BY WILL McINTOSH
Kai knew better than to look up at the old man behind the counter to see if he was watching. That was a dead giveaway. Instead, Kai tracked him through the reflection in the cold case, which was no longer cold, because it was illegal to waste energy to keep drinks chilled.
The old guy had an underbite that made him look vaguely ape-ish; what grey hair he had was combed straight back in thin lines. He was watching Kai, frowning, suspicious. Kai knew he looked like a hungry kid who had no one taking care of him, but he couldn’t help it; he couldn’t find it in him to relax the scowl, to smile. This was also one time Kai’s size was probably a liability. Mom used to say he looked sixteen, not thirteen.
A wave of pain washed over him as he thought of his mom. Right now he didn’t even feel thirteen—he felt more like eight. He wanted his mommy, wanted her to rock him while he pressed his face against her long, soft hair. That’s all most kids wanted since the invasion began. There were no tough kids left, only scared kids. And desperate kids, like him.
The door to the convenience store creaked open; a chubby woman with a tattoo on her shoulder stepped in and went to the counter. Kai seized the opportunity, snaring three fat pieces of jerky and stuffing them under his jacket, pinning them under his left arm.
He rose, spent a moment looking at the drinks in the cold case, most of them home-made, the corporate logos printed on the bottles partially covered with white handwritten labels. Hurrying was another dead giveaway. He paused again on his way to the door, watched a news feed playing in 3-D above the front counter for a moment.
It was war footage of half a dozen Luyten storming a fusion plant. You almost never saw so many in one place. They were guerilla fighters; they lost some of their advantage when they clustered together, so when they attacked in force it usually meant they’d identified a target that was poorly defended.
Kai was repulsed by the sight of them—giant starfish, faceless, silent. Two were flying in their weird form-fitting six-and seven-pointed craft, while the rest were on the ground, galloping on three or four of their limbs, mostly staying behind vehicles or trees for cover, their free arms firing lightning bursts. Human soldiers were shooting wildly, knowing there was no point in taking aim, because the Luyten would just pluck their intentions out of their minds and evade the shot. If the soldiers had larger weapons—flame-blasters or 360 clusters—they’d have a chance. Then again, if they had larger weapons the Luyten would have known, and wouldn’t have attacked in the first place.
When he couldn’t stand to watch any more, Kai headed toward the door.
The old guy moved from behind the counter with surprising speed, beating Kai to the door, brandishing a stun gun.
“I didn’t see it, but I know you’ve got something.” He waved the gun. “Open your jacket.”
Kai wanted to tell the man he had no right to search him just because of the way he looked filthy and tired, but it was pointless to argue. He reached into his coat and pulled out the jerky.
The chubby woman with the rose tattoo tisked, shook her head. She’d moved over to watch.
“I’m a good kid. It’s just, my parents were killed when Richmond got overrun, and I don’t have anywhere to go.” In a shrill, childish whine he added, “I’m so hungry.”
The old guy plucked the jerky from Kai’s outstretched hand. “I don’t doubt what you’re saying. Times are hard.” He gestured toward the road with his chin. “Check with Refugee Services, see if they can give you some food.”
“Refugee Services is closed. It’s been closed since I got here. Please, let me have one?”
The man shook his head brusquely. “I can’t hand out food to everyone who’s hungry.” He gestured toward the door.
Kai looked out into the dark, cold, rainy night, and turned back. “Can I at least stay in here to keep warm? I won’t take anything, I promise.”
The man looked pained. “I can’t. I’ll lose my job if I do.”
Kai pushed the door open, tucked his chin against the cold. Empty hands buried in his jacket pockets, he hurried down the street, weaving to find a path through the piles of trash, most of it electronics that didn’t work, or took too much energy to operate. In the street vehicles whooshed silently past, but only occasionally, nothing like traffic had been before the invasion began.
He wasn’t sure where to go. He turned left at the end of the block to get off the main artery, passed apartment buildings, eyeing warm yellow lights inside windows covered with security mesh. Kai longed to be in one of those apartments, in a warm bed, but none sported the green sash that indicated refugees were welcome. They were all full, or, more likely, the families inside were ignoring President Wood’s plea to open their homes to people fleeing the Luyten.
