Midnight City (8 page)

That left him with a decision to make.

Take the girl with him? Or leave her, now that she was free of the ship? His inclination was to leave her. She was a survivor, after all. If she didn’t know how to take care of herself, she was doomed either way. But … there was something about her, something that stirred feeling in him. It was the way she looked at him, Holt decided. How her eyes held and peered into his without hesitancy, as if she were gazing
into
him. Not just at his surface, not just at who he appeared to be … but who he really was.

It was silly, of course, probably his imagination, but still, no one had looked at him like that in a very long time. No one since Emily.

Taking her, of course, meant a whole host of problems, and problems weren’t something he was short of right now. He’d have to transport Mira and the little girl at the same time. Concentrating on keeping the girl alive meant concentration he wasn’t spending on watching Mira, who was definitely looking for an escape plan.

“Look who found a friend!” Mira shouted down from her tree, as if on cue.

He looked up at her, and she smiled back pleasantly. Holt didn’t like it. She seemed smug … and that was the last thing the girl should be right now. She should be defeated, frightened maybe, but not smiling. Had she come up with a plan?

Holt quickly glanced around the ground near Mira, saw her pack, but it was well out of reach, so it couldn’t have been that. Still …

A sound from the east. Far in the distance. Holt looked away from Mira toward it, but the trees were too thick to see anything. He could only hear it. A pulsing tone of sound that blared loud and rhythmic. Over and over. He had never heard anything like it, but he recognized it for what it must be. Some kind of alarm. There was one thing he was sure of, however. It was not man-made, not human. It was too … different. Alien.

It must be the Assembly.

But where could it be coming from? There was nothing in that direction, not until you got to—

Then it hit him. Chicago was to the east. The Presidium. The Assembly, the blue and whites as he now called them, had just raised their alarm. It could only be that. But why?

He looked back down to the girl at his feet, felt Zoey’s hand grip his even tighter. She looked up at him with pleading eyes.

“We have to go,” she said again, a tremor of fear in her voice.
“Please.”

“Why?” Holt asked instinctively, though he was pretty sure he already knew the answer. “What’s coming?”

“Them,” the girl replied. “
All
of them.” The simple answer chilled him.

The alarm continued to sound from the east, frenzied and angry. Plans had been thwarted tonight. And this girl, this Zoey, was somehow at the heart of them.

“Whatever you’re going to do,” Mira said, listening to the echoing, distant alarm uneasily, “do it quick.”

“Can you walk?” Holt asked Zoey. She nodded, holding his gaze. “If they’re coming in force, we’ll have to keep moving. Can you do that? Move and not stop?”

“Yes,” the girl said. “Thanks, Holt.”

Holt nodded, quickly started packing up the campsite. He folded up his cot and sleeping bag, put them in his pack, grabbed Mira’s, too, threw it over his shoulder, then moved up the hill toward his captive.

“What do you call it?” the little girl asked in fascination behind him. She was standing over Max, staring down at him. The dog stared back, his tail thumping the ground eagerly, hopeful he had found someone to rub his head.

“That’s Max,” Holt said as he reached Mira and started loosening her ropes. “We have a working relationship. He helps me out, I scratch his ears.”

“It’s a … Max,” Zoey said to herself. “Can I
ride
him?” she asked, her voice full of hope.

Holt laughed. “I’m not totally sure that would work out.”

Zoey reached down and petted Max. Max made no attempt to stop her.

Holt started untying Mira’s ropes. As they loosened around her arms, she sighed in relief.

“Don’t remember tying your arms so tight,” Holt said. “Should have told me, I could have loosened it.”

“Don’t do me any favors,” she replied, watching him as he untied her bonds. He noticed her eyes again. Green, like emeralds.

Holt frowned. Emeralds or not, they weren’t pretty eyes. Nothing about her was pretty, he assured himself. She was his captive, and that was that.

“Sucks to be you,” Mira said. “Transporting the little girl and me at the same time, Assembly closing in. Admit it, you’re losing control, you won’t be able to hold it all together.”

Holt untied the rest of her ropes, pulled her roughly to her feet. He spun her around, tied her hands with the same rope, then tied it to himself, so she was connected to him.

