Burn (20 page)

He must have dived into the back right as I took off, and now he's squatting in the entrance to the cramped driver's compartment. “I wanted to be your gunner, but the weapons console isn't hooked up back there!”

One of my wheels rolls over the side of a boulder as I try to avoid hitting a tree. “Is there a harness back there? Buckle yourself in!”

He doesn't respond, and I focus again on reaching Ellie. All I can see is the rear of her vehicle—and then the bright burst of fire that zings from her hood cannon toward the perimeter station set into the inner edge of the mile-wide crater's rim. The station explodes in flames, debris and bodies flung outward and colliding with the ground a few hundred feet below. I can barely hear Leo's shouts of rage and horror over my own.

Ellie makes a sharp turn just in time to avoid colliding with the crater wall and roars toward the next station, only a half a mile away. I veer to the left and head after her. Movement on that side draws my attention, and I see another Archer in pursuit of her as well.

The autocannons on its roof are as still and silent as ours, which means that either they're not hooked up or there's no gunner in the back. I grab the small control stick on my console and try to aim my hood cannon at Ellie, but while I'm dodging trees and boulders and signs, it's nearly impossible to get a weapon lock on her vehicle. My target is small and moving quickly—but hers—the defense stations—are huge and stationary.

“She's going to reach that station in less than a minute,” Leo snaps. He wedges his torso next to my chair and reaches for the control stick beside my steering wheel. The hood cannon jumps to life again. His deft maneuvering spins the cannon around, its thick barrel aimed straight at the rear of Ellie's vehicle. He jams his thumb down on the black button at the tip of the stick.

Nothing happens . . . except that Leo starts cursing fluently. “It's not loaded!”

“She was watching long enough to know which ones were armed,” I mutter, trying to close the distance.

“Why aren't the stations shooting at her?”

“They probably have no idea what's happening! She's supposed to be a friendly.”

Leo rips his hands off the hood cannon controls and withdraws into the low doorway between the rear of the vehicle and the driver's compartment. “I should have been paying more attention,” he says, his voice thick with anger and frustration. “She's the Sicarii?”

“Yes. I'll explain lat— No!”

Ellie fires again, the shot flying wide and slamming into the rocky wall of the crater right next to the second perimeter defense station. The station's massive guns are swinging around, but they're slow. I can only imagine the chaos within that station, where the guards are probably shouting and scrambling. They were prepared to meet an enemy coming from above, from outside the crater, and now one of our own best weapons is firing on them.

And she does. Again. Direct hit. From behind me, I hear only clanking and a strangled cry. I grit my teeth and push the gas pedal to the floor, seeing my chance. Ellie careens to a stop and reverses to head for the next station. Already, the other Archer is racing ahead of her to protect that defense station, but the mixed signals and destruction must have terrified the station's occupants, because their giant guns are gliding around and aiming at the friendly Archer, which careens out of the way as they fire at it. I push away the fear that Christina might be inside that Archer and focus on drawing even with Ellie, trying to get my vehicle in a position where I can run her into the crater wall to her right. We skim along the edge, her Archer just a few yards off my front bumper. I push my own vehicle a little farther, slowly gaining as her hood cannon once again aims at a defense station. There are only six, and she's destroyed two. She's coming at this one from the side instead of straight on, and the people in the station are obviously thinking the other—friendly—Archer is its enemy, because they're focusing on it and not her. My stomach drops as Ellie fires, hitting a spot just below where the station juts out from the crater wall. A hail of rock and dust billows outward. I'm now only a yard from her bumper. If I can just—

Something flies across the distance between our two Archers and lands on the roof of Ellie's vehicle, right next to the massive lens.

It's Leo. He must have crawled up through the hole in my roof. “Goddamn it, Leo!” I shout as I watch him cling to the autocannon rails and inch toward the front of Ellie's vehicle.

My heart is in my throat. I have no fucking idea what to do. I can't ram her. I couldn't fire, even if we were armed. Leo is out in the open, his wiry body clinging to the back of a metal monster in an arena of rock. I'm helpless.

But the defense station isn't, and its heavy cannons are now rotating toward us. “Please see him,” I whisper as I race along behind Ellie's Archer. “Please don't shoot.”

