Mari drifted into consciousness, sensing the tension in the room. She’d been propped against a pillow, but her feet were atop one of the men’s legs. For a minute she let herself lie still, taking every scrap of comfort she could get, as if wrapping her hands around the lingering warmth of a just-emptied coffee cup on a winter’s morning. Her only regret was that both Twins weren’t there.
Reluctantly, she pulled away, sitting up and stretching. The sun was beginning to fade, late afternoon rays glinting in Finn’s dark green eyes as he looked down at her. “Hey, beautiful.”
She couldn’t resist a smile. When had she last felt so loved, so safe? It was strange to feel safe in a besieged City, but Finn’s presence bolstered her confidence like nothing else. “Hi. Sorry for conking out on you.”
“Not a big deal. I think you needed the extra rest. Even Patrice went to her bedroom to lie down.”
“Where’s Gareth?” Mari scanned the room, anxious to see the other Twin.
Finn didn’t answer for a long moment. She glanced at his profile, trying to gauge what was wrong.
“Did you find it?” she whispered.
Finn nodded. “It’s in my jacket pocket.”
She resisted the urge to lean away from him. Those stupid, stupid devices. He probably thought her father had been a total idiot to have kept the one he’d found, and even more of an idiot to hide it somewhere in the City.
Mari swallowed. “Where’s Gareth?”
“Gareth went to the walls. He’s concerned about them holding up. We’ve contacted the Complex and asked for rapid transport out of here, but it will still take at least twenty-four hours to arrange pickup.”
“You…plan to leave in the next day, then.” What happened to a week?
“Yeah.” He pulled a thin triangle out of his jacket and held it up. “Look at this.”
The world seemed to ice over. “Oh my God.” The words were a strangled murmur, barely forced out through a thick throat. “So Dad was right—Patrice’s daughter did have one of the devices.”
“Yes, although this one looks different from the one Dr. Aquino sketched in his diary. Gareth briefed the Complex, and their theory is that they have something to do with each other. They also agree that the aliens can track these things—so Scar City has two things the Barks desperately want.”
“Or two halves, like my dad theorized.”
“Or that,” Finn agreed. “Kind of hard to know for certain.”
The air seemed lighter, easier to breathe. So her father hadn’t singlehandedly brought down the alien’s wrath upon this City. The aliens had been tracking Patrice’s device as well. She only wished she could have told him before he’d passed away. Maybe then he’d have died feeling less guilty.
“So what happens now?” she asked.
“We defend the walls. Preferably while you sleep.” Gareth strode in, his normally serious face even grimmer. “And the powers that be want a closer look at what’s causing all this ruckus.”
Mari watched as he turned the triangular apparatus this way and that. When he flipped it downward to carefully examine the outermost edge, she gasped. “That’s what he meant by failsafe! The device he found is one half, just like he theorized. Look, if you turn it that way, you can see it isn’t designed to be used on its own. It’s designed to slot into—into another one, just like the strange door hinges on the spaceship I accidentally opened.”
The Twins digested that in silence. Then Gareth flicked a gaze her way. “Nice thinking.”
It wasn’t lavish praise, but she glowed all the same. “It was my father who thought of it. He probably experimented with the one he had until he figured it out. He must have been really disappointed when he couldn’t get hold of the other half—and then terrified when he realized the aliens must be tracking them.”
Jorge Aquino had been a peaceable, intelligent man who’d enjoyed building and inventing as a hobby. That was actually one of her earliest memories—him bent over the kitchen table, wiring some crazy contraption together. He’d been at it until after her bedtime with single-minded focus, to her mother’s gentle exasperation.
“Good design, actually,” Finn was saying. “Halving the device means the aliens can’t set it off by accident, and it forces their leaders to work together, spreading the power out.”
“I’d like to have been a fly on the wall when the bastards found out Mari’s dad stole the other half.” Gareth held the device up to his commtablet until it emitted a faint beep. “There, pictures taken. Let them chew on that for the night.”
“While arranging transport, I hope.” Finn’s voice was mild, but Mari felt that edge of tension.
“Either way, we’ve gotta hold out another night. No way around it. It’s just a shame we can’t find Dr. Aquino’s half. Wait, what the hell? The thing beeped.”
“It did?” Mari blurted. She hadn’t heard a thing, but apparently the Twins had.
“Really faint.” Gareth picked it up again. “Hey, maybe it can track the other half.”
“It’s probably calling to its alien masters.” Finn’s voice held a warning. “Mari, do you want to come with us or stay here?”
“Come with,” she said at the same time Gareth said, “Stay here.” They glared at each other briefly.
“She’ll be safer with us.” Finn settled the argument in an uncharacteristically brusque manner. “Let’s leave a note for Patrice and get this done with.”
The last of her sleep-induced bleariness wore off the instant she stepped into the street. Dusk was beginning to fall, and even the most hardcore junkies had found a nook to retire to, leaving the streets deserted. A stiff breeze roiled up a layer of old garbage, blowing faded plastic bags past their boots as they walked.
“Beeping’s increased,” Gareth said.
“What did Command say about us finding this stupid thing?” Finn tucked Mari under his arm, keeping her between the two men, much to her pleasure.
“The leaders are very eager. They want us to report any results immediately, make this mission priority.” Gareth shrugged. “I think Dr. Felton has a hand in it. He’s fascinated with anything alienkind.”
“And doesn’t mind risking humankind to satisfy his curiosity,” Finn said dryly. “Fine. Let’s assume if the frequency of beeps increases, we’re either getting closer to the aliens—or its other half. Mari, any ideas where your father might have left his device?”
She mulled the question over as they turned the corner. “He spent a lot of time at the walls. I’d say he either buried it there or at our old place near the middle of the town. He wrote that he couldn’t bear letting the aliens have it back, so probably he’s left it near the wall in the hopes that if the aliens did breach the City, they’d grab it and not go rampaging through the middle. At least, not on the device’s account.”
