ROLF STOOD AT THE top of the mountain, ankle-deep in snow, gazing at the line of little red flags. At the bottom of the racecourse, Mali waited in her oversized military jacket, sled slung over her shoulder. Lucky stood behind her, looking like he hadn’t slept in days; he’d only come when Nok had dragged him along.
Rolf pitied Lucky—up to a point. Earth was gone; it was a fact. Fighting the truth was like fighting gravity. The news had hit Rolf hard at first, too. He’d thought about the little curry shop two blocks from his dormitory, and about the secret patch of tulips tucked away behind the manor in Tøyen gardens, and how he used to count the beautiful red bricks on the walk to school (11,321) as a boy—but there was no logic in mourning what was already gone. Besides, it meant no more bullying from his classmates. No more parents’ rigid expectations. No more being stuck with an entire race of people who were too stupid to see they were destroying their own planet.
But Rolf wasn’t stupid.
He arranged his sled to match up with the red flags. He wasn’t good at the physical puzzles, but this one wasn’t about strength or speed but reflexes. It involved throwing one’s weight at the precise angle and time to turn the sled through the flag course. He’d never sledded with the other children in Tøyen gardens, afraid of being mocked. But he was good at it. Who knew?
“Just go already!” Nok jumped up and down by his side, a smile stretched between her red cheeks. Her lips were stained bright blue from candy. He still couldn’t believe how beautiful she was, and that she was his. On impulse, he pulled her close for a kiss. She laughed and kissed him back.
He’d never understood unspoken rules on Earth: social norms that flew over his head, polite conversation, a hierarchy of coolness where he’d always been on the bottom rung. But here, he understood the rules. There were only three! Clean, logical, efficient. The only thing that didn’t make sense was that the food was still missing. At first he’d thought the Kindred just favored Cora, but it made no sense, because the Kindred had sworn to keep them healthy. So it had to be Cora stealing on her own, but if she was gone, who was stealing it now? The only conclusion Rolf could reach was that Lucky had been mistaken when he said the Caretaker had taken her—she must still be here, hiding out like Leon. Maybe they were even working together.
Nok tugged on a red curl hanging in his face. “Go, silly. It’s my turn next.”
Her candy-blue lips pulled him from his thoughts. The same shade of blue as the cubes in the Kindred’s medical room. There had been one above the doorway. Several more built into the cabinets. Both the door and cabinets had opened automatically according to the Kindred’s thoughts—and then it had hit him.
The physical equipment was different, but the theory was similar to the research his colleagues at Oxford’s robotics lab had done on brain waves controlling prosthetic limbs. The blue cubes had to be thought amplifiers. Which meant the Kindred weren’t as powerfully psychic and telekinetic as the others believed. It also meant that, if the cubes could be modified, it would hamper the Kindred’s abilities. A fact Cora would die to know. A fact he would never tell her.
“If I’m going,” he said to Nok, pulling her into his lap on impulse, “then you’re coming too!” She shrieked in surprise as he pushed them down the mountain together. It was a challenge with her added weight and his restricted view. The wind flew by them, making Nok squeal with delighted fear and clutch him harder. They passed trees in a blur: Abies recurvata and Ducampopinus. Her hair brushed his cheek. The snow kissed their faces. He adjusted their angle, and they moved faster, faster, until Lucky and Mali had to jump out of the way as they shot straight into a snowbank.
They flew off the sled, tangled around each other, and landed in the soft snow. Rolf was half buried in it, numb except for the fire raging in his heart.
Earth? Good riddance.
Lucky picked up the token that had slid out of a trough at the bottom of the sledding course. “Here. You earned it.” Heavy worry lines framed his face. He had to be as aware as the rest of them that it was the twenty-first day, and Cora showed no signs of returning. But he tried for a tired half grin. “I’ve never seen anyone navigate the course that fast.”
Lucky tossed the coin to Rolf, who caught it triumphantly. He’d always wanted a friend as cool as Lucky. Soon, once Lucky got over his grief, he’d have a girlfriend and a best friend.
They tromped home through the snow, and he and Nok paused to make a snowman that looked like the Caretaker. Then they returned to town and goaded Lucky into pulling out the guitar. The town square was summery warm. Nok stripped off her snow-soaked dress and jumped into the stream in her underwear, while Lucky played an old country song he said his granddad had taught him. Rolf mentally laid out a new plan for the farm. Asparagus officinalis by the barn and Phaseolus vulgaris beans along the fence. Under his leadership, they wouldn’t even need the diner.
