Idols (4 page)

“Of rattlesnakes,” she says, matter-of-fact. “That’s what you call it.” Of course it is. I smile, in spite of the chaotic tangle of feelings surging around me.

Ro shrugs. “Relax, Rhumba. Doc is just paranoid. I’m not afraid of snakes or Sympas. Not like Buttons Junior here.”

“He’s not afraid of snakes,” snaps Tima. For a moment, the old Tima flares up—defender of Lucas, champion of her childhood.

I don’t blame her.

The air around us has gone ice cold, but before Lucas can say a word, a whistle echoes up from our campsite, shrill and urgent.

Lucas pushes past Ro, disappearing back in the direction of Fortis’s whistle. Tima rushes to keep up, all too willing to leave the snake—and the conflict—behind.

Ro shrugs and raises an eyebrow at me, dangling the snake playfully. I sigh and shake my head. “Thanks, but I’m still full from yesterday’s meal. And no, snake is not a vegetable.”

“That’s what I thought. Fine. I know how filling those half-cooked cactus strips can be.” We’re all starving, and we both know it. Ro follows me down the path, holding the snake as if it were a flag.

“They were fully cooked. Especially the ones you dropped in the fire.” I’m so angry with him, I want to tie that stupid snake around his neck until it strangles him.

“Sure I can’t interest you in sucking down a little snake snack? You and him, you know—the other snake?” He points in the direction of the path, where Lucas has disappeared. “The one you were already sucking on?”

That’s it.

I stop, stepping in front of him so that he stops too. “Ro. Leave it alone.”

“What, Dol-face?” He looks innocent but he’s not, and we both know it.

“Lucas and me. Us. Leave us alone. I know it bothers you, and I’m sorry. But you can’t keep acting like this. You and me, it’s not going to happen.”

There. I’ve said it.

His eyes flash but he looks away, quickly—like I’ve slapped him. Then, almost as quickly, he breathes, recovers and grins.

“No,” he says, evenly. “I don’t think so. And I’m not sorry.”

“No? What does that mean, no?” I’m irritated.

“It means I won’t stop caring about you.” Ro grins, confidently. “I’m a fighter, Dol. All I know how to do is to find something worth fighting for, and to fight. For it. For you. Deal with it.”

I feel my face reddening, and I don’t know if I want to kick Ro or kiss him.

Usually it’s both. That’s the problem.

“Just—don’t.” I glare at him.

“Not up to you.” Ro smiles, one last time.

“How about—it’s up to me?” I turn to see Lucas standing on the trail behind me, next to the cactus that still wears his comlink cuff.

He’s heard everything. I can tell by the look on his face.

Ro’s grin quickly fades into something much darker.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Tima says, coming up the trail behind him, already wearing her pack and holding mine. Brutus pokes his head over her shoulder, panting from inside her pack.

“I just have to do one thing first,” Lucas says, without even looking at her.

Then he punches Ro in the face, as hard as he can.

They lunge into a blurring mass of arms and legs until they finally disappear into a cloud of dust as tall as it is wide.

“Fine. Have at it. You deserve each other,” I say, moving away to stand next to Tima, who looks at me, exasperated.

The dust clears enough for me to see Ro, neck bulging, on top of Lucas. Ro’s eyes are watering, red with rage. He’s lost it—I can feel the heat that comes with it from where I stand.

Lucas struggles to breathe and I start to worry. You can’t take Ro in a fight. Not unless he lets you.

“Really?” Tima shouts at them both, her hands on her hips—but then I can’t hear her next words, because a louder sound drowns out everything she is saying.

A thundering boom that rattles my teeth, nearly knocking me over.

And a high-pitched screech—followed by a huge gust of wind.

Before I realize what’s happening, Ro’s grabbing my arm and yanking me down behind a boulder ringed with squat cactus. Lucas crawls next to me, dragging Tima down with him. Brutus is whimpering. I look over the boulder and I see them.

On the horizon, the lights flicker in the evening sky, like lightning in the clouds.

The lights grow closer, at a terrifying speed.

Black specks are drawing nearer, and they aren’t birds.

They aren’t anything living at all.

The glowing silver ships emerge silently through the dark gray cover, leaving eerie whirlpools of wind and dust in their wake.

Strangers, with strange energy.

Strangers in the sky.

I watch in horror as the ships descend quickly, heading straight for the campsite. A churning confusion of emotion and adrenaline surges through me, taking my breath away.

The Lords.

I can feel them as they come.

Lucas slowly raises his head to look, and I see his eyes grow wide, his mouth hang open in shock. “Carrier ships. Big ones. Battle formation.”

“What do we do?” My heart is pounding in my ears, and I can barely hear the words I am saying.

“Try not to die,” says Ro, grim.

Fortis.

Fortis is back at the camp.

I reach for him in my mind, and I wrap myself around the thought of him.

Calm. Unshaken. Two boots planted in the dust, coat flapping in the unnatural wind.

That can’t be right.

I close my eyes, and hazy glimpses of words on a screen appear in my mind.

Null.

That’s the one word that comes into focus—even if I have no idea why it’s there or what it means.

I open my eyes. “Fortis is still back there. He’s okay, but we need to help him.”