A pang of grief caught her unexpectedly, making her throat tight. Her father hadn’t been perfect, but she’d always admired his thoughtfulness and thoroughness. His death was forcing her to come to terms with her mother’s passing as well. At least she’d been able to scatter their ashes together. Cremation had been something they’d both insisted upon, since Barks dug up corpses and ate them, regardless of formaldehyde. So they were together again, their ashes eddying across Arizona.
Regrettably, Mari hadn’t had the courage to construct a memorial outside the City walls. Born partly of necessity, partly of defiance, City denizens had replaced graveyards with memorial gardens, where hand-carved plaques and statues immortalized lost loved ones. Mari had commissioned a plaque for her father, but her terror of being outside the walls had stopped her from placing it personally in Flagstaff’s memorial garden.
Someday, she promised her parents, and held tight to Finn and Gareth.
“Where did you used to live, Mari?” Gareth asked. “We ought to swing by, see if the beeping changes.”
“Okay. I recognize this area. If we keep going this way, I can lead us there.”
They walked past a burned-out supermarket. Everything here was looted within an inch of its life, but Mari remembered scavenging a candy bar wedged between the top shelves of a nearby store. She and her parents had shared it that evening. Letting memory guide her, she led the Twins onward.
“Here.” She almost didn’t recognize it, but that was definitely her apartment building, with its scarred door and small windows. What would her life have been like if her parents had stayed in this place?
A man shouted nearby, and a rat scuttled across old broken glass, its bare tail flicking as it disappeared down a grate. A pair of junkies stared sullenly from the stairwell, their pale eyes and shaky hands marking them as frequent users of Turquoise.
“It’s not located around here.” Gareth broke the silence. “The beeping is slower, if anything.”
“Back toward the walls, then. You okay, Mari?”
She managed a weak smile for Finn. “I’m remembering, is all. Wondering what I might be like if we had stayed here.”
“Worse off,” was Gareth’s fierce opinion. His green eyes raked her with that typical possessiveness of his, his grip on her arm tightening. “Let’s get you out of here.”
Their first clue that something was really wrong was the increased activity at the wall. The place swarmed with soldiers and armed civilians. Technicians threw wires around, working to stow away the solar panels and set up UV lights…but even to Mari, they looked woefully underprepared.
One of the soldiers strode toward them, his sharp gaze assessing. “Only the one pair of you? It might be enough to hold the walls tonight, but we need a long-term solution.”
“We weren’t sent to hold the walls—we’re on a priority mission. And a good evening to you too.” Finn glanced over at his brother with what seemed to Mari to be a quelling gaze.
The soldier scrubbed at his face. “Sorry, my manners are a little short. We’re in trouble. We flew a glider reconnaissance mission near dusk, and our pilot spotted a huge goddamn mass of Barks assembling in the shadow of the hills. So forgive me for saying this straight, but your priority mission ought to come second to staying alive.”
Some of the tension left Gareth’s arm, and both men nodded. “Okay, fair enough,” Finn said.
“I’m Ramsey, by the way. Sergeant John Ramsey. You the ones who put in that evacuation request?”
“We are.”
“I did too, about an hour behind you. Crazy how it seems to deteriorate so quickly. Couple of weeks ago, I figured this place had another six months in her. Now…well.” Ramsey scrubbed at his face again. “I was there when Detroit fell. Got out by the skin of my teeth.”
“Lot of survivors got out of Detroit,” Gareth observed. “Your doing?”
Ramsey only shrugged. “Maybe in part. We had some luck on our side—and heavier equipment than we have here. I’d be obliged if you would take a look at our current setup, maybe help us get a battle plan going.”
The sergeant led them up several flights of concrete stairs, pausing occasionally to advise another soldier or lend a hand with a stray solar panel or cord. Two people winched up a large concrete block, wedging it into a gap near the middle of the wall.
“Thank God for small mercies,” Ramsey said, nodding toward the repairs going on. “We’ve got plenty of concrete and other building materials available. Those sons of bitches—pardon my language—do a real number on our walls. Those sucker legs look soft, but they can whip a man’s head off. You can imagine what six of them, times several hundred, do to concrete over nine plus hours of darkness.”
“We’ve seen a few up close,” Gareth replied dryly.
“Yeah.” Ramsey shook his head as if waking up from a dream. “Of course you have. I’ve been dealing with rookies for months…lots of new recruits. Happy to have them, obviously, but I’ve been in the habit of explaining the nuts and bolts of everything for months now.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Finn said, but the concern in his eyes belied his easygoing words. “We’ll help as much as possible. Can you give us a list of soldiers? And maybe some extra UV lasers?”
“You got it. I’ll give you a private room and maybe you can jerry-rig us up something. There’s a lot of half-working parts that we haven’t had the time to fix up. This location means we have plenty of juiced-up batteries, so there’s that at least.”
Ramsey pulled out a set of keys and unlocked a badly fitted iron door, leading them into a kind of turret room. It held a table, chairs and piles of parts. Mari blinked at the jumble, wondering how on earth the Twins would be able to do anything with all those wires, cracked bulbs, metal rods and other things. But the men seemed confident, striding in and pulling out chairs.
“Here’s the list,” Ramsey said, pulling out several folded pieces of paper. “And the key to the room. Feel free to lock yourselves in and get to work—but remember to get the key back to me. If we live through the night.”
The sergeant let out a harsh chuckle at his own grim joke, peeling the key off the ring and dropping it on the table. Mari nearly winced at the loud clang the metal made against the wood. Was the situation really that dire?
“Evacuation in less than twenty-four.” Gareth’s voice was calm, soothing the edgy mood in the room. “We concentrate on getting through the night, then we can refocus on the bigger picture.”
“I’m on it. See you on the wall.” Ramsey snapped a crisp salute and turned on his heel, closing the door behind him.
“You’re more diplomatic than I am sometimes, you know,” Finn said to his brother.
