This Shattered World (23 page)

“Good-bye, Flynn Cormac.”

She’s playing with the boy, no longer puzzled by the way her mind has stitched him into her dreams as though he’s always been there. She’s stalking him in the alleyway, her heart jumping gleefully at every noise. When she reaches the garbage incinerator, he jumps out from behind it, shouting, “Pshew, pshew! You’re dead!”

The girl shrieks and obediently falls to the ground.

The green-eyed boy laughs and crouches down to lean over her. “Okay, you be the bad guy this time.”

But when the girl sits up, the boy is gone. She’s alone in the alley, and all around her, November has been destroyed.

I CLOSE MY EYES.
I can’t bring myself to watch her go because she’s destroyed me. And because I’ll never see her again. And because the fire in my chest is for vengeance, and it’s for her, and I can’t tell which desire will win.

When I can see again, dawn is too close. Jubilee is gone, and with her all my hopes that she can stop this chaos. It was an impossible enough battle to face before, but the idea that LaRoux Industries’ presence on Avon is connected to the Fury has left me shaken and struggling for my next step. What does it mean, that the Fury felt the same to Jubilee—the shakes, the taste of blood—as whatever took her when she found that LaRoux ident chip? We’re the only ones who know about LaRoux Industries’ involvement, the only ones who have any idea the Fury could be something not done by Avon, but something done
to
it.

There’s only one other person I can think of who might hear me. Who’s had to watch someone trusted, someone safe, turn into a monster. Maybe Davin Quinn’s daughter hasn’t heard of my betrayal of the Fianna. Maybe she’d wait to hear my side before turning me in. In a few days, when things are calmer, I might be able to risk showing my face in town to look for her.

Straightening from where I’m slumped on my bench, I shrug into her jacket, a little too tight on me, but warm. I try not to imagine Jubilee, her commanders, the relief of the other soldiers to have her returned to them. I try not to see her back at the bar, surrounded by her platoon, safe in a world where what she’s done doesn’t exist. But I see it all anyway. I watch her, in my mind, being reabsorbed into her world once more, the way I’ll never be with mine again.

I reach slowly for the boat’s oars and point the bow back out into the swamp. Away from the base, away from my home. Away from everything except the empty expanse of Avon’s wilderness.

The girl is on Patron with her old captain, running patrols, when they get the call that shots have been fired in the next sector over. The rebellion on Patron has been over for a decade, but pockets of insurgents still hide here and there, simmering with hatred and boiling over at random intervals.

They’re not geared for full-on combat, but her captain doesn’t hesitate. It’s a quick march back to the skimmer, and then he gives orders to head for the next sector, to back up the platoon pinned down at the edge of the forest.

The girl has never been in combat before, not front-line combat. She glances at her captain, and her fear is all over her face. Her captain looks back at her and winks, and she takes a breath. He has warm eyes, and she holds on to that detail.

“It won’t be like your drills,” he says, and though his voice is pitched for the whole platoon, he watches her while he speaks. “Anyone says it is, they’re lying.”

The girl swallows hard, shifting her grip on her Gleidel and wishing she had a rifle instead. When she looks back again at her captain, they’re the only two soldiers in the skimmer.

“You’re quick on your feet, Lee, and you learn fast. All you have to do is pay attention. Keep your eyes open. You’ll see what no one else does.”

THE SPOTLIGHTS ILLUMINATING THE BASE
perimeter are blinding, and as I make for a weak spot in the fence that Flynn told me about, the adrenaline’s starting to recede. In its wake I’m left numb, stumbling; my fingers struggle to unwind the parts of the fence enough to slip through. Entering through the checkpoints will raise more questions than I can answer. If they discover what I’ve done, I’ll be transferred off-world and there’ll be no one left to piece together what’s happening to Avon.

I should try to sleep, or eat something to stop shaking, but I can barely remember which direction my bunk is. I find myself retracing the path Flynn took when he abducted me, ending up in the alley next to Molly’s. It’s full of graffiti, some half scrubbed away, some fresher. One is written half in Spanish, half in Irish—I can only recognize the word
trodaire
. The bright red paint was sprayed on so thickly that it dripped in long skinny rivulets before drying, and my eyes fix on them.

I can’t escape the images burned into my mind of blood and scorched flesh and crimson-stained stone and…I wrench my gaze away from the red graffiti, shivering.
He didn’t save you so you could fall apart
.

Before I can gather my strength to move again, the back door of the bar bursts open and out stumble three soldiers. Molly’s close on their heels. “Go home,” he’s saying. Though his voice is firm, he doesn’t sound angry. It’s easy to see that the three rookies have had more to drink than they should, but they’re all upright. None of them are from my platoon.

Molly spots me standing in the shadows and straightens. “Lee?” He flips on the light over the door, flooding the alleyway with a blast of illumination. Dimly I hear the soldiers speaking, calling to me, saying words I can’t process. I take a step back, head spinning as my heart starts pounding so hard I can barely breathe. I reach out in the same instant I realize there’s nothing nearby to grab on to, and I’m about to fall.

A strong hand grabs my shoulder, grounding me, supporting me. I blink to see Molly’s face not far from mine, his eyes worried. “Think I’ve got that special order somewhere in the back, babe,” he rumbles in that gentle, booming voice of his. The words are for the benefit of the trio now making their way back toward the barracks.

