Alive (23 page)

W
e run downhill.

We run past the severed arms, the mangled bodies, the piles of skulls.

The more I know, the more all of this makes sense.

Brewer is one of the monsters, one of the Grownups, one of the “Cherished.” Maybe those are all the same things. His copy, his
receptacle,
died—murdered by the woman that is me—leaving him stranded in an ancient, twisted body. A journey of over a thousand years, and at the end he will simply wither and die. He has no hope.

I might go crazy, too.

We reach the intersection where our two tribes met. We turn left. We are again tiny insects crawling in the long, straight hallway that runs along the inside of a giant cylinder. We are heading back to our people.

What happened on this ship?
Some people do not approve of being sacrificed,
Brewer had said. There was a revolt, a war. Many died. Did everyone on this ship have a copy? Was everyone promised a new life on Omeyocan?

The answers don’t really matter. Choices have consequences. The Grownups made choices that destroyed their lives. Our choices are yet to be made, our lives are yet to be lived—
if
we can get away from here.

We run and run and run. Matilda’s monsters will start hunting us soon, if they aren’t already. We have to get to our friends before her kind gets to them first.

Brewer didn’t tell us where the shuttle was. He didn’t have time. Matilda pushed him out somehow, or maybe broke his pillar, I don’t know. He was toying with us, though, and in his toying was a hint—I know how to find the shuttle, and, hopefully, we will also find Bello.

Before, I wasn’t sure if I should be the leader. I’m sure now. Among all of us, I am unique. I think, I don’t simply react. I make decisions when doing so is hard. I know what it means to kill. I will make sure we do what must be done, even if I have to force those who disagree with me into cooperating. I’m going to get my people out of here and get them out alive—if they want to vote for someone else when we’re all safe, that’s fine with me.

The Grownups divided their tribe and fought each other. I will keep our tribe unified, and we will fight as one.

I make so much noise when I run. Gaston does, too, and also Aramovsky, the three of us huffing and puffing, our feet slapping on the floor. I wouldn’t have noticed except for the silence of the circle-stars. I can barely hear Bishop even though he is twice my size and is right next to me.

Before long, I see the dark spot on the floor where Yong’s life leaked out into the dust.

But something is different.

The hallway on the left, the dark one where O’Malley and Aramovsky took Yong’s body…it is brighter. And we were careful to move around the bloody slush—now it is trampled as if a dozen people ran through it.

I hear voices coming from the intersection. No one should be here. Everyone should be in our coffin room, protected by Coyotl and Farrar.

“Bishop, someone is up there.”

He nods. He heard it long before I did.

“Get ready to fight,” he says.

Are Matilda’s monsters already here?

El-Saffani slows, waiting for us to catch up.

Voices filter from out of the once-dark hall, but they aren’t the hissing obscenities of the Grownups. These voices sound normal, like ours, but strange. Higher pitched. Excited.
Loud
.

We move closer to the intersection, just a few steps away now. My clumsiness and the noisy feet of Gaston and Aramovsky must alert them: a person turns the corner and stares at us, wide-eyed.

A young girl with dark brown skin.

She’s wearing a clean white shirt, a red tie, a red and black plaid skirt.

The clothes fit her perfectly.

I slow to a stop. So do Bishop, El-Saffani and the others.

The girl’s mouth hangs open. A skinny boy turns the corner and joins her. Then another. And another little girl. Uniformed children quickly fill the intersection, gawking at the gray-skinned adults carrying bones as weapons.

Gaston moves to my side.

“Em,” he says, “who are they?”

I have no idea.

But I think on Brewer’s words, and I remember what he said.

Don’t forget to take your little friends.

Little friends. This is what he meant.

Another body turns the corner, one we see clearly because he is head and shoulders taller than the others.

It’s O’Malley.

A smile breaks across his face, wider than I have ever seen. He is alive. He is beautiful.

He awkwardly slips past the children, careful not to bump them. They grab at him for comfort, slide in behind him to hide, their eyes never straying from the frightening images of Bishop and El-Saffani.

O’Malley walks to me.

Bishop steps aside.

O’Malley opens his arms and pulls me in.

“Em, we didn’t know if you’d make it back.”

He squeezes me tight, lifts me off my feet. For a perfect moment everything goes away. He smells of sweat. His body is warm and firm. I will protect this body, protect
him
—I will not let Matilda take O’Malley.

I glance at Bishop, wondering how he might react to the hug, but he is making a point of looking the other way.

I hear more people approaching.

O’Malley sets me down as Spingate, Beckett and Smith come rushing around the corner. They slide past the kids. Spingate runs to Gaston and almost knocks him over with her flying embrace.

She squeezes him far harder than O’Malley squeezed me.

“I didn’t know,” she says. Her voice cracks, her words sound wet. “You were gone, and…I didn’t know…if you…”

Gaston hugs her back, pets her thick red hair.

“We’re fine,” he says. “Everyone made it.”

Beckett stands there, smiling and awkward, unsure if he should hug someone, shake hands or just stay quiet. The lanky Smith greets Aramovsky first. She laces her fingers together, presses her palms against her sternum, and she bows her head. The gesture is disturbingly formal, almost…subservient.

If there was another vote, she would choose Aramovsky. Those others that seem to hang on his every word, they would as well. With Spingate, Gaston, O’Malley and Bishop behind me, though, it doesn’t really matter. Whatever Aramovsky’s plans might be, they will have to wait until I have us all down on Omeyocan.

Spingate lets go of Gaston and launches herself at me, crushes me in a tight hug.

“Em! I’m so happy to see you. Did you find anything?”