“He was recently promoted. Leadership is stressing him out.”
“How do you know that?” Finn asked.
Mari listened to them chat, trying to quell the fear she felt at the idea of the walls falling. She twisted a wire in her hand, wishing she could turn it into a weapon, yet the thought of actually using it on the aliens made her skin crawl. She had her gun tucked into the waistband of her skirt, but that was small comfort.
“I’m not the only one who hacks in and reads confidential records.” Gareth cracked a rare grin, then sobered. “The woman in charge of Reno was killed two months ago while undertaking a wide patrol. Ramsey’s likely her replacement. Anyhow…let’s get to work. We can do a lot with these parts.”
“You can?” Mari blurted.
“Yep. Would be nice if we could put you to work as well. You can help me, and we’ll compete against Gareth.” Finn reached out to tug her chair nearer his.
Mari snorted but complied. She began rummaging through the jumble, locating promising pieces and sorting them into piles at the end of the table. The Twins pulled repair kits from their leather jackets, and Mari tried not to imagine how much her father would have envied those kits. It wasn’t long before they managed to construct two things that looked to Mari’s untrained eye to be suitably lethal.
Wordlessly, she handed Finn a screw, watching closely as he tightened a joint in his contraption. It looked vaguely like an oversized gun, with dual bulbs at the front.
“Close your eyes,” Finn ordered. There was a zap, and a flash that she saw behind her shut eyelids.
“Not bad,” Gareth said. “Gonna suck up a lot of battery juice, though. Mine’s more efficient.”
The way they affectionately competed against each other, extolling the virtues of their separate inventions, made Mari smile. Yet even as she felt herself begin to relax, lulled by their solid, protective company, the sound of Barks in the distance made her tense up.
“Well, they’re here. I’m going to take a quick stroll, see what’s up on the wall.” Gareth scooped up his invention, hesitating at the door. “Lock yourselves in. I don’t know the soldiers here, and I don’t trust some of them not to freak out and do something idiotic.” His gaze caressed Mari briefly.
She sat, bending an old wire in her hands, as Finn went to the door to lock it behind his brother. Slowly, idly, a dog took shape between her fingers, complete with wire ears and a stub tail. Bending one hind leg into shape, she suddenly registered Finn’s gaze.
“That’s neat,” he said. “Do you mind if I keep it?”
“It’s not useful,” Mari muttered. She slid the dog across the table, abruptly hating it.
“Sweetheart…useful isn’t the be-all and end-all in this world. There has to be beauty too. Otherwise what would we live for?” Finn pulled her chair even closer, so that the wood banged up against his own seat and their thighs were pressed together.
When she startled again at the howling of Barks, Finn began stroking her back, a comforting gesture. She leaned into him and simply absorbed his presence, grateful that her life had finally taken a turn for the better. What if she’d taken the train a day earlier? Or if the Twins hadn’t been aboard?
“Hey. Easy with the overthinking.” Finn whispered the words right against her ear, making her shiver. He followed the command up with a tiny nibble of her lobe.
“I can’t help but overthink. Life could be so different.” Even her protest was weak, just as her knees were beginning to be.
“Yeah, life could be all crazy kinds of different. The aliens could have headed in the opposite direction or we could have fought them off more successfully. Those possibilities don’t change the fact that we are here, now. Together.”
This time, his lips strayed to her cheek, kissing a line toward her mouth, which he accessed by tilting her chin gently but firmly toward him. And she was lost in his warmth instantly. Gravity skewed as he pulled her atop his lap, never relinquishing contact for a second. Mari settled atop his muscular thighs, the bulge at his crotch brushing tantalizingly against her sex. She was wearing a skirt, so all they’d have to do was pull down her underwear and unzip his fly…
Mari halted that train of thought. Should they, without Gareth? It seemed wrong, somehow, to leave him out.
Anchoring herself on Finn’s strong shoulders, she pulled away with a Herculean effort. “Gareth,” she panted. “He’s not here.”
“He’s currently pacing the walls, pissed off that the Complex hasn’t bothered to scramble a cargo plane for us yet.”
Mari blinked. She’d thought Gareth seemed a bit subdued, but tension was running high. She hadn’t considered he might be seething.
“But we…should we wait for him?”
“I’d rather go back to what we were doing.” Finn’s hands were under her skirt, toying with the waistband of her underpants. “This will bring him running far faster than anything else. It’s hard to maintain a good grumpy mood while sporting a huge boner.”
Finn’s phrasing made her giggle. “Oh. So he won’t mind?”
“Nope. But,” he said, sobering a little, “you should realize that we’re really a package deal here, sweetheart. Twins rarely get sick, we’re robust as hell, and we have large appetites.”
No doubt someone who had grown up fully in pre-apocalyptic times could have responded to that statement with something light and flirty. Mari could only nod. “I don’t mind,” she said. “I—I like that.”
Apparently her response was enough to satisfy Finn, for he leaned forward again with a smile. With deft fingers, he tugged her underwear down her thighs, nostrils flaring in eager response. Mari traced the outline of his erection through his black jeans, unzipping his fly with some difficulty.
“Yeah, that’s the way,” Finn said, his voice throaty, harsh. “Should have brought that vibrator with me, kept you boiling hot, but you’re ready enough.” He slipped one unexpected finger inside her, made a come-hither motion with it that had her arcing her back and gasping with pleasure.
Eager to reciprocate, she eased his cock through the fly of his boxers and into the open, undoing the button at his waistband to allow greater access. Finn hissed as she stroked down his shaft, eyes slitting in pleasure. The windowless room was hot after baking all day, and evening hadn’t lasted long enough to cool it down, so they were both sheened with a light sweat now.
He didn’t enter her right away, but toyed with her until she was uncontrollably wriggly, desperate for him to—she stiffened suddenly, knowing she was on the edge. “Finn, please,” she managed.