I'm not just talking to the defense station. Because Leo has made it all the way to the front of the Archer and hurls himself onto the hood as Ellie sends another blast toward the defense station. It takes out the large cannon and part of the floor of the station, and I try not to look too closely when I realize one of the guards is dangling from the shattered paneling and wires.

I focus on Leo, who is crouched on the hood of Ellie's Archer. Blood streams from his ears—the last blast shattered his eardrums. His arms are wrapped around the barrel of the cannon. He's the reason Ellie's last shot wasn't a direct hit.

He's kicking at her tiny windshield, but there's no way he'll penetrate the bulletproof glass. He is distracting her, though. She swerves to the side, clipping my front panel and fishtailing. Leo holds tightly to the cannon, his little muscles standing out in sharp relief as he wrenches at it. One of his hands is working at something at the cannon's base, but I only catch glimpses as Ellie weaves back and forth across open ground. The other Archer has circled around, but the driver obviously sees Leo, too, because the vehicle is hanging back instead of racing toward Ellie. It's put itself between Ellie and the next defense station on the west side of the compound.

Ellie makes a sudden, sharp U-turn, churning up turf like bunched fabric beneath the Archer's massive wheels, and flies back toward the damaged defense station.

Leo's body bucks as Ellie's hood cannon swings forward, taking him with it. I can see his frantic movements, his desperate attempts to keep the heavy metal barrel from aiming at the men hanging from beneath the shredded metal and sparking cables.

I see the moment he makes his decision. His body goes still. He stops struggling with the cannon.

And he plasters himself across the narrow strip of windshield, including the camera ports for her display screens, completely blocking her view.

Ellie veers back and forth, trying to throw him off. My mind becomes an abstract whirl of physics calculations. Speed. Acceleration. Force.

Oh God.

“Oh God,” I whisper aloud.

She picks up speed with frightening abruptness. She's only a few hundred yards from the crater wall. “Leo!” I shout. “Jump off! Get off that thing!”

He doesn't.

Ellie makes a sudden left just before it reaches the edge of the crater, so violent that when its front right side slams into the rock wall, the Archer rolls. I watch, helpless, as Leo's skinny body disappears beneath the vehicle.

And as the Archer rolls away, he's left behind. Lying in the grass, not moving.

I slam on the brakes, my chest filling with dread, and throw open the small driver's door. My feet hit the emerald-green grass, and for this random second beneath the lights of the damaged defense station, I think how beautiful the color is, how full of life and promise. And then I force my head up as I run around the side of my vehicle and sprint for the crumpled figure at the base of the rock wall.

Leo's on his side. His fingers twitch in the grass. His blond hair is streaked with blood. The fabric of his shirt has been melted to the skin of his arms and stomach by the heat of the cannon. But he's alive. I drop to my knees and skid as soon as I get close. “Leo,” I say.

His glasses are gone, and his green eyes are bright with terror and pain. His mouth moves, but all that comes out is a broken whimper. I blink and focus, taking in the rest of him.

It's broken, too.

His legs are twisted in an odd way, and my thoughts scream as my gaze moves up his body . . .
spine shattered, organs twisted and hemorrhaging, ribs splintered, lungs perforated.
Afraid to move him for fear of doing more damage, I lie on my side so he can see me. I gently smooth his hair from his brow, noting with a sinking feeling the blood dripping from his nose and mouth.

“Someone call Dr. Ackerman!” I shout over my shoulder before returning my attention to him. “You crazy idiot,” I say, trying to steady my voice.

“Did we stop her?” he asks in a halting, wet whisper.

I have no idea. “
You
stopped her. She wrecked.” I nod, too, because the blood leaking from his ears reminds me that he can't hear me.

The corners of his mouth curl up as he watches my face, but when he parts his lips, the gurgling noise he makes is almost unbearable. “Tate?”

“Yeah.” I take his hand, the one that's twitching on the grass. I squeeze it. I'm not sure if he feels it. My eyes are burning, like the air is filled with caustic fumes. “I'm here. I'll stay with you.”

“Scared,” he mouths, still watching my expression.

So I smile, but God, it hurts. “You're the bravest kid I've ever met.”

The choked, agonized cough he lets out might be laughter, but then his face twists with pain. “Tell me,” he rasps, his chest shuddering. “Tell me it's going to be okay.”