I hug her back, almost as hard. She smells nice. She smells like home.

“We did.” I gently push her away. “What are you all doing here? You were supposed to stay in the coffin room.”

Spingate throws up her hands, gestures to the children. There must be twenty of them in the hall now, maybe more.

“They just started showing up,” she says. “Those closed archway doors by our coffin room? They opened, all up and down the hall. Kids walked out. We gathered up as many as we could and put them in our room, but we could see more in both directions. We came this way. O’Malley sent Coyotl, Farrar, Opkick and Borjigin the other way.”

She points down the hall where we left Yong.

“When we got here, it was all lit up, like someone had turned on the lights. There were kids wandering around. We went down the hall until it ended at another melted door, so we think we’ve found all the kids we can. We were about to head back to our coffin room when we heard you coming.”

The first girl we saw walks up to me. Her legs are skinny. She has the bony knees I thought I had when I woke up.

She reaches out and takes my free hand in hers. She stares up.

There is a jagged circle on her forehead. The black symbol complements her dark brown skin and eyes. There are a few dust smudges on her shirt, but no blood, no grease, no sweat stains and no dirt. She hasn’t fought. She hasn’t feared. She hasn’t killed. She is clean, unblemished in any way.

She is what we were all supposed to be.

I squat slightly so I can look her in the eye.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

She smiles. “Zubiri. I think. That’s what it said on my bed.”

To her, it wasn’t a coffin, it wasn’t a cradle, it was just a bed.

“That’s a nice name,” I say.

My friends and I woke up before her. We’re larger,
physically
older, but after what Matilda told me I think I know how this works.

“Zubiri, how old are you?”

“I’m twelve,” she says, perking up instantly. “Today is my birthday.”

I can’t help but smile.

“Happy birthday.” I look at the other clean faces staring my way. “Happy birthday to you all.”

Once again, everything has changed. My friends and I thought we were twelve years old. We’re not, not after what we’ve been through. But these kids
are,
at least as far as they know. Twelve-year-old minds in twelve-year-old bodies.

Brewer entrusted these kids to us. He felt we could get them to the planet below. I still don’t know his story. I don’t know why he fought Matilda. I don’t know who was in the right and who was in the wrong. I will probably never know. But Brewer seems to understand me—I think he knew I wouldn’t be able to leave these children behind.

They were made to walk on Omeyocan.

They are coming with us.

If anyone gets in our way, they will learn that the Birthday Children—together, as one people—are extremely dangerous.

The kids are already wandering around the hall. My stomach churns when I see that two of the boys are giggling while they throw chunks of dried blood-slush at each other.

I turn to Bishop. His dust-caked face seems calm, as if he’s waiting for orders.

“Bishop, can you get these kids organized? We have to move fast.”

He glances at O’Malley with cold eyes. Is he jealous of the way O’Malley hugged me, the way I was jealous when I thought Bishop was looking at Spingate? Part of me hopes he’s not, and another part hopes he is. Both parts, though, can wait—we all have important work ahead of us.

Bishop nods. “I can,” he says. “Do you want me to do it my way?”

“I wouldn’t have asked you if I didn’t.”

The gray-caked mouth twitches with the slightest of smiles. He draws himself up to his full height and starts yelling.

“New kids! Form two lines, right arm straight, right hand on the right shoulder of the person in front of you. Don’t make me ask twice!”

The wide-eyed children practically fall all over themselves scrambling to comply. In seconds, the mob forms two neat lines. Without a word, Bawden and Visca take up positions behind them. The twins take their usual place out front.

Bishop smiles at me. “What now, Em?”

“Back to the coffin room,” I say. “As fast as we can go.”

His chest swells as he draws in a huge breath.

“You will all follow El-Saffani! Match the pace of the person in front of you, and if you fall behind, you’ll have to answer to me. Understand?”

Twenty-odd heads nod rapidly. I wouldn’t want to answer to Bishop, either.

“Good,” Bishop says. “El-Saffani, move out!”

The kids and the circle-stars take off, moving as a single unit. I’ll say one thing for Bishop: he’s great at getting people to march.

Gaston and Aramovsky run along behind them, as do Smith and Beckett.

That leaves me standing alone with O’Malley.

“The kids are a problem,” he says quietly. “We have maybe fifty in the coffin room. If Coyotl found as many in his direction as we found here, there might be a hundred, total. Maybe more. If the monsters come, how are we going to defend that many people?”

A memory bubbles up through the mud, a memory of a man’s face. Pieces of it, anyway, vague images. A black mustache. Soft, loving eyes, eyes that could also be hard, separated by deep furrows and a flaring nose.

That voice in my head…it belongs to him.

He is my father.

And yet he is not. Those vague memories are a lie. That was Matilda’s father, not mine. I don’t have parents, because I wasn’t born—I was created.

I was
hatched
.

The man is not my father, yet his words bounce around inside my brain. His words are the only real connection to my past.

And his words feel right.

“We’re not going to
defend
anything,” I say. “We attack, O’Malley. When in doubt, attack, always attack, never let your enemy recover.”

O’Malley gives me a curious look.

“What does that mean?”

“It means we’re going to the Garden. Every last one of us. We’re going to find Bello. We’re going to find the way off this ship, and if the monsters get in our way, we are going to kill them and be forever free.”

I meet his deep-blue eyes. He’s observing me, measuring me.

“Em, sometimes you’re kind of scary.”

I nod. “Thank you.”

“And what do you mean,
off this ship
? We’re in a building.”

“Come on, let’s move. I’ll tell you everything when we’re all together. I have a plan.”

We run downhill.