The Twin made a series of strokes across her clit, and the world clenched and released. She didn’t have any time to come down from it before he was lifting her onto his cock, entering her brutally, thoroughly. She moaned, wrapping her arms around his neck.
“Gonna fuck you hard, fast, dirty,” he said, speaking just past her right ear. “Time enough at the Complex to make you beg for us. Tonight’s for relief. To prove that you’re mine. Ours.”
Her lips formed the word yes, but she didn’t quite have the courage to speak the word. She closed her eyes as pleasure began to ramp up again, driven by the unrelenting pace of his cock, the way he held her waist and moved her to his pleasure.
He tensed as he came, his loud sigh filling the room. Caught up in what seemed like a spell, Mari did her best to tamp down her spiked arousal. But he noticed. Of course he would notice.
“Easy, sweetheart.” He kissed her, held her in a lingering embrace. “So hot.”
The rattle of keys in the door made her jump, but Finn remained unfazed. Gareth came in so fast he made her head whirl, his eyes blazing down at them both.
“Goddamn, Finn. I could feel every inch of that. Had to get away from the soldiers I was instructing.”
“You didn’t seem very hurried.” Finn’s grin was lazy, and he lifted her, sliding out of her and cupping her sex. She responded with a gasp and a moan and an involuntary movement of her hips.
“I am now. Fuck. Gonna come fast and hard.”
The transition from one Twin to the other was so smooth that Mari barely registered the difference. But she wrapped her arms around Gareth. “I’m glad you came,” she said.
“Haven’t come yet,” was his wry response. He backed her against the wall, the concrete soothingly cool against her back. “Wrap your legs around me. Ah God. Yeah. Now undo my fly.”
Gareth wasted no time thrusting into her, and she welcomed the invasion with a moan. She had no idea how Finn had done it, but she was balancing on the edge again, wanting, needing. But the concrete was unyielding, becoming rapidly uncomfortable against her shoulder blades. She made a sound of protest.
“Let me.” Finn moved to her side and the Twins settled her so that Finn was leaning against the wall, sandwiching her between them. One strong hand supported her opened thighs; the other pulled up her blouse, exposing her breasts to the warm air. Gareth’s free hand immediately toyed with her nipple, making her clench against his hard cock.
“Y-you said you’d fuck me fast and hard,” Mari stammered.
“And dirty,” Finn clarified. “This isn’t dirty enough for you?”
“Vibrator up her ass next time,” Gareth said. “I love feeling her so tight.”
Mari couldn’t think of a response, lost as she was in utter desire. It felt decadent to be held by one Twin while being fucked by the other, and both of them caressed her body, working in tandem to heighten her pleasure.
“Scream when you come,” Finn invited, pressing a kiss to her neck. “Too much going on outside for anyone to overhear you.”
“Yeah, let yourself go,” Gareth’s statement was almost a command, and the rawness in his tone was the thing that drove her over. She sank her teeth into his shoulder in response, knowing that her cries were muffled in the leather of his jacket and taking perverse enjoyment in deliberately disobeying him.
“Defiant—little—minx,” Gareth punctuated each word with a hard thrust, and threw his head back with a roar, pumping his seed deep within her.
The aftermath was fuzzy, and she kept her eyes closed, not wanting to lose this sense of peace. She was aware of both men taking care of her, smoothing her skirts down and settling her on their laps atop a battered sofa in the corner. Mari wanted very much to drift, reveling in a post-orgasmic glow and the unexpected tenderness of the men.
But she couldn’t ignore the growing howls outside. The sounds penetrated the thick concrete walls until she sat up in a paroxysm of pent-up energy and fear and demanded, “How many are out there?”
“Easy,” Finn said. Both men had their hands upon her, half restraining her as if they were afraid of her running away. “It’s too early to estimate numbers. It’s only just after dark, so there may be more Barks headed here from their dens who haven’t yet arrived.”
“Well, that’s reassuring,” Mari muttered.
“In any case, we can’t do anything right now.” Gareth pulled his bag toward him. “So we’re going to eat.”
Mari ignored the sandwich he held out. “You can’t do anything right now? Surely you can go burn them with UV light or something.”
“We could, but the bastards are spry as hell. We’re best in hand-to-hand close combat.” Gareth held the sandwich to her lips until she took a reluctant bite. “Right now there isn’t anything we can do that the human soldiers can’t do just as well. I made that clear when I was out there.”
“Which invention did they like better? That’s the important question.” Finn plucked his own sandwich out of the bag.
“Mine.” Gareth’s smug, laconic response provoked a good-natured argument between them, settling Mari’s nerves somewhat. Before she knew it, she’d eaten the entire sandwich and was sitting back to sip water out of a flask.
Underneath the spare parts that covered almost every inch of the room, she recognized the layout as a bedroom, with a sink plumbed into the corner. There was a mattress-less bunk bed against the far wall, and yet another cot leaning against it. The waste of space irritated her. Despite the lack of windows, it was a perfectly usable room—more spacious than the shipping container she’d called home in Flagstaff.
“How many people live in this City?” she asked.
“Twelve thousand or thereabouts,” Finn said after a moment’s consideration. “Hardly enough to qualify as a town.”
“Twelve thou is the official number,” Gareth said. “It’s not like the government has run a proper census since the Invasion, though, so I’d say the number’s higher, probably got some junkies living underground who hardly see the light these days.”
“Hopefully, we’ll have enough time to do a thorough evacuation.” Finn tucked the reusable sandwich bag away and stood up. “Right now, we’d better keep tracking that device. I’ve had two missed calls from Command—no doubt that’s Dr. Felton wanting results.”
There was a beep from his pocket, and Gareth snorted. “Might as well pick it up, otherwise he’ll start calling me.”
“Finn 01223,” Finn snapped, pulling out his commtab. Mari blinked at the set of numbers he rattled out, then realized it must be what passed as his last name. She frowned, instinctively upset. Nobody should be defined by a number.
“Yes, we’re on it. City’s being attacked, so there are complications.”