“Great,” I say weakly as he starts marching me toward the back door.

As soon as he’s gotten me inside the dimly lit, dusty storeroom, Molly guides me to an old packing crate and sits me down on top, so my quivering legs can relax. When I finally lift my head, he’s waiting for me with concern and apprehension.

Even Molly can’t see Captain Chase half ready to faint without wondering if the world’s about to end.

“You look awful,” he says in a low voice. “Something happen on patrol?”

I look down, noticing with surprise that my clothes are stained with mud, still wet in places. A few of the stains are different. Reddish brown. I open my mouth, but instead of a reply comes a half-hysterical gulp.

“I’ll make you a drink,” he says, fretting and starting to turn for the door.

I put a hand on his arm to stop him. “I don’t need a drink right now. Molly—I need your help.”

He rubs one hand over his shaven scalp, the tattoos winding around his fingers seeming to shift in the low light of the back room. Not for the first time I wish I could read the characters tattooed up and down both arms—but while I remember how to speak a little of the Mandarin my mother made me learn as a kid, the written characters have long since slipped away. Molly told me once that on one arm he’d gotten passages from
The Art of War
and
The Prince
, and on the other, quotes from wise men from every corner of ancient Earth, like Confucius, Dr. King, and Gandhi.
War and peace,
he’d explained, when I told him he was a lunatic.
Light and dark. Yin and yang.

Rebel and soldier.

Molly was big into trying to find himself in his cultural past and bought into every stereotype he could find in ancient movies and books. Probably why he liked me right away—I’m one of the few people on the base who can even pronounce his real name. He was a terra-trash orphan when he was a baby—parents brought him to a new world, died in the rough conditions, and he ended up adopted by a family on Babel. I’ve got no idea how he ended up here, in a colony largely dominated by Irish folks. He’s got no link to our shared Chinese heritage except by blood, but it never ceases to fascinate him. Whereas I couldn’t get far enough away from my mother’s teachings.

But that was before she died, and I lost that connection forever.

Molly’s still hesitating, as though he suspects a drink will fix my problems despite my protests. “What’s goin’ on?” he asks finally.

“I need you to watch for a message.” Some part of me knows it’s pointless, that there’s no message Flynn Cormac could possibly need to send me now—but the rest of me refuses to sever this last thread between us. “It’s important. I don’t know who will bring it or when, but you have to bring it to me—don’t tell anyone else.”

Molly’s brows draw in, concern deepening into a frown. “Babe, what’d you get into?”

I take a deep breath, feeling shaky now in the wake of the panic that greeted me when I first walked into the bar. “I can’t tell you, Baojia.”

There are only a few people on the base who know Molly’s real name, much less use it. It makes him pause, then nod. He gives my shoulder a squeeze. “I’ll watch for it. Get some rest, kid. Y’look like death on ice.”

I try to do as Molly suggests when I get back to my bunk. Even after showering the last of the blood and muck from my skin and putting on dry, warm clothes, I still feel covered in grime. I’m trained to sleep wherever and whenever I can get it, but despite my exhaustion, my desperate need to close my eyes against the memory of this night, I find myself staring up at the ceiling.

Maybe it’s because when I close my eyes, I see that child from the rebel base lying there, the side of its head blown away, the skin and hair around the area scorched in a way that only a military-issue Gleidel could have done. The child I killed while not inhabiting my own skin.

I roll over, desperately seeking some relief from the incessant tangle of my thoughts. If I had anyone I could call, even to have the most inane conversation imaginable, I’d do it. Towers might be a stickler for using the retransmission satellites for watching the HV, but we’ve got good, clear lines for getting messages off Avon. But we’re not designed to have friends—we’re not given the chance for it. Two years ago I would’ve called my fellow rookies, but we’re spread out across the galaxy now. I’ve got no one. Alexi was the closest thing I had. Everyone else I’ve served with is gone. Dead, or else stationed so far away, they might as well be.

Sometimes I think they isolate us on purpose. It makes me wonder what my life would’ve been like if I’d stayed at that orphanage, if I’d never gone into the military. Or if I’d managed to put aside my need for vengeance. My old captain always told me I had to find something to fight
for
, not just a reason to fight. If I’d listened to him, would I have had friends that lasted beyond their next reposting?

I’m not sure what brought my old captain to mind, but now I find myself wishing he were here. He had a way of making impossible things seem okay, like climbing this mountain or traversing that plain wouldn’t be so hard.

I sit up abruptly as an idea hits me hard.
My captain.
Flynn and I have been searching for a way to understand LaRoux Industries’ involvement. For the reason there was a LaRoux ident chip on the site of the vanished facility. How could I have been so stupid? My old captain hasn’t been on Avon for over a year, and there’s a risk—but even brainwashed by fame and fortune, I can’t believe he’d refuse to help me if I asked.

I shove my blanket away and slide into the chair. Sweeping the clutter aside with one hand, I press the palm of the other to the top of the screen. It swings open out of the desk obligingly, adjusting itself automatically to my height. The keyboard rises after it, out of the hollow below the screen. No eye-trackers here—strictly low-tech, nothing that would provide much benefit to the rebels if they got hold of it.

I start with the lines of code I need to get to a call screen. Just because my screen’s low-tech doesn’t mean you can’t do a lot with it if you know how. And the man I’m about to call is the one who made sure I learned lessons others didn’t.