she had to find stairs; they would be her best chance. Aberdeen reached the end of the hall and found a door, but as soon as her hand touched the handle, her ears rang with the thump of her blood. Again she ignored the alert.

The door creaked open in jerky fits on rusty hinges. It fought her, but in the end she won, barely squeezing through. Her heartbeat pounded and pounded, and bile flowed into her mouth, the sickening taste telling her to retreat at once. Curiosity could not be helped or controlled, and with shuffling strides, Aberdeen inched across the dark room.

A glow came from the back, dim and ominous. Her blood was singing in her ears as loudly as a mining drill. An ache arose in the back of her head, and the agony grew so intense it compelled her to stop several times. She turned a corner and located the source of the faint light: a large glass cylinder of equal height to her five-foot-five frame, filled with a clear fluid, and lit by two soft blue-white bulbs, one on the floor and one on the container's ceiling. Inside floated two brains with the vertebral columns intact, each of uniform size, but smaller than a mature human brain.

Wires connected the ends between each vertebra where the nerves reached out like fingers to the back of the tank, the strands running to a machine behind it, which produced mechanical beeps and other noises, one distinguishable as a pulse. Without thinking, Aberdeen placed her hand against the glass. "You're alive," she whispered.

"Yes," a voice responded, the sound unnatural and computerized.

The thumping in her head spiked, forcing her eyes shut. A piercing shriek jumped from her throat.

"Your blood," the voice spoke. "It will be ours."

Abby shook her head, spinning away from the cylinder and the brains within. Lurching forward, her stomach about to heave, she held it in check, opened her eyes, and darted for the exit. More cylinders suddenly appeared as though a curtain had been lifted in the room, a veil that kept her blind to all but the one in the back. The tubes populated the room from wall to wall, each containing a unique brain from various species, preserved in the same manner as the two connected to the machine.

How? How had she not seen these when she entered? Were her eyes tricking her, or was someone else? She let the question slip to the margins of her concentration as she cleared the threshold. Speeding past the laboratory where the two men had shackled her to the table, she charged for the other end of the hall, where her gut told her safety lay. Tears clouded her vision as she ran. Wiping them away, she found the handle to the door.

A stairwell met her; it was one her eyes had never registered. _It must lead to the Forbidden Door on level one_. She had imagined going through that door a thousand times over the years, but had never ventured even a peek, knowing the Saviors would haul her away the moment she cracked it. Confronted with the decision to go up or down, she regarded the numbers on the wall, reading "twenty-four" and "twenty-six." The choice was obvious, since her room was on the sixth floor, she had to go up; yet her blood was singing again, the words faint and foreign and hard to hear.

She paused. This pulsing song was new to her, the same as her freshly-black veins, and the streak of bright red hair in her thick black mane. She regarded the new strands for a moment, then brushed them aside, with no time to delay. It was the song that she needed to pursue in her head, as if her body knew where to go, and it was down, not up, the path contrary to all logic.

She took a step up and her head pulsed, so she retreated, nauseated. Then Abby headed down and the heavy thump faded to nothing. The stairwell ended with a door marked by the number "thirty-four," leaving her only two options: go through or go back up. She went through.

The workstations of level one sprawled out before her as Aberdeen found every eye from every station staring at her. The creak the hinges produced was deafening from years of neglect. It creaked again when she closed it, and she saw several faces cringe at the raw and piercing sound.

"You're not supposed to use that door," someone said from a nearby station. The room was all white, crowded with hundreds of white workstations lining the walls in perfect order, lit by bright fluorescent tubes overhead. All the people at the stations were dressed identically in black or white tank tops, durable blue jeans, and hard-toed work boots that were brown with thick treads. Their eyes even seemed to stare in the same way, vaguely alert but mostly blank, their thoughts on completing their required projects.

"He's right," a woman reinforced. "The Saviors will come for you now."

"Her veins—look at her veins."

"They're black."

"Alert the council," another voice said, and suddenly dozens of whispering voices filled the massive rectangular room.

Abby started running past them all, horrified by the murmuring. "Stop it!" she shouted, but no one listened. No one cared. How could they? None of them could feel anything: not a shred of empathy existed in their bones. But Abby was different. She seemed to feel everything now—so many emotions at once, and most of them for the first time. Her feet took off, the voices were all the encouragement she needed as she headed for the elevator and the spiraling flight of stairs opposite it. The staircase was always deserted, used only by herself and a rare few others, everyone else preferring the faster, easier mode of transport.