“…urgent…evacuation…time of the essence…daylight drop?”
“I don’t think it would be wise for us to venture outside the City, Doctor.” Finn’s already-abrupt tone cooled noticeably, and Gareth scowled. “If we don’t find the other half tonight or tomorrow, we’ll evacuate with the general population. Over and out.”
“Asshole,” Gareth breathed. “He really wanted us to stay after the evac to keep looking?”
“He’s desperate to find the other half.” Finn stood up, raking a hand through his black hair. His body language reminded Mari of a stalking panther thwarted of its prey. With a few abrupt movements, he threw his bag onto the table, removed the device from it. “Let’s go. Let’s get this over with.”
“Come on.” Gareth looped his arm around Mari’s shoulders. “I want you with us so that we can keep an eye on you. That all right?”
She nodded, but Finn’s mood both saddened and unnerved her. “Is he going to be all right? Usually, he’s so…”
“Usually our moods are the other way around?” Gareth guessed, and smiled lopsidedly at her agreement. “Yeah, Dr. Felton is a dick. That’s why I refuse to deal with him.”
“Finn 01223,” Mari mused. “Do you have the same sur-numerals?”
Gareth snorted at her term. “Yeah. We asked for double-oh-seven, but for some strange reason, they refused.”
“If we live long enough, you can take my surname.” Mari kept her tone light, but the numerals really bothered her. The Twins were dehumanized enough without being referred to as numbers.
Gareth’s green eyes bored into hers. “You mean that? Because…yeah. I’d really like to. And of course we’re going to live.”
She inhaled his scent as he bent to kiss her, a tender, light touch that managed to both comfort and provoke. Then he whisked her forward, keeping her by his side as they went up a metal staircase. A pair of soldiers ran by them, going downward with set expressions on their faces. At the wall’s top, there weren’t nearly enough people to control the light-guns. Many stations were left unpopulated.
“The world is running out of humans,” Mari remembered her father saying. He’d warned her about the dangers of human trafficking, young women being bought and sold for the sole purpose of producing babies. She was glad for Gareth’s imposing presence at her side.
He led her toward an unmanned gun. “This one’s got juice. Hey, you okay?”
She couldn’t seem to bring herself to look over the wall. Studying her shoes, she swallowed. “Just…give me a second.”
“Deep breaths.” She heard the click of the trigger and an ensuing zap. “I’ll maim a few while you center yourself. They trained us for this, in a way, you know. That was one of the few fun things about our childhood—we played a lot of videogames, spent a decent whack of time in virtual reality. Of course, they had no idea what the Barks were really going to be like, so we’ve had to adapt our techniques somewhat.”
Sets of Twins had almost singlehandedly saved the entire human population—at least in some countries. The larger, richer countries had all invested in supersoldier development, as they’d put it, for decades. It had been a kind of arms race executed with humans, and her parents had been extremely disapproving.
Zap. Mari tried not to jump. She’d been lucky, in many ways. She had survived, kept a roof over her head, food in her belly—most of the time, at least—and hadn’t been among the many women trafficked to ruthless human warlords who used them simply for breeding. Some might even call her sheltered. Not being able to bring herself to look over the top of the wall was stupid, weak, and would prove any naysayers right.
Listening to her inner drill sergeant, Mari took a deep breath and dragged her gaze upward. That breath expelled in a harsh gasp as she took in the massive array of aliens that faced Scar City. They looked like a sea of sickly white. Here and there she could make out individual eyestalks, which made her shudder.
While she watched, one of the larger ones—a leader—ran forward, and she was transported back to that terrible night aboard the broken-down train. Her hands grasped the ragged concrete of the wall, but she hardly felt the discomfort. That was him. It. Whatever.
As if sensing her thoughts, the leader bounded forward and looked upward directly at her. Its jaws gaped around a bullet hole—the hole she’d created with her Glock. Eyes glowing, it let out a hideous howl that was echoed by its smaller comrades, baring sharklike teeth.
“Fucker.” Gareth snarled the word, shooting a short volley of lasers into the crowd. The leader undulated away, but some of its companions weren’t so lucky. They went down, writhing, black-and-yellow burns opening up in translucent skin. “That one was looking at you, Mari.”
“Yes. I…um, shot that particular alien. That night on the train.”
“Oh hell. Yeah, these creepers don’t forget. I’m going to take you back to Patrice’s house—” Gareth cut off, eyes going unfocused for a brief moment as he communicated with his Twin. “Damn. Okay, we’re going to meet Finn first, because the device is going nuts inside his jacket pocket.”
“I wish I could believe that’s a crazy euphemism you’ve just come up with,” Mari muttered, and was rewarded with a genuine laugh from Gareth.
“You’re too much. Come on.”
There weren’t enough soldiers to take over Gareth’s abandoned laser. That worry niggled at the back of Mari’s mind, although she was too busy navigating the wall to truly fret about the situation. She jogged just behind Gareth, leaping over pieces of rubble and doing her best to avoid all the people running to and fro. Most of them seemed to be desperately repairing the wall, piecing chunks into thinning bits.
Even as she watched, a score of aliens banded together, their six legs wrapping together into what seemed like a single entity. Like a battering ram, they slammed into the wall so hard that she could feel the vibrations deep in her tummy.
“Focus!” Ramsey stood on a turret, pointing at the entwined aliens as he shouted orders through a megaphone. “Bombs in three! Two! One!”
There was a series of flashes and a light rumbling, then half the battering ram collapsed into blackness. The other half disentangled itself, writhing off injured into the mass of other aliens. Mari gripped the wall where she’d paused, and Gareth gently enfolded her hand into his larger one.
“That’s going to happen a lot tonight,” he said. “The good thing is they’re so thick on the ground that accuracy is through the roof. We’re killing a lot of them. Come on—Finn’s just gotten off the line with Dr. Dick again, and he probably needs some distraction to get his blood pressure down.”