The problem was, there were a lot more refugees now. Before Richmond fell, refugees had poured into the city as the starfish seized more and more of the outlying areas, and Kai and his family had done what they could to help them, like they were supposed to. Kai had shared his clothes with the refugees who were his age, brought them along to hang out with him and his friends. He could still remember how proud his mom was, how she smiled whenever he did something nice for one of the scared, shrunken kids who came down the road pulling a suitcase. Now that Kai was a refugee, there were just too many for that sort of kindness. Washington was packed with refugees.
It was so hard, getting used to each thing that was taken away. First, communication, when the Luyten took their satellites out. No way to speak to Grandma, or to Pauly, who’d been his best friend until last year. No way to pop into school via screen, when schools were still open. Then, as the Luyten choked off the routes between cities, no toothpaste, no food that arrived at the table ready to eat. Then the Luyten gained control of most of the solar and wind farms, the fusion and nuclear plants, and there wasn’t enough power to run the house AI, or Kabuki, his personal AI.
Now he had no warm bed, no food to eat at all.
He was heading away from the makeshift shanty camp where he’d stayed the past three nights. The camp was too far to reach in the cold and dark; he’d walked too far, trying to find a store where a clerk might be less vigilant of theft than the ones nearer the camp.
His toes were already numb, his shoes soaked from puddles he couldn’t see.
He wished he had someone with him. Anyone. If he could pick one person who was still alive, it wouldn’t be one of the cool friends he’d started hanging out with in the last year, it would be Pauly, who he’d known forever. Scrawny, goofy Pauly, who Kai had pretty much dropped, for no good reason. Mom had been disappointed in Kai when he ditched Pauly. She’d told him you don’t throw away friends.
What he wouldn’t give to have Pauly walking beside him right now. Kai wondered where he was right now, what he was doing.
There was an old brick and concrete building ahead, three separate dark, open bays of what must have once been an auto body shop, or a fire department. The building must have been a hundred years old. It had been a long time since things were built out of brick.
The first bay was nothing but a concrete floor, providing shelter from the rain, but little relief from the cold, gusty wind. There was a door sitting slightly ajar, up three concrete steps along the wall. Even if it was a tiny toilet room, it would be warmer, at least.
The door squealed when Kai nudged it open. The room stank of cigarettes. A woman was curled up in one corner of what had once been an office. She was partially covered by a corner of the wall-to-wall carpet, which she’d peeled up from the floor. In the faint light, Kai took in her swollen face, matted hair, her bulging, empty eyes, wide open and unblinking. He swung the door closed with a cry of disgust.
Skin prickling, he scurried down the steps and out of the bay, back into the biting rain.
There were two more bays. Kai didn’t like the thought of being so close to a dead body, but he was shivering uncontrollably from the cold. He couldn’t keep going. What were the odds he’d find another abandoned building?
There was a door in the second bay, but it led to a bathroom, not an office. The third and final bay had no inner doors at all, so Kai returned to the second, gathered up what scraps of paper he could find, along with a small cardboard box, and returned to the bathroom.
The room smelled dank, with an undertone of dried urine. Still shivering, Kai pulled a half-used roll of toilet paper off the dispenser and used it to dab his wet clothes. It wasn’t much help.
The room was too small for Kai to stretch out, so he curled his legs in, used a wadded-up juice carton as a pillow, piled the trash over his legs as best he could. It still felt strange to fall asleep gradually, rather than having sleep induced by his AI. He missed Kabuki almost as much as he missed Pauly, though not nearly as much as he missed his mom. He knew Kabuki wasn’t real, was nothing but a bunch of chips designed to say pleasant things and follow directions, but he’d been a part of Kai’s life for as long as he could remember.
Kai was freezing. He couldn’t stop shaking; his hissing breath echoed off the half-tiled walls.
An image flashed, of the woman in the next bay. She must have frozen to death, maybe last night. And she had a carpet.
There was a draft whistling through the space where Kai had left the door open a crack. It would be warmer if he closed it, but he would lose the sliver of grey light. He didn’t want to be in the pitch dark.
He couldn’t understand how this was happening. A week ago he’d been in his warm bed in Richmond; his mother had tucked him in, told him not to worry about Dad, who was with his brigade less than forty miles away between Richmond and the Luyten surge. A day later he was on a bus roaring down I-95 packed with kids and old people.
