This Shattered World
Page 41
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There’s one in the hospital.
I abandon pretense and break into a jog. Who’s going to stop me and ask where I’m going? I’m Captain Chase. I belong here.
I force open the back entrance to the hospital, startling an orderly into dropping a tray of food all over the floor. I mumble an apology and sweep up the hall, aiming for Cormac’s room. I pause on the way by the laundry, picking up a set of scrubs that looks about his size. It’s the oldest deception in the book, but I’ve got nothing else, and no time to work out a better plan.
When I burst into Cormac’s room, my eyes fall first on the HV mounted in the corner. There’s Cormac’s face, smiling out at me, hair tumbling just so into his eyes. The second thing I see is Cormac’s bed, the sheets rumpled and half tugged away, a few pinpricks of blood marring the sheets where the IV needle rests, as though it was torn from his skin. The oxygen mask is on the floor, and the monitors are all flatlining, electrodes scattered across the bed.
I brace myself against the door frame, dizziness sweeping over me with all the force of a tidal wave, my ears ringing as my knees threaten to give.
The bed is empty.
Most of the other soldiers are unconscious, but one lifts her head, groggy with pain medication and mumbling something at me that I can’t hear through my panic. She must have seen him run; she’s trying, through her haze, to tell me which way the fugitive went.
I stumble out of the room and break into a run toward the back exit. Cormac’s injured, and he won’t make it off the base before somebody spots him, now that they know what they’re looking for. And even if he does, he’ll never get back to the rebel hideout without a boat. It would take him hours, and in his condition he’s as likely to drown as he is to reach his people. Though an exhausted corner of my mind shrinks from the idea of heading back out into that swamp, the rest of me doesn’t hesitate.
I only get a few steps outside the hospital when my mouth abruptly floods with the taste of copper, the dizziness intensifying. My legs quiver the way they did on that marshy island, before I saw the ghost of Cormac’s hidden facility. I blink, hard, as the sibilant sound of whispering surges over the background noises of the base. Separate voices—two, maybe three—but I can’t tell what they’re saying.
Have to make it to a boat. I grit my teeth, pointing my boots toward the docks. All I know, all I can think of, is that I have to find Cormac.
They’re always together, the ghost and the green-eyed boy. They’re in her mother’s shop, they’re at her father’s garage. They’re on Paradisa. They’re in the outpost on Patron. He’s one of the soldiers who died in the first few weeks after she transferred to Avon. His face is on every wanted poster on the base.
The ghost leads her down the deserted streets of November, and at the end of the swath of destruction is the green-eyed boy, with a box of matches and a charming smile.
“Don’t follow me,” says the boy, reaching out to touch her cheek. “Don’t follow me this time.”
THE MUD GRABS AT ME to drag me down. My lungs burn, pain knifing down my side with every breath as I force myself to scramble through the swamp. This trek is bad enough on foot at full strength, but I feel like I’ve been hit by a transport. One hour stretches into two, into three, and then I stop counting.
If I could’ve waited, I would have. But I can still see the footage from the bar, the loop playing over and over on the insides of my eyelids whenever I let them close: I see myself turn in toward Jubilee, smiling, starting to speak, and then it jumps back to the beginning. If I could’ve stolen a boat, I would have done that too. But the docks were crawling with patrols, and while my stolen uniform might have gotten me by, the bar footage was playing on the side of the docking shed.
I tried to make this journey before, on my own, just once. Then, I didn’t have smoke in my lungs; but I was also only eight years old, fleeing the transports waiting to take me to an off-world orphanage. And I was found only a few kilometers outside of town by Fianna patrols looking for me.
This time I have no one to help me get home. I shove past a bank of reeds, my breath rasping, ears straining for any sound behind me. I can’t afford to rest for more than a few seconds. My head spins, and for once I can’t tell if the lights sparking in front of my eyes are wisps or my own hazy eyesight.
I push on through waist-high muck and sluggish black water. I wade and swim and when I can’t stand I crawl, until I’m covered with mud then washed clean again.
My numb body knows where home is, and I drag myself toward it. The trodairí have footage of my face. If they catch me—if they recognize my face and scan my genetag—they’ll use me to find the Fianna, and blame them for the bombing and for every other ill that ever graced Avon. And they won’t rest until my people are dead.
It’s another hour and a half of struggling through the swamp before the black silhouette of the cave complex looms up in the distance. It takes me a long time to register what I’m seeing. Home.
By now each movement is taking careful effort. I think to myself, I’m going to reach out and take those reeds and pull myself forward, and then, I’m going to push with my foot. My hands are a clammy white, and I’m soaked to the skin, hair plastered against my forehead.
I’ve never tried to climb up the side of the harbor from the water, only from a currach, and it takes long, gasping, shaking minutes before I manage the scramble. Uneasiness tickles at the back of my mind, and it takes me a moment to realize what’s bothering me: there’s a military launch vessel floating abandoned a few meters from the dock. A flak jacket rests on the bench; this wasn’t stolen and brought here by one of the Fianna.
I stumble down the hallway, ricocheting off the uneven stone walls and trailing mud and water in my wake. No one has changed the lanterns, and the dark, silent hallways are streaked with something wet. There’s a basket lying in the middle of the hallway, hard bread rolls scattered everywhere.
The main cavern is silent. The lights are high here, and suddenly the stains on the floor are a garish red; my gaze follows a smear to a bundle of rags dumped on the floor.
The rags have hands, a head, eyes staring at me—it’s a body.
The world snaps into focus. The floor’s slick with blood, and there are bodies—four, six, eight—sprawled near the walls. Some seem to have been moved, leaving bright trails of blood on the floor. Their wounds and clothes are scorched, and the air smells of burning flesh; our guns couldn’t do this. This was the work of military weaponry.