“So soon?”
Gareth’s grip tightened as they navigated their way over a pile of shattered concrete and bent rebar. “Don’t worry, he’s not a fan of PDA-type stuff.”
“PDA?”
He speared her with a quick look. “Public Display of Affection. You never heard that term?”
“I was a sheltered only child. My parents talked science stuff at the dinner table. They bought me National Geographic instead of Tiger Beat.” She winced at the crackle-zap of a nearby laser, wondering if maybe she should just keep her mouth shut. The geeky, braces-clad girl she’d once been hadn’t had a snowball’s chance of getting a boyfriend. Now that she’d gotten started, though, her mouth was running away with her.
“Dad used to take me camping, and we’d always have a stack of books with us—bird-watching manuals and insect guides—instead of card games. I would hear kids talking about TV shows at school that I’d never even heard of. I was more familiar with the smell of formaldehyde than that of the perfume du jour. So…nope, some terms go over my head. I can hold my own if we’re discussing bugs or birds, though.”
“Strong perfume gives us hideous headaches.” Far from being put off, Gareth actually grinned at her. “And I always preferred discussing animals over popular culture.”
He shifted his grip from her hand to her arm as they began descending another set of stairs. These were rickety, and the much-mended metal clanked loudly as they walked, making conversation impossible. Mari was grateful for that; the feeling of acceptance was overwhelming, and she wasn’t sure she could trust her voice not to shake with emotion. So she concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other until they reached ground level again. Down here, people were still rushing around, but the mood was less somber and focused than it had been atop the wall with all the lasers.
“Couldn’t someone invent a permanent UV light that acts as a wall?” She frowned at the equipment being lugged around. Most of it seemed to be aimed at shoring up the physical wall, which had taken a rattling from the alien battering ram.
“That invention is already in existence. It’s impractical to have a series of huge UV lamps shining for more than a few hours, but some of the better-equipped Cities use them occasionally. They’ll never replace physical walls.”
“I sure wish this place had them,” she couldn’t help saying. The thought of that giant leader alien staring up at her made her shudder. But if wishes were horses, then beggars might ride, as her mother had been so fond of saying.
They spotted Finn ahead, bending toward the wall with the device in one hand and his commtab in the other. “Dr. Felton called. Again.”
“I hope you hung up on him.”
Finn rolled his eyes at Gareth. “I’m supposed to be the diplomatic Twin.”
“Quit letting them pigeonhole you.” Gareth bent toward the device. “Shit, that thing’s beeping so fast, it’s almost continuous. It gets worse when you put it to this part of the wall.”
Both men stared at a section of the concrete wall, eyeing a much-patched part. Mari bent, listening to the device. Gareth was right—even she could hear it now, albeit barely. It could hardly be described as beeping—it sounded more like an animal mewling, and it made her very uneasy.
“Finn 01223,” Finn snapped into his commtab. “Yes, Doctor, I believe we have the location, but I don’t think it’s a good idea—okay. Are you sure? No, I’m not questioning whether you have clearance, goddammit! I’m asking whether this is a good idea.”
“Fuck this. Let’s get it over with before he screams about disobedience and court-martials.” Mari stepped back as Gareth stepped forward. Without preamble, he ripped several bricks from the crumbling wall until he’d exposed a small hollow, in which the other half of the device nestled. Mari blinked. Was that a note underneath it? She nearly reached out—and let out a yelp as the device flew toward Finn.
The mewling—and now she realized it had been coming from both devices—stopped, melding into a brief, primal scream. Everything in the world seemed to pause, then the device went quiet, with only a single red light flashing where the two halves had melded themselves together.
“Dr. Felton, I’m going to need to speak to your superior,” Finn said quietly.
Everything seemed to be limned in red. Gareth wasn’t sure whether that was because his rage was through the roof, or because he was still holding the device with its red light shining through the gloom. His hands ached from his fifth serious attempt at breaking the thing—on panicked orders from Command.
The silver lining was that Dr. Felton’s reedy voice was no longer piping over the comm. Now it was others, higher up the chain of command. Dr. Felton was screwed seven ways to Sunday.
Arguably, however, Scar City was screwed worse. The device coming together had roiled up the aliens even further, and they’d been forming battering rams almost continuously for the last two hours. Despite taking serious damage, they kept coming, probably desperate to reach this newly activated device.
There were a thousand theories flying about. Gareth listened, his commtab still tuned into the agitated conference call. Some speculated that the device had already woken the cryogenically frozen breeders. Others questioned why the aliens still wanted the device back if it was working. Still others pointed out that Scar City was about to fall, so why wouldn’t the aliens attack?
In the safety of the Complex, sitting around a table drinking coffee, it was easy for them to talk. Gareth picked up the commtab and switched off mute. “Tried again. It’s indestructible in my current situation.”
“Have you tried melting it?”
“No, because I don’t have the equipment for that. We’re focused on survival here. There’s more than a thousand aliens outside the walls, and all of them are slavering to get in.”
Gareth knew his tone was disrespectful. Hailey had cautioned them against that kind of thing, warning that many of the older people viewed the Twins as tools to be used on a whim. She was right too—he’d heard of several disappearances, or reassignments as the powers-that-be preferred to term them.
Couldn’t get a worse reassignment than Reno, though. So he gave clipped responses to a few more questions, then was given permission to sign off and go back to his attempts to destroy the device.
Once he’d terminated the call, Gareth tucked the device in his pocket and strode up the steps to the top of the wall, ready to get back to fighting.
“Mari’s all set,” Finn sent. “Patrice has set up camp in the living room with two guns and the dog, so they’re together and safe.”
“Good. Come back and let’s kill some aliens. Got another good six hours of darkness left, so maybe we can beat our previous score.”
It helped somewhat, thinking of it as a game. That had been the scientists’ intention, of course, desensitizing them to violence, training them to kill without compunction. In some countries, Twins had run double duty as soldiers, waging war against other humans. Gareth was glad that hadn’t happened here. Despite his gruff exterior, he truly cared about the people here and had the deepest respect for the hard-working people just trying to survive.