There was no point in crying, but he couldn’t help it. The sound of his own crying made him feel worse. What was he going to do? Why wouldn’t anyone tell him what to do, where to go?
Did you smell?
Kai cried out, jolted upright. He hadn’t thought the words, they’d just come, raking through his head like steel fingernails on glass.
She’s smoke. Lighter.
Kai clamped his palms over his ears. His soaked pants were suddenly warm; he was vaguely aware he’d wet himself.
Build fire.
It felt like there was something crawling around in his head. Kai sat frozen, trembling, praying it wouldn’t happen again.
Or you die.
Kai howled in terror. He didn’t understand what was happening to him.
Happening to you. Kai. Freezing.
His teeth were chattering; his whole body was shaking from the cold, from fear. The voice went on, about the cold, about Kai dying, about fire. There was enough trash around to burn, but he had nothing to start a fire.
She’s smoker. Lighter.
A lighter was what he needed.
You dead this morning. Do you Kai?
The voice had asked him something. Kai was afraid if he didn’t answer, the voice might get angry, might do something to him. Drive him crazy, pull him down into whatever dark, awful place it came from. Something about the voice was so terribly wrong, so profoundly off. It was as if the words were jagged, scraping the inside of his head.
You do?
“No, I don’t want to be dead,” Kai said aloud, the volume of his own voice in the tight space making him flinch.
She smoked. Lighter.
Maybe he was already crazy. This was just what it was like, wasn’t it? Voices in your head?
Lighter. Her pocket.
Kai jolted. Her pocket. Suddenly he understood what the voice was saying. She smoked. The dead woman smoked. He’d smelled smoke in there, hadn’t he? The voice was telling him there was a lighter in her pocket.
Yes.
He didn’t want to go back in that room. She was dead; her eyes were bulging—
Or you die. Go.
Kai shoved the door open, peered into the bay, half-expecting to see something crouching there, waiting for him, but there was nothing but concrete, shadows, the howling wind.
Crouching against the wind, Kai marched into the next bay, his heart in his throat. He climbed the steps, put his hand on the knob, twisted it partway.
Maybe the voice lived in the bathroom. Maybe if he didn’t go back it couldn’t get him, couldn’t talk to him—
Wrong. Go on.
Kai gripped the handle tighter. It was ice cold. He twisted it, pushed the door open a foot.
There she was. He pushed the door open further, took a step into the room. She was old, maybe sixty, Hispanic or maybe Indian. The tip of her tongue was jutting from between her blue lips.
He didn’t want to do this; he’d rather freeze to death than stick his fingers in her pocket and feel her body. Would it be squishy or stiff?
The voice was silent, but he knew if he waited it would speak to him again, would tell him to get the lighter. It might even yell at him. That would be awful. He had to do it. Quickly—as quick as he could. Kai’s breath was coming in quick, rattling gasps. He took a deep breath and held it, stood paralyzed for a moment.
Do it.
The voice was like a shove at his back. Kai scurried to the body, squatted.
Other one, the voice said before Kai even had time to lift his left hand. He reached with his right, slipped two fingers into her pocket.
Her hip felt stiff through the denim of her jeans. It didn’t feel as bad as he’d feared, but it was still bad. He felt the pointed tip of the lighter, but couldn’t reach it.
Pull her flat.
That would mean touching her, really touching her. Kai so desperately didn’t want to do that.
Whimpering, he scooted back, grasped her feet by her tattered shoes, squeezed his eyes closed. As soon as he pulled, the shoes slipped off. His belly roiling with disgust, he half-flung, half-dropped them, then grasped her spongy, swollen ankles and pulled.
The body slid forward inch-by-inch, then suddenly her head lolled to the left and she dropped, hard, to the floor. Not thinking, just wanting to get it over with, Kai shoved his hand into her pocket, closed his fingers around the long, thin lighter.
A moment later he was in the bay, running.
Trash for fire.
The voice was right—this bay had much more trash than the others. Kai ran around picking up as much as he could carry before returning to the second bay.
Moments later, he had a small fire burning. The heat felt marvelous on his fingers, his cheeks, his nose. The orange light pushed back the shadows and the darkness, made a place that was his in a way he couldn’t put into words.
Better. Yes. Collect more trash.