Before she reached the staircase, a hand snagged her wrist and yanked her to a halt. "Abby!" Christopher whispered loudly in surprise. He was short and thin, with a mop of black hair that often blocked his almond-shaped eyes. "Abby, what are you doing? Why did you come through the Forbidden Door? The Restricted Zone—"

"They took me there," she cut her friend off. "I don't know why. They wanted me dead, I think . . . I killed them, Chris." Her voice was thick with snot from all the unbidden crying. "I don't know how, but I killed them when they tried to drug me. What do I do? Help me, please. Please—"

An alarm broke off her plea. It rang three times before a voice came over the PA system.

"This is Chief Councilor Riddick, I am issuing an arrest warrant for Aberdeen Dareday. The girl has been infected by a virus and must be quarantined. I repeat, she must be quarantined. She is reported to be on level one. Help us resolve this issue by staying out of the Enforcers' way. On behalf of the councilors, I thank you for your cooperation."

"Why don't you let them help you?" Chris asked flatly when the Chief Councilor's voice died away. "Look at you, Abby"—he looked her up and down with an emotionless face—"you're sick. You need a doctor."

"I need rest. I need my room, my bed, my sheets. That's all I need. And I need your help."

Chris hesitated for a second, puzzling over the right move, as he often did. She saw something in his dark brown eyes as he studied her. _Is it fear? It couldn't be. Then what?_ "They'll find you in your quarters, you know that, don't you?"

She had been afraid he might say something like that, and she had deluded herself enough to believe otherwise—that her room was a haven even though that was where the Enforcers had seized her in the first place. "I know . . ." she sighed, defeated. "Where else can I go? There's nowhere they won't find me."

"You need to run, Abby," he said. She could see the fight going on inside him. He didn't want to say the words, but their bond was strong, stronger than even he realized. "You need to escape."

"How?"

"When I was little, I stopped taking the Emotin for a week, and during that time I was full of curiosity, exploring much of the mines. Down there, beyond the salt spring, I found a door camouflaged as rock."

"What was on the other side?"

"I never opened it. At least I don't remember opening it. But it's your only chance. There's no other way out except through the Forbidden Door and the Restricted Zone, but the Saviors will surely catch you if you go back that way."

Her body was telling her to trust him. "Thanks, Chris." She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek, though she couldn't say why, only an impulse . . .

A look of reserved shock crossed his face. No one kissed publically, least of all those who were unmarried. "What—what was that for?"

The elevator began to hum with life. "I don't know," she said, heat radiating from her cheeks. "I have to go." Rushing off down the spiral staircase, she called back, "Goodbye." The word came out heavy and mournful. Nothing but her echoing footsteps answered. _He doesn't understand_ , she realized, _not fully_. This had never happened in the Sanctuary, not like this, not with someone's veins turning black. People stopped taking their emotion suppressors from time to time, but most were put back on them quickly and continued on with life as if nothing had happened.

Aberdeen was not so fortunate. She hadn't even stopped taking her medication; it had simply stopped working. Her friends and family were trying to help the only way they knew how—by letting the Enforcers take her into custody in hopes that the doctors could cure her. Yet the doctors were not what her family and friends thought they were. They were vile and suspect. _Liars_ , she told herself. _They want to hurt me, not help._

She was running so fast, her mind a chaotic mess of thoughts, and the blow came so unexpectedly that it knocked the wind from her—a hard hit that bloodied her upper lip. A gush of piping black liquid dripped down her cheek. Dazed, she looked up and saw a tall man in black police armor: an Enforcer.

And it wasn't just any Enforcer. It was Chris's father, Mr. Larkin. "Aberdeen Dareday, you are under arrest for sense crimes." The rest of his words were lost in an awful ringing that made her writhe on the steps. "Do not resist, Abby." He bent over, outstretched a huge hand, and his long fingers seized a shoulder strap of her tank top, jerking her to her feet.

Without warning, she heard a thwack, and the man collapsed face-first into the stairs. His grip on her shirt loosened as she braced herself against the wall. He tumbled down the steps until he hit the landing of the third floor. Abby glanced over her shoulder and saw Mrs. Norwood, a frail, sickly woman, with age spots along her emaciated arms, and thin hair so silver you swore it had a sheen if you stared at it for long enough.

"Go, child," the old woman said, her voice oddly strong.

"They'll kill you for helping me," Abby said.