“You, with a soft spot?”
“Yeah, don’t get all soppy now.” Gareth squeezed the trigger on an unattended laser and got an alien through the throat. The blackened creature slammed to the ground but was immediately replaced by two more. That gave him pause. How many Barks had been inside the spaceship Mari had inadvertently opened? Two thousand? Three? The aliens could fold themselves down fairly compactly, so maybe he was underestimating the bastards.
Motherships held even more than the intact spaceship they’d stumbled upon, of course. Gareth shot another alien, watching it stagger back into its fellows, briefly impeding their progress.
Finn was thinking about Mari, how she’d brightened up both of their lives. Gareth couldn’t disagree, although he was more focused on surviving the night so that she could continue to brighten up their lives. And, he hoped, to raise a little hell at the Complex.
“More than a little hell.” Finn’s mindvoice grew a little stronger as he came nearer. “I heard rumors that some Twins were going to be bred.”
“Bred?” Gareth steeled himself against the gut-kick that accompanied that word. To be put to a woman, to not see his own child…no, fuck that noise.
“To humans, yeah. They haven’t been able to create Twins with XX chromosomes, only us XYs, so they want to experiment further.”
“I’m done being experimented on,” Gareth replied.
“As are we all, so I’d like to talk to others when we get back. Some of us toe the line less than others. Maybe bringing Mari back will be the encouragement some of us need to start running our own lives without asking for permission to take a piss.”
A surge of mingled satisfaction and surprise swept Gareth. His Twin used to be someone who sought permission for most things, preferring to follow official guidelines rather than strike out on his own. Now Gareth sensed him chafing against all the restrictions as much as he did. Score one again for Mari.
“I’m completely fed up with the way we’ve been treated,” Finn sent. “I won’t deny that Mari’s presence in our lives has me worried about our future, but I would eventually have snapped. Others are pissed off as well…the triplets, for example.”
“Yeah, well, splitting them up for that job was an idiotic thing to do.” Gareth shook his head and blasted another alien.
“I know. It’s going to come to a head sooner rather than later.”
“I’ve been telling you this for years,” Gareth replied.
“I wasn’t ready to listen. I am now.”
“Let’s kill some aliens first.”
Finn sent the equivalent of a snort. It was good to banter with his Twin—they’d been pretty damn snappish with each other for the past six months—but Gareth’s attention was soon fully occupied by fighting. The waves were never-ending. Even a well-equipped City would struggle to repel this attack.
Scar City was utterly crumbling.
Gareth yelled a warning as he saw a wedge of aliens enmeshing. Another good ramming or three would bring an entire section of the wall down at this point—and the bastards were deliberately targeting the weakest spots.
One of the soldiers, her shirt sleeves rolled up, leaned forward to hurl a bomb just as the ram rushed forward. The resulting crash against the wall caused her to overbalance and fall. Gareth swore viciously, but she was lost in a sea of paleness, swallowed up so completely that only a few shreds of her boots were left. He shot anyway, leaving an alien’s flank blackened.
“Bombs in three!” Ramsey roared, his voice cracking through the loudspeaker.
“Sir?”
Gareth whirled. He’d never been called sir in his life, but a soldier stood awaiting his attention, clearly having addressed him.
“Sir, this wall is going to come down. It’s dangerously unstable.” The soldier was on the young side, his facial hair still a little peach fuzzy, but there was no mistaking his earnest intelligence.
“What do you suggest, soldier? You know who I am—I have no authority here.”
“No, sir, not officially, but you can convince people to get down before everything falls. Look—the next time the aliens hit, that part of the wall is going to shear away. See the exposed rebar there? We need to get down and hold the place from the ground.”
He’d been shooting at aliens for so long that their ghostly white bodies seemed to swim in front of his eyes. Gareth shook it off, sending a mental shove to Finn as he studied the failing section of wall.
“He’s right. That’s going to come down. I’ll tell Ramsey while you start getting people to the base. We’ll need a blockade down there—anything, really. Old cars, fire engines, that kind of stuff.” Finn sounded stressed.
“Let’s go. My brother’s informed the sergeant.”
“How—oh.” The soldier cleared his throat. “I forgot you were telepathic.”
“We’re pyrokinetic too. That means I can set you on fire when you don’t move fast enough.” Gareth was immature enough to chortle as the soldier turned tail and ran, calling for the section of wall to be evacuated. It was a shame they couldn’t really set stuff on fire.
Although, come to think of it, burning oil drums would be a decent deterrent if part of the wall wound up coming down. Gareth shot a series of laser beams into the crowd of aliens, noting that the solar battery was nearly spent, then abandoned his post to head for the stairs.
Fortunately, the young soldier had warned everyone. Unfortunately, he’d started a minor panic. Soldiers and civilians alike were beginning to stampede. Their fear was almost palpable, and Gareth knew it was only a matter of time before some trigger-happy idiot fucked up and shot a beam into a human.
“Single file!” he bellowed, and the combination of his imposing presence and commanding voice caused the line of people to quit shoving so much. His brows drew down at the thought of Mari being in there somewhere, and only the knowledge that she was safe at Patrice’s held him in check as he strode toward the stairs.
Had there been any room, they would have parted like water for him. As it was, most people shrank away, hurrying down the steps as he barked orders to gather material for a blockade and oil for fires. Some faces wore clearly disbelieving expressions—and one soldier had defiantly remained behind atop the wall, continuing to shoot aliens—but now that Gareth was descending the stairs, he could see the large cracks running through the section the aliens had repeatedly rammed. No amount of mortar could fix that kind of damage.
“Yeah, this City’s falling tonight,” he sent.
“Ramsey is evacuating the other side. The rest of the wall seems structurally sound, so it’s just this part we’re going to have to hold. You okay?”