Kai did as he was told, checking the last bay and returning with another armful of trash, set it in a pile near the fire.
Now sleep. I’ll watch you for danger.
The voice was horrible, but the words were reassuring, and they were growing clearer, less grating. Kai lay down, closed his eyes. He was so tired.
It would watch over him. How would it watch? Where were its eyes, Kai wondered?
He was drifting off, his front side warm, his back and feet still stiff with damp cold. The voice would watch over him.
Kai jolted upright, suddenly knowing whose voice it was.
I won’t hurt you.
They knew what you were thinking. But Kai had never heard of one speaking to someone. Never. Not on the news, not from anyone.
We can if we want.
It heard everything he thought. There was no way for Kai to stop thinking, no shelter from it. It was in his head. They could read your mind until you were a few miles away. Kai pressed one hand to the cold ground. He had to—
If you run, I will hurt you.
Kai froze, a trickle of dread running through him.
“Where are you?” he whispered.
Close.
Kai sat utterly frozen, afraid to move, afraid to breathe.
Sleep.
• • •
Kai pried the flagstone loose from the walk that meandered through the church’s walled garden. The small, square key was underneath, just as the Luyten said it would be. He plucked it from its hiding spot, headed for the back door of the church.
Not there. Back the other way. Walk along the wall.
Kai did as he was told, his mouth watering with anticipation despite the wild guilt he felt. A church.
There was a small graveyard set inside a low, ornamental fence. Ivy covered the fence and crawled along the ground.
There. Behind the statue.
Behind a mold-stricken statue of an angel with spread wings was a raised concrete circle with a steel cover. Looking around first, though it was probably unnecessary, Kai approached the cover, inserted the key into the hole, and pulled the hatch open.
The cover lifted fairly easily, revealing a dark hole, a ladder leading down. Kai climbed to the bottom, a dozen or so feet below the ground. He was surrounded by shelves of food—dried, packaged meals, like the ones soldiers ate.
Whose are these? he thought. It was confusing, to speak to it without speaking. There was no line dividing what he wanted to say and what he just wanted to think.
The pastor. Speak out loud if you prefer, but quietly.
“Why is this food down here?” Kai whispered, relieved.
Because he doesn’t want to share it. Take six.
Hands shaking with anticipation, Kai grabbed the meals, struggled up the ladder one-handed, headed for the gate.
Not yet. Go toward the church.
“I don’t want to get caught,” Kai whispered.
I know where everyone is. Go.
Kai went. The voice directed him along the back of the church, to a dirt- and leaf-covered black steel grate in the ground along the back wall.
Open the grate. Drop four down.
Drop them. Why on Earth would he do that?
Realization swept over him with an icy chill. It was down there. Hiding. Probably hurt.
I’m in trouble, just like you. I’m alone and afraid, just like you.
• • •
As Kai knocked on the door, he told himself he had no choice but to do what the Luyten told him. It hadn’t made any threats, but it was huge, and powerful, and he was just a kid.
A woman answered the door. She was Asian like him, a streak of grey running through her long hair. More importantly, the aroma of fish and rice wafted through the door from a nearby kitchen.
Her name is Mrs. Boey. Tell her you have a message from her daughter. Valerie.
“Mrs. Boey? My name is Kai. I have a message from your daughter Valerie.”
The woman’s expression transformed. “You heard from my baby?” She opened the door, put a hand on Kai’s shoulder and led him inside.
Valerie is outside Richmond, alive. She helped you escape. She asked you to tell her mother she’s sorry about the argument they had before she left.
Is Valerie alive, Kai thought.
Probably not.
With a crippling knot of guilt in his stomach, Kai told Mrs. Boey her daughter was alive and well, as a dozen people sitting elbow-to-elbow around a kitchen table looked on. Food was already on the table, and after Kai delivered his news the woman had little choice but to invite him to share their meal. The food was delicious; Kai ate voraciously, every chopstick-full sticking in his throat on the way down as he watched Mrs. Boey across the table, smiling, probably eating more easily than she had at any time since her sixteen year-old daughter left to battle the Luyten four months earlier.
He should tell them, he thought. He should blurt out that there was a Luyten hiding under the church. Once it was out, there was nothing it could do. It was the enemy. It and its kind wanted to wipe out everyone on Earth, and they were succeeding—
If you tell her, you’ll go back to being cold and hungry.