Nok didn’t bother to get dressed after her swim and lay out on the grass to dry in her underwear. Christ, but she was beautiful. Her long limbs gleamed in the sunlight. She tapped her toes in time with Lucky’s music.
“I love a guy who can play guitar,” she said dreamily, rolling over in the grass.
Lucky grinned back, and Rolf sucked in a sharp breath. His fingers started tapping, and he forgot about the Asparagus officinalis and Phaseolus vulgaris. Why was she looking at Lucky so adoringly? Rolf had been the one who won the guitar. He was the one keeping them alive. Nok let out another peal of laughter at some joke Lucky had made, and red flared into Rolf’s cheeks. His eye started twitching.
He stood abruptly and headed for the house.
“Where are you going?” Nok called.
He got the pillowcase of tokens from their bedroom, then pushed through the saloon-style toy-store doors, slamming tokens into the counter. He got the painting kit so Nok could draw the birds she missed. The Curious George book set so he could read to her every night. He stuffed all the toys, along with handfuls of candy, into the pillowcase. He carried everything back to the town square and emptied it on the grass.
“What’s all this?” Nok dug through the toys with wide eyes. “It looks like Christmas!”
“Yes, Norwegian style. The gnomes have decided you’ve been very good boys and girls,” Rolf said, emptying the rest of the pillowcase. “It’s time for a celebration.”
Nok tore through the presents, showing Mali the best ones and explaining what they were for. Rolf smiled until Lucky silenced the guitar with a hand on the strings.
“A celebration of what?” Lucky’s voice had an edge.
Rolf glanced at Nok, letting his gaze slide to her bare back, her bare legs. “A celebration of making it to the twenty-one-day mark and still being here.”
A shadow passed over Lucky’s face. “We aren’t all still here.”
Rolf paused. He should have picked his words more carefully. Lucky still thought the Caretaker had taken Cora, but Rolf knew that logically, she had to still be there.
“We’ve all lost people we love.” Rolf tried to keep his voice diplomatic.
Nok found the painting set and started setting out the pots of rainbow colors in the grass. She selected a fat brush and dipped it into the green.
“The way you two are acting,” Lucky said testily, watching her, “playing around while Earth is gone, makes it seem like you don’t even care.” When they didn’t answer, he went back to plucking on the guitar, sunk into a dark mood.
Oblivious of their argument, Nok drew a flower on the back of her hand, a purple lollipop sticking out of her mouth.
Why should she grieve? Rolf wondered. All she’d lost on Earth were parents who’d sold her into indentured servitude, and an apartment full of sickly thin girls, and a talent manager who might as well have been a whorehouse madam. He didn’t have much to grieve, either: his parents had never been affectionate; always pushing him to work harder, isolating him from kids his age. The only people in his life he’d interacted with had been a steady stream of bullies: Karl Crenshaw and the cricket bat. The schoolmates who made fun of his glasses. A professor who had forced him into public speaking.
They’re all gone now, Rolf consoled himself. He picked up a lollipop from the pile and spun it lazily in his mouth.
“Hey, Mali,” Nok said. “Take off your jacket. I want to paint on you, yeah?”
A branch snapped near the side of the movie theater, and Rolf spun on his heels. Was it Cora and Leon, spying on them? He’d never trusted that lumbering Neanderthal. Nothing had delighted Rolf more than when he’d banished himself to the jungle.
Rolf took a step closer to Nok, protectively. Mali had shrugged out of the military jacket, and Nok was using her body as a canvas, drawing bright blue swirls all over her arms. Empty chocolate wrappers surrounded them. Nok’s lips were stained bright purple from lollipops.
“You too, Rolf,” Nok said. “Take off your shirt. I’ll paint you next.”
He cast one look back toward the jungle behind the movie theater, searching for the moving shape of a tattooed Maori or a small blond girl, but the leaves were quiet now.
He sat in the grass, pulled his shirt over his head, and closed his eyes. Rolf would be a canvas if she wanted him to be. He’d be anything for her. He’d be everything for her.
Nok dotted his nose with paint, and he fell just a little bit more in love.