But then his eyes become unfocused, sliding away from me.

“It's going to be okay,” I say, but I can barely get the words out, because his hand twitches once more before going limp in my sweaty grasp. I feel for his pulse.

And I can't find it.

His eyes are half open. Blood is still dripping from his mouth, but his chest isn't moving anymore. “Leo,
please,
” I whisper. “Don't do this.”

He's already gone. The certainty descends on me like an avalanche, burying me with a million separate impacts. I've only known him for a few days, but somehow, it feels like I'm losing another member of my family. A brother. I rub at my eyes, my fingers coming away wet with tears.

A humming, rumbling noise behind me snaps me back to the moment, and I turn quickly, in time to see my own death roll to a stop less than thirty feet away. It's a dented disaster.

But the hood cannon is functional, and I'm crouched in the grass next to my dead friend, staring right down its barrel.

I CLOSE MY EYES.

The roar of an engine makes me open them again—in time to see another Archer T-bone Ellie, right on the driver's side. Both of the vehicles are armored, so they withstand the impact fairly well, but hers is shoved across the grass. No sooner have both vehicles skidded to a stop than Race jumps out of the third Archer, and Christina gets out of the back. Weapon drawn, Race wrenches Ellie's door open. He shoves her to the ground and presses his gun to the back of her head.

Christina falls to her knees and throws her arms around me. She's breathing so hard. Shaking. My head hangs. I know Leo is lying dead behind me. I know I have to face this. But I can't make myself look at him again. And I can't make myself look at Christina, either.

“I should never have let you come here,” I say in a dull voice. “It's going to get you killed. Just like it got Leo killed.” My voice breaks over his name.

She only holds me tighter. “Leo did what he did to save others. He didn't just get himself killed.” Her body shudders with a sob. “It meant something.”

“Meaning or not, he's still dead,” I snap. “And no amount of meaning would make me feel okay if you got hurt, too.” I try to push away a vision of Christina's body crushed like Leo's. “I wish you'd never come here. I wish you could leave.”

She shakes her head. “Even if that were possible right now, I don't want to hear it.”

“What do you want to hear, then?” My voice is shaking.
Because I can't think of anything else to say.

“Tell me I'm all right,” she chokes out.

“You're all right,” I whisper.

“Now tell me you're all right.”

“I'm all right,” I lie.

“And tell me we'll do this together.”

“We'll do this together, Christina.” Despite those words, I still feel alone, carrying this collection of knowledge that feels like it should save us, failing at every turn, unable to protect the people I love.

The sob lurches out of me. “At least I don't have to worry about Leo anymore,” I say hoarsely as tears streak my face, as I lose control completely. I'm glad he's not here to see this. More than anything, I want to make his death count, but I don't know how.

I am vaguely aware of Christina's mouth against my ear, of her fingers in my hair, of her arms around me. I want to tell her I'm sorry, that I'm powerless, that I've failed, but I can't even gather the syllables.

Then she takes my face in her hands. She kisses my eyes, squeezed shut to keep the world out. Her lips graze my cheeks, my temples, my mouth. She holds me steady. “If Leo was still here,” she says quietly, “he'd tell you not to give up. And he'd remind you that you're not alone.”

“Bullshit.” I let out a raspy laugh. “If Leo were here, he'd call me a coward.” He was amazing, that skinny orphan kid, so easy to underestimate, braver than he had a right to be. My dad must have loved him. I was starting to love him, too. It feels like the whole world needs to stop and acknowledge that he's gone. But as I raise my head, I realize it won't.

Like it's happening in slow motion, Race waves a bunch of guards over. They wrestle a struggling Ellie . . . who I guess isn't really Ellie . . . into a waiting SUV. His severe face all angles, his eyes violent red, Race turns to me. Those eyes slide to Leo's body and then flick back to my face. His mouth tightens as I shake my head.
He's gone.
Race nods toward the SUV, inviting me to join.

I stay where I am. How can I walk away from Leo?

“I'll stay with Leo, Tate,” Christina says quietly. “I won't let him be alone. You need to go.”

She gives me the gentlest of pushes toward Race, away from Leo, away from everything that's happened. I climb into the backseat of the SUV. Ellie is cuffed and trussed in the middle, with a guard on either side of her and thick plastic bags encasing her hands. She turns in her seat and looks back at me. Her eyes shine with cold curiosity.

