We drove into Stark Peak as if it were an ordinary day trip.
Except for the alien space suits we were wearing, of course.
Patrick was at the wheel of the big pickup. As we neared the city, other vehicles started to appear. At first we couldn’t help glancing out at all the other Drones zipping past. They drove mostly big rigs—tanker trucks, livestock cars, moving vans—but there were plenty in normal cars as well. Many of the vehicles transported Hatchlings and children. The Drones drove without regard for lanes or signs, but somehow the confusion of angles all worked out. It reminded me of watching schools of fish on television, how they always seemed to know when to turn this way or that without ever bumping into one another.
Alex and I kept staring out the windows in disbelief until some of the Drones started staring back.
“Stop looking,” Patrick said, his voice tinny through the helmet.
We wound into thickening traffic until we were surrounded by enemies, too far in to back out. We were masquerading as Harvesters inside the beehive itself.
If they ever found out we were here, there’d be nowhere to run.
For a time we joined the flow of cars on the freeway. If I ignored the thudding of my heart amplified inside the echo chamber of the suit, it almost felt safe.
Buildings started to spring up along the sides of the road. A cattle pen was packed with children, the kids mixed right in with cows and pigs. All those small bodies pressed between the livestock. They looked gaunt and miserable, sunk to the ankles in manure. Drones prodded them toward feeding troughs.
A line of Hatchlings stretched out of the slaughterhouse on the far side. They looked uncharacteristically calm, even patient.
It dawned on me what they were waiting for, the realization a wrecking ball to my chest. “They’re waiting in line,” I said. “Like at a restaurant.”
Mercifully, the feeding zone passed from view.
The skyline loomed ever larger. The domino-tile slabs of apartment buildings at the edge of town. The formidable tower of Stark Peak Bank & Trust. And rising above it all, the upthrust spire of City Hall.
We exited the freeway. At the stoplight Patrick released the wheel and flexed his fingers. I could see indentations on the metal of the steering wheel where he’d gripped too tight with his armored hands.
Around us Drones paraded the streets in clusters and columns, bent to some greater purpose.
Patrick signaled to turn right, but Alex reached over and clicked it off.
“Aliens don’t signal,” she said.
Patrick waited for an opening and turned.
We goggled at the city. It had been transformed into an alien landscape. Hatchlings strolling the sidewalks and tearing through cabinets in the shops. Drones training in Newbury Park, enacting series of movements that looked like tai chi. The giant bank building had been split open as if by an explosion, the exposed interior lined with transparent organic screens showing feeds from all around the world. Floor after floor of Drones were plugged into the screens by umbilical cord–like wires attached to the sides of their helmets. Were they monitoring the footage? Patrick slowed as we coasted past the sight, and I spotted a Queen on each floor. I imagined hives like this dotting every city in the world.
On the sidewalks Hatchlings bickered and brawled. One skirmish turned violent, four Hatchlings going after a smaller one. They each seized a limb with fangs and nails, and an instant later he was quartered.
We rolled up on the giant courtyard before City Hall. A wave of Hatchlings swept by us on the broad steps, shoving and hissing. One slashed another, gouging his cheek, and then a fight broke out. More Hatchlings piled on, turning the riot into a mini-stampede. Several Hatchlings got trampled, leaving orange smears on the pavement. The others smashed through the window of a movie theater and tumbled out of sight.
Patrick kept driving. Just a few more blocks and we’d be through the heart of downtown, making our way to the cliffs that rimmed the northeast section of the city. Stark Peak University was perched on those cliffs.
As was—we hoped—our salvation.
As we coasted up to the next intersection, Alex gasped.
A female Hatchling stepped off the sidewalk onto the crosswalk. As she passed in front of us, we watched her with shock.
She was pregnant.
It was hard to tell at first, given that the females were rotund to begin with. But as she crossed before our windshield, we saw that the swelling around her midsection was pronounced enough to stretch the skin so tight it was translucent—just as with the Husks. Through the orange flesh, tiny forms were visible, swimming around like baby sharks.
“Now they’ve really got no use for us anymore,” Alex said.
Even after the Hatchling passed by, we sat there, stunned.
All at once we were banged forward in our seats. A truck, ramming us from behind.