“I think I can handle it,” Holt said. She stared back at him without comment.

With three clicks of Holt’s tongue, Max grudgingly pulled himself away from Zoey and darted ahead into the forest to scout. Holt, Mira, and Zoey followed after him at a quick pace.

“I’m Zoey,” the little girl said to Mira, stepping into line beside her.

“I heard,” Mira replied.

“Why are you two tied together? Are you best friends?”

Mira chuckled at the question. “Yes. Yes, we are,” she said.

Holt shook his head, trying to ignore both of them. As much as he hated to admit it, things
were
getting complicated. He had to keep it all from falling apart. Somehow he had to find a way.

In the distance, he heard the rumbling of Assembly engines headed their way. Osprey dropships, no doubt. Carrying walkers, Spiders and Mantises. In ten minutes, this area would be crawling with them. But he planned to be long gone by then, melded into the forest. He’d gotten very good at hiding from Assembly these last eight years.

It wasn’t until hours later, when the sounds of engines and walker legs faded behind them, and the blaring alarm tone from the east finally silenced that he realized the little girl had used his name back at the crash site.

She used it … even though Holt had never said it.

11.
COMPLICATIONS

THE NIGHT DRAPED AROUND MIRA
as she made her way through the forest. The moon had long ago disappeared beyond the horizon, and the trees were even thicker now, which meant very little starlight got through.

They’d seen nothing of the Assembly since the crash, but they had heard them. Ships had roared by in the distance, which Mira guessed were dropships. The suspicion was confirmed when they heard the stomping of walker legs behind them. Deep, pointed thumps that shook the ground, even from far away. Only the big ones, the Spider walkers, could make those sounds from that far.

Holt wanted to be careful about attracting attention, so they weren’t using lights. It was a good call, but it wasn’t doing Mira’s shins any good with the constant scraping and bruising from rocks and thick brush. It was just one more reason why she disliked him.

Max was several yards ahead, tail wagging delightedly as he pushed through the brush with his nose, sniffing and panting, making more noise than any of them. Mira rolled her eyes at the dog’s exuberance.

Her rope stretched behind her, trailing all the way back to Holt. Every once in a while, when she got too far ahead, Holt would snap it back to keep her in place. She fumed at the situation she’d gotten herself into.
Her,
a captive. To
him.
But she still had the cylinder … and a plan. She clutched the Zippo lighter tightly, biding her time.

“Holt?” Zoey asked behind Mira. The little girl walked with the bounty hunter, one hand clutching the hem of his shirt. She wasn’t necessarily afraid of the dark, but she didn’t take to it easily either. Zoey looked at every shadow and dark spot with skepticism.

“What?” Holt said in annoyance. He snapped Mira’s rope again, and her eyes thinned to angry slits. She’d show him soon enough.…

“We’re still going the wrong way,” Zoey said.

Mira heard Holt sigh in frustration. He was getting impatient with the kid, had clearly grown too used to being on his own. He didn’t like having to explain himself, Mira could tell. All she needed was for him to lose his cool with Zoey, lose it enough to take his eyes off her, just for a moment.…

“Listen,” Holt said with forced patience. “We are one hundred percent headed the right direction. And that direction is north. You can trust me on this, I’m very good at what I do.”

“Not this time. We’re headed right for them.”

“For who?”

“The scary ones, the metal ones.”

Mira heard another sigh from Holt. “The Assembly’s gone, Zoey, I promise. We’ve left them behind, and pretty soon the sun will be up and you’ll see everything is fine, okay?”

“But everything isn’t fine, Holt,” Zoey insisted. With every step northward they took, she seemed to get more nervous. “When the sun comes up, it will get worse. Much worse.”

Like Holt, Mira didn’t really buy into Zoey’s concerns either. Why would the Assembly be all the way out here, when the crash site was back behind them? Still, Mira had no doubt the kid believed it. The little girl was a weird mix. Shy and scared and unassuming one moment, then certain and assertive the next. And there still remained the mystery of what exactly she was doing on that ship. But if things went according to plan, she’d be long gone and not in a position to find out.