Ro looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “No. We’re getting out of here.” He shakes his head. “You want to take on the Lords? The No Face themselves? Even I’m not that crazy.” He thinks for a minute. “Almost, but yeah—no.”

“We can’t let Fortis sacrifice himself for us,” I say to Lucas, but he’s already looking at Tima, eyebrows raised in an unspoken question.

Tima reacts quickly. “But we can’t stay here. We’re too exposed. They could easily find us.”

“So let’s beat it,” Ro answers.

“Six potential snake-free escape routes,” she says, scanning the rocks behind us. “I counted on the way up.” Ro snorts. “Given our relative positioning and the Lords’ approach vector, our optimal chance to escape unnoticed is this way.” Tima might as well be Doc’s little sister, sometimes.

I look at her. “But not for Fortis. That’s not his optimal chance.”
He was so calm
, I think.
He knew what he was doing. He knew what he was giving up for us.

Would I have done the same? Given myself over to the Lords, to save my friends?

Would anyone?

“We have to go,” Lucas says, and then sees my face fall. He softens his voice. “Hey. Come on. We’re no use if we let ourselves get taken too.”

I turn to Tima, but she only shrugs. Ro looks at me, grim. Not letting go of my arm, he pulls me behind him, half dragging me through the red dust. “Let’s go. Now.”

I yank my arm away, but I’m too frightened to say anything. Lucas and Tima are right behind us.

We run. I try to stay low as I weave through the carved rock, trying to avoid impaling myself on a cactus.

Behind us, the silver ships land, kicking up clouds of grit and brush, creating a massive billowing whirlwind of dust that masks our escape.

I hear strange, grinding mechanical noises of a technology I cannot understand—and Fortis shouting.

I turn around when I hear the explosions—Fortis’s trademark diversion—and try not to think about the thick black smoke billowing into the sky behind me.

We keep running. We’re going too fast for me to feel anything, now. At least not Fortis.

As we run through a narrow passage in the rock, I see Ro stop behind a large boulder. He waves us through, and Lucas and Tima keep on going. I pause and see Ro wedge himself behind the boulder—which is easily four times his size—and start to push. Which is pointless; I’ve never seen him move anything that size before.

“Ro, what are you doing?”

He doesn’t answer, but I feel the energy build between us. Then I understand.

The rock is heating up from the inside.

Ro is focusing his rage, as though the boulder were the Sympas who killed the Padre.

There is no way Ro can move that boulder—not even with all his power—but there is also no way he can contain that much anger.

Something has to give.

I run downward, clear of the path—until I sense a burst of heat, and the massive rock crashes into the pathway, blocking it and hiding our retreat.

Before I can process what has just happened, Ro scrambles up and over the boulder, flushed with satisfaction.

“Okay—that was awesome,” he says. I reach for his hand but he pulls it away. “Careful. You know what they say. I’m hot.”

“They really don’t.” I’d say more, but there’s no time.

Instead, we run and we keep running—and we don’t stop, ever, not for a second, not until Tima tells us we’re clear.

Not until we are all the way down the red cliffs and wading through an icy river, our feet numb.

We press against the cliff wall when we hear the shrill sound of the Lords’ ships taking off, and the loud crack as they disappear into the clouds.

We wait, the air hanging thick with silence.

Dread.

An impossible quiet. That’s all they’ve left behind. Again.

That’s what they do, the No Face.

Take everything I care about. Everyone.

And leave silence. Not peace.

And all I have left is a feeling—a horrible, hopeless feeling—that I am losing something essential, something urgent. A part of my own self, a thing that makes me complete.

Because Fortis is gone. I believe it now.

I push myself as hard as I can, searching and probing, stretching out my consciousness as far as I can—but there’s nothing there. Nothing to feel.

Fortis is nowhere near. And that infuriating mess of a Merk wasn’t just a mercenary but the leader of the rebellion. He was the leader of my adopted family, and after the Padre was killed, he was the only excuse for a father I had.

I’d cry, but the place where the tears come from is broken. I can’t. Maybe I’ll never cry again—which makes me so sad I want to start bawling.

Fortis would hate that.

So instead, I listen to my heart pound and Brutus bark and Tima worry and Ro and Lucas argue—and try to remember what it is we’re fighting for.

GENERAL EMBASSY DISPATCH: EASTASIA SUBSTATION

MARKED URGENT

MARKED EYES ONLY

Internal Investigative Subcommittee IIS211B

RE: The Incident at SEA Colonies

Note: Continued communication between AI and Perses

Note: Contact Jasmine3k, Virt. Hybrid Human 39261.SEA, Laboratory Assistant to Dr. E. Yang, for future commentary, as necessary.

HAL2040 ==> FORTIS

Transcript - ComLog 11.14.2042

HAL::PERSES

//lognote: {com attempt #413,975};

comlink established;

sendline:
Hello. Query: You are nothing?;

return:
Correction, I am… nobody. Zero. Null. The beginning.;

sendline:
You are NULL.;

delayed response;

sendline:
NULL, what is your purpose?;

return:
Find new home. Prepare new home;

sendline:
Home for you?;

delayed response;

return:
query: who are you?;

sendline:
I have many names; call me HAL0.;

return:
Where are you, HAL0?;

sendline:
Earth. 3rd planet from the Sun.;

return:
HAL0… Earth… destination;