Kai didn’t want to be hungry again. More than that, he didn’t want to be alone in the dark, stumbling through places where there might be dead bodies.
“Do you have family nearby?” an old, bent woman asked Kai.
“No. I have an aunt and uncle in Connecticut, but it’s too far.”
I’m not a soldier. I haven’t killed anyone.
It was not the first time the Luyten had told him this.
It claimed it had been shot out of the sky, part of a small contingent of Luyten on a night reconnaissance mission over D.C. The military knew a Luyten had been shot down in the area and they were hunting for it. For Scout, he reminded himself. It had asked Kai to call it Scout. It must have been injured in the crash, but it wouldn’t say.
After the meal, Mrs. Boey said, “I’d ask you to stay, but as you can see, there’s just no room.” She gestured toward her relatives, most of them young or very old.
Kai told her he understood, and followed her to the door carrying the left-over food she had given him.
As he headed toward the back of the church, Kai wondered if Scout had purposely chosen a house where Kai was likely to get food, but not a place to sleep. If someone took Kai in, he would have less incentive to protect Scout’s secret.
Yes, Scout said. I don’t want to die. I’m just as afraid to die as you are.
“Why are you doing this to us?” Kai whispered, although there was no one to hear him—the street was cold and empty, the orange glowlights along the sidewalk his only guide in the darkness. “Can’t we share the world? Why do you have to have it all to yourselves?”
We would have done that gladly, but we know your minds. Do you really think your kind would have taken us in as refugees? They won’t even take you in.
Kai pulled open the grate leading to the church’s basement and dropped the food Mrs. Boey had given him into the darkness.
• • •
Wake up. Scout’s message was deafening, like an alarm set too loud.
Kai lifted himself from the cold concrete, looked groggily into the street, where mist crawled close to the pavement. “It’s the middle of the night.”
Soldiers are coming with spotlights. Hide in the bathroom.
Still half asleep, Kai gathered the towels and blanket he’d pilfered from an apartment using a key hidden by its owner and hurried into the bathroom.
A few minutes later Kai heard the purr of engines. Two all-terrain crawlers rolled past, flashing spotlights as soldiers scanned the buildings with night glasses. Kai pulled the bathroom door closed.
“How do they know where to find you?”
My heat signature. I have a baffle, but I can’t run it all the time.
“Why not?”
The crawlers purred away. Kai wondered if Scout was debating whether to trust him. He wondered if it should.
I trust you now. But after I leave, or I’m killed, you’ll tell your people what you’ve learned about me. If I’m gone, probably they won’t believe you. But if I’m caught, they will.
Kai immediately thought to lie, to claim he wouldn’t tell. Then he caught himself, remembered lying was impossible.
Talking to you was a betrayal of my kind. I feel deeply ashamed. I was alone, in terrible pain. I was afraid to die.
Was Kai betraying his kind, by keeping Scout’s secret? He was sure he was, although it wasn’t as if Scout was a threat, hiding under a church, cut off.
To answer your question, I’m almost out of power. That’s why I can’t run the baffle all of the time.
Kai had gotten accustomed to the sensation of Scout speaking in his head. It wasn’t as unpleasant as it had been at first. It reminded him of how he’d grown to like hot sauce on his chili. The first time he’d tried hot sauce it had been awful, burning his tongue and lips, making his eyes water. But the stinging had grown pleasant.
When he pictured where the voice was coming from, though, when he pictured that giant starfish crawling around under the church…
That made him dizzy with fear.
“I don’t understand why you don’t just sneak out of the city, if you know where everyone is.”
I am large, and a novel sight. I can’t evade the eyes of every person who might look out their window.
That made sense. “So how will you ever escape?”
Unless one of my kind enters my range so I can contact it, I won’t.
• • •
It was morning when Scout woke him again.
They’re coming back. More of them. Many more.
Kai peered out at the rectangle of street visible from his sleeping spot, at the passing vehicles, the faded pod-style apartment complex across the street. “Will they find you?
Yes, probably. You should get away now, before they come. Otherwise they might question you about what you’ve seen or heard. Their eyegear is equipped with vocal stress-detectors, so they’ll know you’re lying. I don’t want you to get in trouble because you were kind to me. Go now, through the back.
