Chapter 9
CHAPTER
NINE
CHRYS
Moonlight slants through the window—a dark green reflection this time, reminding me of Kissu’s fur—and I can’t sleep.
Shock and Risk joined us at some point, and I slip my fingers in Risk’s where they rest on my hip.
We didn’t talk when they got home and it feels like we should have. It feels like we should have woken up.
“You should be asleep,” Risk says softly against my hair.
“I know.” Somewhere in the depths of my dreams, a whisper had worked its way to the surface. You can’t lose them.
Arc’s hand moves to hold both of ours, squeezing. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to.
I see the reflection off Shock’s eyes. We’re all awake, and I don’t know how to turn my mind off, even if my body doesn’t want to move.
“Have the three of you always been together?”
Risk nods against my back. “We were separated from the others from the beginning.”
Separated?
“She doesn’t know the beginning of that story,” Arc says, pulling Shock closer to him, taking his hand and adding it to ours. “Her sisters haven’t told her.”
I wait for a silent moment before I ask, “What didn’t they tell me?”
I look at Shock, because he’s the only one looking at me. Risk won’t meet my eyes. Arc almost looks like he’s still asleep.
“It’s not a nice story.”
They don’t want to tell me. Something ugly slithers in my stomach, but before I can tell them they don’t have to tell me, Arc takes a deep breath.
“We spent nearly twenty years—”
“Seventeen,” Risk corrects.
“—locked away in a facility on the inner ridge of the Zone. A scientist had questions. We were the means to his answers…”
When he trails off, I tug them closer.
“He made us into what we are. His experiments gave him answers and gave us these mutations,” Risk says.
I’m afraid to ask… “What did he want?”
“To change us,” Risk says. “To make us better than other Sians. And apparently the easiest way to do that was to torture us.”
“Violent progress requires violent methods,” Arc says in a voice that does not sound like his own. “That’s what he told us every time one of his ‘subjects’ died.”
“He sounds like a monster, not a man.”
“He was both,” Shock says.
“Your parents didn’t try to stop him?”
“Most of us were pulled from orphanages. Some off the streets.” Arc’s eyes finally open. “When my mother was killed by one of the cavrinskh, my father couldn’t bear to look at Trench or me… so he gave us to what he thought was an orphanage but delivered us straight into the Maker’s hands.”
There’s no emotion in the words.
Arc kisses my forehead. “We’ve moved on from the anger. He’s dead. There’s no one to be mad at anymore.”
I don’t believe him. “How did he die?”
“I killed him,” Arc says.
Risk exhales softly and I don’t have to ask what frustrated thoughts Arc hears. “He was trapped inside one of his facilities when it burned to the ground.”
“Good. I hope he suffered.”
Chuckling, Risk nuzzles my neck. “You’re bloodthirsty. I like that.”
“Were you able to escape because of what he’d done to you?”
“Yes and no.” Arc stretches and sits up. “He decided to test us and that, eventually, led to his downfall.”
I don’t know if I want to ask how, but Risk tells me anyway.
“The Maker put him in a cage against the wall where the others were and then told the others he was dead.”
“By that point, I had glimpses of the future, and Risk knew he wasn’t gone, but the others…”
“They were relieved,” Arc says with his back still to me. “I know that they thought my suffering was over, but… at the time, it made it hard to fight what he’d done.”
“It’s what finally let us escape,” Shock says. “Risk knew what to do, Arc could follow all the instructions, and I knew it would work.”
“These two kept me alive,” Arc stares at the window. “And I’ve been a burden to them ever since.”
“I swear to all the saints if you say that one more time, I am going to tie you down and make you believe the truth instead of that decades old lie.” Shock actually sounds mad.
I imagine the ways he might pound the truth into him and Arc’s eyes go a little wide as he turns to me. “Would you enjoy that?”
“Maybe?” I swallow back an apology for my thoughts, because it would be false. “If you’d enjoy it?”