"I've lived long enough, my dear. I used to love, and I want to love again. Now don't make me regret my decision. Go, run!"

Abby felt a jolt of emotion, her eyes on the brink of shedding more tears. "Thank you." At that she turned and leapt down the stairs, each footfall hard on her knees and shins, but she disregarded the stabbing pains. Vaulting over the Enforcer, she apologized to the unconscious Mr. Larkin, then hurried for level eight and the door to the mines. When at last she reached the lowest level, she dodged through a herd of cattle, pushing some of the fatter, slower ones aside, but they hardly paid her any mind. The door was at the far end, and as she neared it, she heard voices behind her. Turning, she spotted half a dozen Enforcers, all dressed in black police tactical gear.

"Stop!" a voice boomed.

At the terminal to the left of the exit, she punched in her aunt's access code, guessing that the council had locked hers out. The heavy metal door retracted into the wall and revealed a rocky chamber. Once through the portal, she tapped the button to close the door, then quickened her pace, if that were possible, speeding for the section that contained the salt spring. The walls grew close as she entered the mine—the tunnels were dark and hot and moist. She hated all of it. Sucking down breaths, it became harder and harder to breathe the farther in she went, but she had strong, young lungs that were conditioned to run for miles on end, though admittedly not down here in the bowels of hell.

Three men on duty worked the salt spring, separating out the salt in order to preserve meat from the livestock. "That's her," one of them said as she darted past.

Abby didn't look to see who they were; she ignored their shouts that summoned her back. If she was going to live, she needed to get to the camouflaged door, and a strange sensation deep inside was telling her where to find it, as though she already knew.

She halted at a fork in the tunnel. Her blood throbbed when she eyed the right fork. _Left it is then_. The shaft did not go far, and ended suddenly. She felt around but found no trace of a door. Then the sense arose, like a compass, pointing her back ten steps to a small recess easily overlooked by most eyes. She skimmed the rocky surface until her fingers perceived what felt like a handle. Lifting up, the door swung in, leading to another staircase, long and straight and without a visible end. Her eyes lit up with wonder and hope.

Footsteps and ragged breaths filled her ears. Her nerves twitched. She wasted no more time staring back at the mine and at her past; the staircase was her future, and so she climbed, huffing. The dim lights from the tunnels provided the only illumination as she swept up the steps, taking them two or three at a time, surefooted, unafraid that she might misstep and crash to the metal. _I've never been able to see in the dark like this_ , she thought. _How is this possible?_

Finally, after what her legs swore had been hours of climbing, burning with ache, she arrived at the door and the end of the stairs. She paused for a moment, not wishing to rush out into the world beyond. If it led outside, then she might die instantly, for the Saviors reported that the world was covered in noxious dust and snow from the aftermath of thousands of nuclear bomb detonations across the globe. She had even seen the pictures: cities burned and black, their contents released into the stratosphere, which had then allegedly caused temperatures to drop in a global climate shift. They also told all the Endurists that—should they venture outside—if the cold didn't kill them, the radiation would.

But she had to take her chances—she faced death either way.

A figure engulfed the narrow staircase in shadow. Abby spun around and saw another scientist in the distance, the lab coat giving him away. "Abby, don't do it, child. Your place is here with us. You will die out there. You know it. We can help you here. You have no reason to fear us, I assure you. Please, Abby. For God's sake, don't open that door." His words promised safety but he stunk of lies and betrayal. She reached down into the well of fear in the pit of her stomach and found courage. Another surge of energy swelled within her body.

Aberdeen turned back for the door and grabbed the handle, taking a deep breath before she opened it.

Find out what happens to Aberdeen by purchasing the whole story: click here!

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# Acknowledgements

Thanks to Damon and Alisha at Damonza.com for all they put into the cover!

Thanks to Trish Ledoux for her great work editing.

Thanks to all the fans who voiced their input on all the editions of At the End, before the story transformed into what it is today.

Thanks to my family for all their love.

Thanks to my parents for all the support they have given me.

And to Katherine, my writing would be nothing without you.

# About the Author

Born in 1988, John Hennessy grew up in Yakima, WA, graduated from Western Washington in 2011, and now lives in Portland, OR, with his wife, a chubby kitty, and two budgies who sing to him while he writes. His love for fantasy started at a young age with Warcraft II, and it quickly bloomed into much more as he was introduced to different writers like Garth Nix, Orson Scott Card, and Michael Crichton. When he's not writing, he's usually reading, biking, running, watching basketball, or some show on Netflix.