Patrick accelerated off the line. A few more turns as we drifted through the outskirts of the city. Even here we marveled at all the industry. Buildings hollowed out, the interiors plastered with virtual screens. Hatchlings crouching on bus shelters, roofs, parked cars. In a few places, Drones were digging up the streets, churning through the concrete with bulldozers and excavators. They pulverized buildings, remaking the landscape into enormous molehills. The population thinned out here in the construction zones. The few Hatchlings and Drones seemed too preoccupied with their tasks to focus on us.
Patrick steered around fallen high-rises, mounds of glass and concrete, broken fire hydrants spouting water. Most of the streets threading to the northeast part of the city were blocked. We couldn’t take the normal route around the cliffs to come at the university from the rear. And we couldn’t risk reversing our way through the city center again.
Our only shot was to run the intact streets to the base of the cliffs and figure it out from there.
At last we reached the outskirts of the city. The freeway on-ramp had collapsed into a spill of rubble. There’d be no moving forward. Not in the truck at least. Patrick parked in an alley splitting a housing project, and we climbed out and crept to the end.
Across the freeway was the bottom terminal for an aerial tram that forged up the steep hills to the cliffs beyond. Thick steel cables connected the intermediate supporting towers. Cut into the cliff face in the distance were steep switchbacks.
Way up at the top, we could see a few flat buildings—the fringe of campus.
They looked peaceful. Undisturbed.
I stared longingly at the tram. If we rode it up, we’d alert the entire city. I looked back at the switchbacks and sighed. “Gonna be a long hike.”
Patrick and Alex were looking at me but not replying.
And then I realized why.
In the reflection of their helmets, I saw the enormous Hatchling resolving from the alley wall to loom behind me.
I wheeled around, nearly losing my balance. Which, I’m sure, seemed most un-Drone-like. For a moment I’d forgotten that I was disguised by the armor.
The Hatchling leaned over me. I had to crane my neck to stare up at him.
His nostril holes quivered. Could he smell me?
I told myself not to move. Not that I could’ve done much anyway. When we’d hopped out to sneak a peek at the freeway, we’d stupidly left our weapons in the truck.
He leaned closer, closer, the horrid orange face bulging at me in the face mask’s fish-eye view. His mouth spread. The fangs were smaller than I would have thought, two jagged rows of triangles.
I steeled myself. The smallest flinch would give me away.
His face knocked my mask. All I saw was a smear of orange dotted with two nostril holes. The stench was overpowering. I could practically feel it taking up residence in my lungs. I held my breath.
I waited to feel a flurry of claws disemboweling me.
But instead he pulled back, leaving a dribble of orange mucus across my face mask.
The giant Hatchling swung next to Alex. He leaned over her, plastering his face to her mask as well.
She stood motionless.
He snuffled in an inhale and stepped back, seemingly appeased. He stepped to Patrick, his clawed feet tapping the pavement.
Same thing. Lean in, big sniff.
He started to back up. Then halted, his head cocking in that awful fashion. He lifted his hand, raising a single long finger. We stared at the point of the claw.
Slowly, he lowered his arm and slid the finger into the belly-button hole on Patrick’s suit.
Alex and I moved to tackle him.
But it was too late.
A quick jerk of his arm and he would impale Patrick.
We watched the ropy muscles of the Hatchling’s back tighten as he drove his finger through Patrick.
I cried out, the noise reverberating around my helmet.
But no—the Hatchling hadn’t shoved his hand into Patrick.
Patrick had shoved his hand into him.
More precisely, my brother had punched an armor-reinforced fist straight through the Hatchling’s chest.
For a moment they were frozen there, the Hatchling staring down at Patrick’s arm, sunk midway to the elbow through his rib cage.
Then Patrick ripped his fist out.
It was gripping the Hatchling’s heart.
An organic confusion of torn pipes and ventricles dripping orange sludge.
Patrick dropped the heart at the Hatchling’s feet.
Then he palmed the Hatchling’s face and shoved him to the side.
The Hatchling tilted over like a plank of wood.
Patrick wiped his gloved hand on his suit, his voice issuing from behind that blank face mask.
“Let’s go,” he said. “We got work to do.”