Risk chuckles, wrapping his arm around my waist and turning his face back into the pillow.
“Come back to bed,” I hold my hand out to Arc. “If you don’t, I’m sure I’ll have nightmares.”
I might have them anyway.
ARC
Chrys does manage to fall asleep. I do not.
When I’m certain leaving won’t wake them, I slip out into the kitchen and pick at leftovers.
Sisan need sleep. Kissu puts his paws on the counter, standing to peer up at me. Why up?
“I’m not used to sleeping through the night.” Normally, I’d be on the other side of the caldera by now.
They all think it’s restless energy or running away from other responsibilities.
I can’t tell them the truth.
I can’t tell them I’m searching for something that doesn’t exist.
Something that can’t exist.
Shock and Risk both think Chrys will keep me here… and I can’t tell them why they’re wrong.
Putting the food back in the refrigerator, I pat Kissu on the head. “Keep an eye on them. I’ll be back.”
Kissu follows me down the hall but stops in the doorway to my bedroom.
I only pause long enough to slip into Shock’s and borrow one of his suits. I have an extra pair of boots downstairs.
Descending into the lowest levels of our home, I don’t want to go.
I wouldn’t if I didn’t have to.
Those words play on a loop in my mind as I strap on my knife and gun and slot the fuel cell into my bike.
“I have to,” I tell the helmet as I pull it on.
The system inside doesn’t register it as a command, it just gives me a curious chirp that I ignore.
Once I’m outside it provides the standard information I need… until I switch it to my secondary presets. Then, it paints the inner caldera wall with a bright orange grid and notes from previous passes.
The grid on the other side of the wreckage is a flickering blue.
The data isn’t correct anymore. It’s worse than the usual shifts and changes to the terrain, and the computer warnings blare until I verbally turn them off.
Stopping in the wreckage, I use it as an excuse to let the sensors I added to my bike scan the changes into the local storage. None of my parameter triggers set off a warning as it completes the scan, and I leave before Breaker can come down and check on me.
If there was something to find there, he would have found it in the days since the crash.
It’s been too long since I’ve done this route, so I don’t have the luxury of skipping any of the labs. I just have to hope no one notices the oddity of my pace.
Normally I can pretend my only plan is to circle the Zone. I can meander and kick back to a casual speed…
Dotted around the inner caldera wall, more than half a dozen labs lie dormant.
His experiments had to be separated. If one got out of control, he could flood it with whatever he needed to destroy his work and then… start over with new specimens.
Poison gas to asphyxiate, water to drown, fire to burn…
I shove that thought away as I drive my bike straight into the ravine that hides the closest.
The door to this one was broken long ago, and the sharp screech it makes when I haul it open doesn’t startle me anymore.
Flicking the brighter beam on my gun’s light, I sweep it across the room.
The creature floating in murky water behind cracked glass doesn’t startle me anymore either.
Rot and decay have slowly eaten it away.
Pillars of blood, turned white and spoiled, sit waiting to be used in experiments that he’ll never finish.
Good.
The only sound is dripping water. Nothing has moved. No one has disturbed the dust.
No one has been here since my last visit.
I back out and ignore the little voice in the back of mine telling me the paranoia needs to stop.
I know. But I can’t.
We all know the Maker is dead… But what if we’re wrong?
What if the day I stop searching is the day he comes back?
Shock thought Chrys would keep me home. She only added to the reasons I need to do this.
On the edge of Breaker’s sector, where it meets Ward’s, the burned remains of the only lab I won’t enter cuts into the ice and rock.
This is where he made us.
This is where he died.
There’s nothing left here to inspect.
I’d thought the years would soften the charred remains, that the ice would wash away some of the ash, but this place is frozen in time and in truth.
Unlike all the other labs I’ve found, it had visible external structures.
It’s the only one on record anywhere.
It makes my stomach sick to know that we were the experiment he didn’t try to hide.