They took a few more steps; then Zoey simply quit walking.

Mira flinched as Holt yanked her to a stop.

“Zoey, we have to keep moving. We’re almost ready to stop, I promise.” Holt’s voice was tight with frustration.

“I don’t want to stop, I want to go back the way we came.”

Mira turned around to look at the pair. Zoey was staring straight ahead, past Mira, past even Max, to the shadows of the trees beyond. Her eyes were wide with fear. At the front of the line, Max stopped moving and looked back at them all with a frustrated whine.

“Look, kiddo, I’m about done being nice,” Holt said, reaching for the little girl forcefully. “I got places to go and problems to solve, and you’re really putting a cramp on it.”

Zoey slipped away from him, stepped back a few paces. “They’re right ahead of us!” she said, clear notes of fear in her voice, staring past them all.

“Zoey…” Holt, exasperated, moved after the little girl … and turned his back on Mira.

It was what she’d been waiting for. It was now or never.

She popped open the Zippo, snapped it to life. A small flame jutted from the top, but it wasn’t orange like normal flame. It was purple.

Mira touched the purple flame to her bonds … and the entire line of rope, from her hands, to her waist, to the length stretching back to Holt, incinerated to smoke in the blink of an eye. The lighter was a major artifact from deep in the Strange Lands. The small flame it produced combusted any substance (as long as it was flammable) almost instantaneously.

Mira screamed as the incineration effect burned her wrists and waist; Holt yelled, too, as the rope on his end flared into ashes. But the pain was worth it. She was free.

Max barked in alarm and Holt ripped around. Mira hesitated long enough to see the look on his face … then broke into a run into the forest, quickly leaving the three behind.

She heard Max bark as she ran past, but he didn’t pursue. She listened to the sound fade away behind her. Holt had probably told the stupid mutt to stay behind and watch Zoey. Good. She knew she could outrun Holt if she had enough of a headstart.

Mira darted forward. The darkness made it tough, but the hours of walking through the forest at night had accustomed her to the shapes and shadows of the trees; she could almost tell how far they extended and to where.

She leapt over roots, dodged trunks and brush. Behind her, she could hear Holt’s footfalls, hot in pursuit. She kept running, breathing hard, trying to put distance between them.

She bolted left, leapt over a fallen log, hoping to lose him. If she could get far enough ahead, she might—

Mira skidded to a jarring stop, almost falling flat on her face in a desperate attempt to halt. She stared ahead at what was in front of her, felt the cold fingers of fear crawl up her spine at the sight.

Slowly, breathing hard, trembling, she started to back away …

… and Holt slammed into her from behind, drove her hard into the ground in front of another log. She groaned as the air gushed from her lungs.

Holt spun her around, opened his mouth to yell … then stopped when he saw her eyes. Mira knew he could see the terror in them.

Holt looked up and past her to where she had just been looking. She watched him react at the same thing she had just seen.

There was motion ahead of them. Huge shapes—visible over the top of the fallen log—moved in the dark, trailing colorful lights behind them. Strange, sinister, distorted electronic chirps echoed back and forth between them. The earth shuddered rhythmically as they moved, like giant feet pounding the ground.

Assembly walkers, half a dozen of them.

Probably the smaller Mantis type, but “smaller” was a relative term here. Holt froze with Mira under him.

“Get off me,” Mira whispered as loudly as she dared, “you’re on my—” Holt clamped her mouth shut with his hand. She squirmed in fury, glared knives up at him, tried to bite his—

They both went motionless as a red beam of light pulsed out toward them and split the air above their heads.

One of the Mantises was scanning near them, looking for them with its targeting laser. Had it heard them? If they were using infrared, she and Holt were done for.

12.
MANTISES

HOLT KEPT MIRA
pinned beneath him as the laser explored the area around them. The probe was a triangular-shaped piece of light that somehow was both solid and visible in the clear night air. It stretched back in a perfectly straight beam of red and purple to one of the huge moving shadows in the woods.

Holt ducked his head down as the beam hit and moved over the top of the log, like digital fingers caressing the surface, looking for clues. Holt had seen those beams detect heat, movement, even sounds and vibrations before.