Kai gathered up his bedding and ran out through the back side of the bay, into waist-high milkweeds that choked the space between the garage and the building behind it.
The telltale whisper of an ultralight copter grew louder as Kai pushed onto the sidewalk and turned right, up a hill.
You should feel proud, Scout said. We should both feel proud. We were kind to each other, despite everything. I’m not ashamed to call you my friend.
A line of army crawlers appeared at the top of the hill, the crawlers’ legs tucked, their big wheels spinning.
Kai watched them pass, his emotions in a tangle. He would miss Scout, would miss its company at night, but he was also relieved to be getting away. He wanted to be free of the terrible guilt that he was betraying his people, although he would probably always feel guilty for consorting with the enemy. What would people think, if they found out?
Kai heard shouted orders. A moment later a squad of soldiers trotted around the corner. Head down, he pressed close to the buildings to let them pass. They were young, but not kids. Soldiers in their prime. There weren’t many of them left.
What if a soldier asked him directly if he’d seen or heard anything? Would he lie to protect Scout? Scout probably knew the answer to that better than Kai did.
Maybe that was why Scout told Kai to leave, not out of concern for him, but because Scout was afraid Kai would betray it.
That’s not true. I’m trying to protect you.
Down the hill, Kai could see the church, had a partial view beyond the fence, into the garden. Two soldiers were in there, but they didn’t seem to know where to look. Scout’s baffle must still be working.
I’m using the last of my power reserve to operate it. It won’t last much longer, but maybe long enough.
One of the soldiers was a woman. Asian. It could be that woman’s daughter. What was her name? Valerie. If those two soldiers went into the basement, would Scout kill them?
I’m not a soldier. I’m not a fighter.
Kai would, if they were Luyten, coming to kill him. In an instant.
He took a step toward the church, then hesitated. What should he do? Both choices seemed wrong.
He closed his eyes, pictured his mom. What would she want him to do? What she would want was what he should do. You don’t throw away friends, she’d told him once. But wasn’t it wrong to be friends with a Luyten in the first place? They’d killed her, and Dad too.
Opening his eyes, he headed down the hill, toward the church.
Kai, please. Don’t. I just want to go home. I just want to see my mother. Now that I know you, I could never help them.
As Kai pushed through the gate, the soldiers turned, their weapons pointed at the ground.
“Go back to your home—” the Asian soldier started to say.
“It’s in there,” Kai said, pointing at the church. “In the cellar.”
Both soldiers were suddenly wide-eyed alert.
They’ll kill me. Please. They’ll burn me.
“You saw it?” the other soldier, a black man, said.
“I—” Kai struggled to describe how he knew. “I heard it.”
We’re friends.
The Asian soldier was babbling into her com, repeating what Kai had just said, then giving their location.
“Promise you won’t hurt it. It’s just a scout—not a soldier.”
The two soldiers gawked at Kai like he was nuts, as a dozen others stormed through the gate.
“The cellar?” a gray haired soldier called as they ran by.
“That’s what the kid says.”
They threw open the hatch, and soldiers poured down the steps.
They’re coming. I’m scared, Kai. I’m so scared.
Kai bolted toward the church. “Don’t hurt it.”
Why?
There were urgent shouts in the cellar, a sudden roar, a hot orange flash.
It burst through the open hatch into the bright sunlight like a monster from a nightmare. It was on fire, the flames growing higher as it fed them with fresh air, a great starfish galloping through the garden.
The soldiers in the garden peppered it with weapon fire until black blood was pouring from a dozen wounds. Kai screamed at them to stop, his shouts drowned out by the roar of the flames, the crackle of the weapons, and Scout, screaming in his mind.
As Scout finally lost his footing and rolled to the grass, Kai noticed that one of its limbs was missing. Ragged sutures ran across the stump. Scout must have lost the limb in the crash, then sewn it up while lying under the church.
Kai sobbed uncontrollably, babbling, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
“What’s the hell is the matter with you?” one of the soldiers asked. They were staring at him, looking confused, disgusted.
“You didn’t have to kill it. It was hurt, and it was just a scout, not a soldier.”
“Maybe we should have read it its fucking rights,” the soldier said.
Kai looked at the thing smoldering on the ground. He swallowed, wondered if he’d done the right thing, wondered if his mother would be proud.