I stare back. It occurs to me that I could reach her from here, strangle the life out of her, crush her windpipe and stop her heart, and my hands are rising from my lap when Race taps my shoulder. I pull my gaze from Ellie's. “They've radioed back to the main building,” he says. “They'll send another car to pick up the boy.” He nods in the direction of everything I'm leaving behind. “And I'm sorry,” he adds quietly.

By staying with Leo, Christina's done me a favor. I've left all my heart at the crater wall, so now I'll just be a collection of logical, emotionless thoughts, which is exactly what I need. I don't care about the people in this vehicle. They're moving parts in a machine, nothing soft, no nerves. Or, at least, that's what I'll tell myself. I breathe in and out. “Okay. And thanks.”

As we drive back to the front entrance of the main building, Race radios Angus. He says that I'm safe and breaks the news that Leo is dead. There is complete silence on the other end of the line as Race ends the call.

When we arrive, Race and I disembark and walk into the atrium ahead of the guards and the Ellie-Sicarii. Congers emerges from the administrative wing with Angus, whose normally ruddy complexion is gray. Next to him are Graham and Rufus, who have apparently been relieved of the suspicion and the handcuffs.

Angus has the scanner, and he holds it up as we approach. “It was in Ellie's quarters, as was Ellie,” says Angus. He scrapes his knuckles along his bearded jaw. “Looks like it strangled her after it . . . did whatever it does. Her body had aged dramatically. But Brayton is still alive, though gravely ill—Dr. Ackerman is with him.”

“He won't live much longer,” the Ellie-Sicarii comments in a quiet, calm voice.

Congers's eyes blaze as he stares at the alien, the creature who has stolen so much from us. “Neither will you.”

It doesn't even flinch.

“Where's my mom?” I ask Angus. I'd expected her to be part of this.

Angus steps aside as the Sicarii is led down the hall. “She's still in the morgue. I've called to tell her you're all right. She said she needed to look at some spaceship components you dropped off?”

The Sicarii lets out a low laugh, and Race and Congers stiffen like it's a personal insult. Graham takes in the look on his father's face and jogs ahead to assist the guards. We follow them down the hall and into Angus's office, where they shove the Ellie-Sicarii into a chair and cuff its wrists to the armrests. Rufus lowers himself to a chair in the corner and simply watches.

Graham helps fasten its ankles to the legs of the chair and moves back to make room for his father, who stands in front of the Sicarii. “Sorry we couldn't let you leave just yet.”

The Sicarii arches an eyebrow. “Your posturing is amusing. By all means, continue.”

Congers's nostrils flare, and Race steps forward. “Have you been communicating with your colleagues outside this compound?” he asks. “How much do they know about our defenses?”

“And your lack of intelligence is encouraging,” the Sicarii says.

“Why do you want the scanner?” I blurt out.

“Now that is a more interesting question.” It tilts its head, looking eerily like Brayton did this morning at breakfast—except it wasn't Brayton; it was the creature in front of me. “I was present at the gathering when that weapon was first deployed. It was . . . impressive in both its intensity and specificity. I was the only one who escaped. I injured the one who wielded it, but he destroyed himself and the device before I could acquire either.”

Angus looks at Congers and Race. “You told us that happened hundreds of years ago.”

The Sicarii turns its smile on him. “It did.” It gives us all a speculative sort of look. “You are so lost. All of you.”

“No,” I say. “I don't think we are. You somehow drain the telomerase from your victims—”

“We refer to them as donors,” it says.

“Donors? They let you shorten their lives willingly?”

It shrugs.

I can't tell if the Sicarii's nonchalance is bravado, or if it's so old that it really doesn't care. I think it might be the latter, because it's clear that threats don't impress it much. So I decide to take a different tack. “Tell us how it works.”