What he did to us wasn’t common knowledge, but like the search for a compatible species of mates, too many people ignored the methods on the promise of their results.
This place needs to stay burned and buried.
And thankfully, I’m not the only one who keeps a watch on this one.
I glance at Ward’s outpost. He’s awake, I know, so I don’t linger here.
Most people have too many thoughts. Listening to him is like flooding my mind with static.
I don’t understand it, I can’t ask, so I avoid it when I can.
The rest of the labs are hidden away. They’re dusty, empty, and most importantly of all… silent.
No thoughts.
No one hiding.
No experiments waiting to be freed.
He’s dead.
Everyone would tell me as much if I voiced this fear that lives deep inside of me.
And that’s why I don’t tell them.
It’s why I check these places on my own and why I haven’t told any of them that I’ve found more than we ever thought were here.
On the other side of the caldera, Trench is out. I see him as I pass, but I don’t stop. He’s tying up the cavrinskh he’s just killed. He doesn’t need my help, and there are two more labs to check before I can go home.
I’d like to be back before Chrys wakes, even if that’s next to impossible. The first sun has already started to rise.
RISK
Arc left hours ago. I know it before I open my eyes.
Shock’s hope was in vain.
Not even Chrys’ presence is enough to keep him home.
Later today, he’ll talk to the only person he’s told his fears to.
I don’t know which is greater: the fear that the Maker survived, or the fear that telling the rest of us will make us think he’s a fool.
I won’t tell anyone else what I know. Not even Arc. Until I know he doesn’t have anything to worry about, there’s no point.
And I don’t know that the Maker is dead. Not with the kind of certainty he needs.
Chrys makes a whimpering sound and snuggles closer to Shock.
The desire to roll over and sandwich her between us is strong.
The need to go check on Arc is stronger.
When I slip from the bed, I motion for Kissu to take my place. He would have done it without the invitation, but I want him to know he’s welcome here.
He’s important. I just don’t know how yet.
I queue up the Zone map while I stoke the fire.
We all have access to the map.
Little pins with our names show up when we’re out in it. Arc, Trench, and Surge are right now.
Red circles bloom around unknown movement—like the one Surge is headed for right now—usually signaling a cavrinskh incursion.
The wreckage has turned Breaker’s sector into a mess of red waves.
We can mark other places, make other changes, and I tap in the code for Arc’s private map.
His route appears in dotted blue.
“No wonder he isn’t back yet.” I don’t think I’ve ever seen him go to every lab in a single night.
Clearing the screen, I move to the kitchen, making breakfast, but only for two.
“That smells good,” Arc says softly from the other side of the counter. I didn’t hear him come back.
“Yes, but it’s not for you. Go to bed.” And because I know he’ll argue with me, I tell him, “If you’re driving her to the city today, you need to sleep. And Shock’s waiting for you to get back so she’s not alone.”
Arc hesitates. “Is he mad?”
“No. He just doesn’t understand.”
Eyes unfocused, he looks a little lost. “Do you?”
“I know you do what you need to. I’m never going to ask you to stop.”
He nods, waiting, and I know he’s looking for other answers in my thoughts, so I only think the commands telling him to go to sleep.
Finally, he turns, disappearing down the hall.
Moments later, Shock comes out. “I thought it was over.”
“No, you thought we were the problem.”
He grimaces because I’m right, and then he looks out the window. “I thought he’d be done at some point.”
Taking the plate from me, he sits at the table. “At least I know why no one else is going to come ask questions about his apparent disappearance.”
No. No one will ask any questions so long as he is a blip on their sector map once a night.
“What are you going to do while they’re in town?” I ask him.
He shrugs and says, “See if I can get some answers from Echo and Ion?” before taking another bite.
“I can tell you how they did it, and I can tell you it won’t work for us.”
“Fine.” He sets his fork down and looks out toward the smoke. “Maybe I’ll ask a dying man to tell me secrets.”