“A little homicidal, for a variety of reasons. I’ll take it out on the aliens as soon as possible.”
At the bottom, people scattered. Gareth gave most of them credit—they dove right into shoring up the wall…although a handful took the opportunity to disappear into the center of the City. No doubt they intended to hole up and try to survive the night.
“Ram!” The shout was distant, panicked. Gareth’s head snapped up.
“Finn?”
An adrenaline-tinged hash of thoughts was all that greeted his query. Gareth leaped backward as scores of aliens slammed into the wall. Someone screamed as the much-patched structure of concrete, wood and metal began to crumble. There was a loud rumbling, a cracking that drowned out the zapping of lasers. The wall was holding—barely though, and not for long. The next ram would be its death knell.
“The wall is going down!”
“So hold the line!” Gareth pitched his voice to override the rising tide of terror. A few at the edge of the crowd slunk away, but others gave him their full attention. “Get some old vehicles over here, ready to plug the gap. Start up a big fire and get your lasers ready. How many hours until dawn?”
“Four, sir.”
“We’ve survived until now. We can make it until dawn.”
“Nice pep talk.”
“Are you off that wall yet?” Gareth wasn’t in any mood to joke around.
“About to be. Had to help carry Ramsey off. I think he broke his leg, so he should be out of commission for a few months. If it were one of us, we’d be in bed for what, a day or two? I don’t know what I’d do if I had to stay in a bed for weeks on end.”
“I do, but it involves Mari being there.” Gareth instinctively went to a defensive crouch as the alien ram battered the wall again. This time there was a strange, low groaning, as if the bricks themselves had been mortally injured. Then the groaning turned into a full-fledged rumbling.
“Finn!”
The segment of wall collapsed in a pile of rubble, throwing up a huge cloud of dust through which aliens began to clamber, howling and yipping. Gareth raised his laser and got off a quick series of shots.
A shrill siren cut through the air, sounding the direst of warnings to the City’s population. A nearby chorus of howls sang along, providing sinister backup. Gareth shook himself, fired a beam through a pale body, partially severing it. He had to keep his head. But…
“Finn, damn it, tell me you’re all right.”
One of the soldiers gunned a truck toward the newly created gap, parking so that it formed a partial blockade. That seemed to be the catalyst for more people to act, rushing forward to bolster the breach. A line of oil-filled barrels began to take shape, and a woman who looked like she’d been a junkie for decades was the one to light the first flame. She handed her lighter to a soldier, barely flinching as bullets and lasers zinged overhead.
A score of aliens lay dead atop the rubble now, but more slavered behind, cautious enough to avoid being shot. The breach was as shored up as it was going to be, yet Gareth knew how tenuous their position was, how close the City stood to absolute annihilation.
“Finn? Answer me. I can feel you’re alive but you’re worrying the hell out of me here.”
“Hurt. Sorry. Karma for joking around earlier—my arm’s broken.”
“Get to the infirmary. Or to Patrice’s.”
“On my way to grab a sling. It looks bad down there. Least I can do is come back and fire a few rounds with my good hand.”
Gareth ducked as someone chucked a grenade over the barricade. It exploded, sending the wave of aliens scurrying backward. A soldier huffed. “Not so tough when they’re all packed together with nowhere to dodge.”
“Yeah!” someone roared, and resistance redoubled.
Three hours later, however, morale was in tatters. Ammo was in short supply, so the soldiers had to space out the grenades. At several points, Gareth had been forced to leap onto the top of the barricade and fight hand-to-hand with his UV-saber. Even with the aliens funneled through the narrow gap, he couldn’t keep up with the sheer number of them.
An hour left until dawn, and his muscles ached like hell. Sweat dripped into his eyes as he took a chug of water, seizing an opportunity to rest for a minute while a few soldiers chucked hastily constructed Molotov cocktails at the aliens. The smell of gunpowder and gasoline rested heavily in the air.
“Take it easy out there, okay? You’re exhausted.”
“So are you.” Gareth eyed the aliens at the wall and decided they were too intimidated to press the attack. He remained where he was, wedged against the bumper of a burned-out van. “You still on the other part of the wall?”
“Yeah, I’m in the infirmary. Arm’s splinted and already healing, though it hurts like hell. Repairmen are working overtime but the Barks aren’t focused on ramming anymore. They’re all trying to get through the gap.”
“How many?”
“Lots.” Finn’s tone was bleak. “And I had another call from Command—Dr. Felton delayed those train evac orders until the last minute. Scar City’s population isn’t totally screwed…but it’s going to be close getting everyone out.”
“What the fuck?” He was going to kill Felton. “That asshole wanted us to finish the mission that badly? So much he’d risk an entire City to get that goddamn device?”
“Yep. And I’m dealing with his superior now, so hopefully he’ll have been properly disciplined. But Command says our plane isn’t going to be here until nearly nightfall.”
“When we get back to the Complex, I want to call a meeting with the other Twins.”
“Roger that.” Finn’s easy acceptance of his fury was unusual. Generally, he tried to smooth things over, make him cooperate with the powers-that-be. Clearly, he was done kow-towing, and Gareth was fiercely glad of it.
With renewed vigor, he leaped into the fight. The current—or perhaps former, judging by her lucidity—junkie he’d seen earlier was still helping out. She even started up a countdown to dawn, hollering out the time in five minute intervals. As if galvanized by the light at the end of the tunnel, people rushed around faster than they had before. Out of the corner of his eye, Gareth noticed a few new people, perhaps sent here from other sections of the wall, or deserters who had come crawling back after a change of heart.
“Twenty minutes!” announced the junkie.
Gareth fired his laser into the gap. He blinked, catching sight of the leader who had attacked the train. The aliens were nearly indistinguishable—at least to a human—except for size. What set this one apart was Mari’s bullet wound through its jowls. It reared back, hissing as it displayed its serrated teeth. Its malevolent gaze was fixed directly upon him.