It seems intrigued by my curiosity. “We were driven to this out of necessity. Five hundred years ago, we were a thriving species. Much more advanced than the creatures on this planet. But our advancement came with consequences, and our world grew sick. The weather, the soil, the water. There was a worldwide famine that threatened our extinction, but we had the technology to artificially stimulate the environment into producing food once again.” Its pale blue eyes meet mine, and there is something ancient and cold behind them. “But the consequence of this irradiation was more complex than my ancestors initially realized. Infertility rates rose exponentially, and we began to age twice as quickly. We discovered that our bodies' ability to create telomerase had been decimated. I was born among the last generation of our species, but we were all genetically damaged, destined to age quickly and die young and childless. We were a species rapidly going extinct. We tried so many things, synthesizing telomerase, injecting it, rubbing it on our skin, drinking it . . .” It sighs. “None of it worked. Until, one day, our planet was visited by an alien species from a nearby galaxy.”

Congers and Race go very still. “H2,” Race says quietly.

“You didn't call yourselves that at the time,” it replies with a condescending smile. “But yes, they were on an exploratory mission, and they found us. We were happy to welcome them. A few weeks of experimentation was all it required for us to realize the potential of a donor species.”

“Experimentation,” Congers says in a flat voice.

Its brow furrows. “Our entire race was dying out,” it says to him. “By that time, our population was only a fraction of what it had been. What we did, we did out of necessity.”

“What you
did
was torture explorers who were there to make friendly contact!” Congers snaps.

The Sicarii ignores him, returning its attention to me. “I was part of the initial test group to take telomerase from the H2 donors. A few genetic and physical modifications were all that was required.”

It's probably talking about those anomalous secretory glands, like the ones Mom found in the skin of George's and Willetts's corpses. “You somehow pull telomerase from the other body through the skin, right?”

“The process requires time and extensive physical contact, but yes. It would have been our preference to artificially siphon the required enzyme; it's really a simple sort of chemical. But the way it works in a humanoid body is much more complicated, and our bodies could no longer create or use telomerase at all. Hence the need for a complete DNA transfer.” Which also makes them look like the person they're leeching the telomerase from. “Unpleasant, but it allows us to prolong our own lives, though not to procreate.” For the first time, a shadow of sadness passes across the Ellie-Sicarii's face.

“It allows you to lengthen your life—for how long?” Race asks.

It shrugs again. “I witnessed the miracle of this discovery myself, and I'm still here.”

“Are you saying you could live forever?” Angus asks, incredulous. “How long does the effect last?”

“As long as we have donors, our life spans are unlimited,” it says. “But our need for new telomerase donors has accelerated over the centuries. At first, the effects lasted for several months. Not long enough to reproduce, but long enough to thrive for a while at least. Now the telomerase from a single donor only keeps us whole for a few weeks at most. Which brings us to Earth.”

“What happened to our planet?” Graham asks suddenly, like he couldn't hold back another second.

It stares at him, and though he's a tall guy and the Sicarii is wearing the body of a petite young woman, it looks like it believes it could snap him in half. “Despite careful and systematic breeding, your species did not reproduce quickly enough to be a sustainable source of telomerase.”

In other words, over the last few hundred years, the Sicarii have been slowly using up the H2 population, breeding them in captivity generation by generation, and now they're pretty much extinct. Graham's jaw goes rigid with hatred. Congers's hand drifts to the weapon at his belt. He draws it slowly, like he's not fully aware he's doing it.

Graham and Congers are direct descendants of the man who tried and failed to save their planet all those years ago. Their family has carried their history through generations, just like mine did, and to them, this fight with the Sicarii is deeply personal.

Race puts his hand on his colleague's wrist to stop him from doing anything rash. “Your ability to take on your victims' appearances allowed you to subdue the H2 population with few casualties,” he says to the Sicarii. “And that's what you planned to do here.”

The Sicarii nods. “Armies are full of young, healthy donors. We have absolutely no desire to destroy them. It's so easy for you to brand us as evil. As monsters. But we are only trying to preserve our race. We kill out of need, not malice. Strategically, not indiscriminately.” Its eyes light on the scanner.

“How did the H2 not notice that there were two versions of someone walking around?” I ask. “It took us a while to figure it out because it was only Brayton, but a complete government takeover has to involve dozens, if not hundreds of Sicarii doppelgängers.”

The cuffs clank as the Sicarii moves its legs. “Unless we have good reason, the donor does not survive the initial exchange. We sap the creature of all its telomerase and then euthanize it.”

“You mean you murder the person,” Race says, his voice deadly calm.

Angus's huge fists are clenched. “Like you murdered Ellie.”