I abandon pretense and break into a jog. Who’s going to stop me and ask where I’m going? I’m Captain Chase. I belong here.
I force open the back entrance to the hospital, startling an orderly into dropping a tray of food all over the floor. I mumble an apology and sweep up the hall, aiming for Cormac’s room. I pause on the way by the laundry, picking up a set of scrubs that looks about his size. It’s the oldest deception in the book, but I’ve got nothing else, and no time to work out a better plan.
When I burst into Cormac’s room, my eyes fall first on the HV mounted in the corner. There’s Cormac’s face, smiling out at me, hair tumbling just so into his eyes. The second thing I see is Cormac’s bed, the sheets rumpled and half tugged away, a few pinpricks of blood marring the sheets where the IV needle rests, as though it was torn from his skin. The oxygen mask is on the floor, and the monitors are all flatlining, electrodes scattered across the bed.
I brace myself against the door frame, dizziness sweeping over me with all the force of a tidal wave, my ears ringing as my knees threaten to give.
The bed is empty.
Most of the other soldiers are unconscious, but one lifts her head, groggy with pain medication and mumbling something at me that I can’t hear through my panic. She must have seen him run; she’s trying, through her haze, to tell me which way the fugitive went.
I stumble out of the room and break into a run toward the back exit. Cormac’s injured, and he won’t make it off the base before somebody spots him, now that they know what they’re looking for. And even if he does, he’ll never get back to the rebel hideout without a boat. It would take him hours, and in his condition he’s as likely to drown as he is to reach his people. Though an exhausted corner of my mind shrinks from the idea of heading back out into that swamp, the rest of me doesn’t hesitate.
I only get a few steps outside the hospital when my mouth abruptly floods with the taste of copper, the dizziness intensifying. My legs quiver the way they did on that marshy island, before I saw the ghost of Cormac’s hidden facility. I blink, hard, as the sibilant sound of whispering surges over the background noises of the base. Separate voices—two, maybe three—but I can’t tell what they’re saying.
Have to make it to a boat. I grit my teeth, pointing my boots toward the docks. All I know, all I can think of, is that I have to find Cormac.
They’re always together, the ghost and the green-eyed boy. They’re in her mother’s shop, they’re at her father’s garage. They’re on Paradisa. They’re in the outpost on Patron. He’s one of the soldiers who died in the first few weeks after she transferred to Avon. His face is on every wanted poster on the base.
The ghost leads her down the deserted streets of November, and at the end of the swath of destruction is the green-eyed boy, with a box of matches and a charming smile.
“Don’t follow me,” says the boy, reaching out to touch her cheek. “Don’t follow me this time.”
THE MUD GRABS AT ME to drag me down. My lungs burn, pain knifing down my side with every breath as I force myself to scramble through the swamp. This trek is bad enough on foot at full strength, but I feel like I’ve been hit by a transport. One hour stretches into two, into three, and then I stop counting.
If I could’ve waited, I would have. But I can still see the footage from the bar, the loop playing over and over on the insides of my eyelids whenever I let them close: I see myself turn in toward Jubilee, smiling, starting to speak, and then it jumps back to the beginning. If I could’ve stolen a boat, I would have done that too. But the docks were crawling with patrols, and while my stolen uniform might have gotten me by, the bar footage was playing on the side of the docking shed.
I tried to make this journey before, on my own, just once. Then, I didn’t have smoke in my lungs; but I was also only eight years old, fleeing the transports waiting to take me to an off-world orphanage. And I was found only a few kilometers outside of town by Fianna patrols looking for me.
This time I have no one to help me get home. I shove past a bank of reeds, my breath rasping, ears straining for any sound behind me. I can’t afford to rest for more than a few seconds. My head spins, and for once I can’t tell if the lights sparking in front of my eyes are wisps or my own hazy eyesight.
I push on through waist-high muck and sluggish black water. I wade and swim and when I can’t stand I crawl, until I’m covered with mud then washed clean again.
My numb body knows where home is, and I drag myself toward it. The trodairí have footage of my face. If they catch me—if they recognize my face and scan my genetag—they’ll use me to find the Fianna, and blame them for the bombing and for every other ill that ever graced Avon. And they won’t rest until my people are dead.
It’s another hour and a half of struggling through the swamp before the black silhouette of the cave complex looms up in the distance. It takes me a long time to register what I’m seeing. Home.
By now each movement is taking careful effort. I think to myself, I’m going to reach out and take those reeds and pull myself forward, and then, I’m going to push with my foot. My hands are a clammy white, and I’m soaked to the skin, hair plastered against my forehead.
I’ve never tried to climb up the side of the harbor from the water, only from a currach, and it takes long, gasping, shaking minutes before I manage the scramble. Uneasiness tickles at the back of my mind, and it takes me a moment to realize what’s bothering me: there’s a military launch vessel floating abandoned a few meters from the dock. A flak jacket rests on the bench; this wasn’t stolen and brought here by one of the Fianna.
I stumble down the hallway, ricocheting off the uneven stone walls and trailing mud and water in my wake. No one has changed the lanterns, and the dark, silent hallways are streaked with something wet. There’s a basket lying in the middle of the hallway, hard bread rolls scattered everywhere.
The main cavern is silent. The lights are high here, and suddenly the stains on the floor are a garish red; my gaze follows a smear to a bundle of rags dumped on the floor.
The rags have hands, a head, eyes staring at me—it’s a body.
The world snaps into focus. The floor’s slick with blood, and there are bodies—four, six, eight—sprawled near the walls. Some seem to have been moved, leaving bright trails of blood on the floor. Their wounds and clothes are scorched, and the air smells of burning flesh; our guns couldn’t do this. This was the work of military weaponry.
