8We flee on into the jungle, beneath the trickling rain and the rustling canopy and the stars that wink like lost fireflies through the latticework above, driven by a cocktail of fear and adrenaline too potent to ignore. The forest urges us on, whispering in our ears and breathing hot and heavy across our necks—Run, run! Don’t let them catch you!—its long tendrils reaching out to draw us in deep like a predator enticing its prey ever nearer.
A cool wind wisps through the trees, and I shudder as it sings unexpectedly across my wet skin. The forest of the night is nothing like the forest of day. Strange sounds slither around us, hisses and growls and purrs that slink catlike from brush to bole to branch, while on the ground small creatures scuttle through the foliage unseen, so close they stir the vegetation at our feet. But it’s not these small ones we truly have to fear, but the ones that prowl just out of sight. Their movements twine about us, teasing us, taunting us, taking our measure, only to dissolve into misshapen shadows the moment we frantically flash our chit lights their way.
Oh God, did you see that?
What was that?
I want to go home!
Except we all know—there’s no going home ever again.
Instead we straggle on, so tired we can barely put one foot in front of the other, until at last the early rays of Avelaine come filtering down through the canopy. Only then, within the first hints of dawn, do we collapse amid the trees in a feverish huddle and wait for the day to come.
Settled within the roots of a great kapok, I slump back against the trunk and watch the light trickle down through the canopy. Faintly at first, a mere trace against the darkness, then stronger, lilting down around us in stripes of white and yellow. The shadows lighten, and color begins to return—browns and grays, fuchsias and blues, and green—muted and dull at first, then brighter and brighter until the very leaves glow with an inner light. The noises of the night fade away, and for a moment in time all is quiet. All is still.
I glance over at the others. Everyone is asleep, finally yielding to exhaustion now that they’re held fast within the imagined security of the light. It’s a sham, of course; there is no security to be found here, or anywhere. And yet, tucked within the sheltering roots of this green-lit bower, I could almost believe the falsehood as much as they do.
A soft intake of breath catches my attention, and I realize I’m not the only one awake. My eyes make another round, searching for the other, and finally land on Zane. He stirs at the touch of my gaze, lifting his head as if he’s merely been waiting for some acknowledgement, and rises. Picking his way silently through the others, he slides down against a nearby root and asks quietly, “The fences?”
“Still holding, last I checked. The ghouls seem content to stay in town.” For now.
“You think they’ll come after us?”
“Technically, there’s no reason for them to know we’re out here. We left no traces and closed the shield behind us. Any footprints would have been taken care of by the rain. It’s why we ran instead of taking the roamers to the shield-line.”
“Technically?”
I shrug. “No one really knows how they seek out hosts. Some sort of telepathy, I’ve heard. The question is: Did we manage to get far enough to stay out of their range? If they can’t sense us, it may not occur to them to come looking.”
“And if they do sense us?”
My mind drifts to New Sol Station, to all those weeks I spent surrounded by ghouls, never even knowing they were there. “They’ll wait and watch, and when the time is right, they’ll strike.”
“It sounds like you know a little something about Spectres.”
My throat tightens at the tacit question in that statement, and I glance over at my companion. Zane is regarding me closely, his expression closed and contemplative. He’s wondering how I know so much about Spectre behavior, what experiences have led me to speak this way. Unsurprising, as he had already left for the fence by the time I dropped my little revelation about New Sol to the others. He isn’t wrong to wonder, but the thought of talking about New Sol again, about Lia, is more than I can bear today. It’s more than I can bear any day.
Unable to answer, I merely shake my head. “Let’s just say the sooner we get off this planet, the better.”
Zane nods. We lapse back into silence, neither of us feeling the need to further elucidate our grim present but content to simply listen to the trills of the morning birds echoing through the canopy. After a while, my folded legs start cramping. As I shift position, I can’t help letting out a giant yawn.
“Tired?”
“Who isn’t? But someone should stay awake and keep watch.” My lips curl up into an almost-smile. “See which predator gets us while we’re sacked out in the middle of the jungle.”
His mouth curls in an answering almost-smile. Shifting into a more comfortable position, he folds his gloved hands across his lap. “Close your eyes. I’ll keep watch for a while.”
I blink, startled by the unexpected offer. For so long, I’ve looked after myself and never asked for anything from anyone. Never asked for it, and never got it. For Zane to just offer . . .
My eyes narrow. “Why would you do that?”
“I just thought you could use a little help,” Zane says simply.
Help. No one ever offers me help. Not since Michael. He was always the one person who could see through my confident exterior to the not-so-confident girl underneath. The one who was always there when I needed it without me ever having to ask. But that was a long time ago, before Lia died, and Michael needed someone to blame, and he decided that person would be me.
I briefly close my eyes. Endure and move on.
Opening my eyes again, I peer at Zane where he sits strangely relaxed against the root. He seems sincere, but . . .
I shake my head. “I’m not really tired. You sleep if you want.”
He nods, but he doesn’t close his eyes. Together we sit, watching as the sunrise dawns over the Rainforest, the first day creatures arising even as our companions sleep on peacefully around us. Perhaps an hour has passed when out of the blue—
“Teal.”
I stir to life, pulled from my quiet reverie, and cock my head in question.
“They know,” he says quietly. “They know we’re out here. The only question is whether they care.”
I nod once, though I don’t answer. What is there to say, really? The Spectres will either come for us or they won’t. All we can do is push as far as we can into the jungle and hope the Navy arrives before it’s too late. But as I sit there, staring out into the forest, it occurs to me:
I’m not the only one who knows a little something about Spectres.
Midway through the morning, the first sleepers start to rise. Disoriented and sore, they squint around with shocked bemusement until memory finally surfaces, bringing with it a dose of cold, hard reality. Or rather, hot, humid reality. The weather, as well as our midnight flight through the jungle, has taken its toll on everyone. Hair wild with frizz, bodies streaked with mud, clothes damp and clinging—they look like a bunch of landslide victims desperately in need of a shower.
I take a swig from my water bottle and laugh quietly to myself, though I know I don’t look much better. I slipped into the jungle a little while ago to clean up a bit, washing my face with some water pooled in a leaf and smoothing my hair back into a bun. Still, I feel damp and yucky all over, wild tendrils frizzing around my face while dried rain and new sweat congeal across my body like a second skin.
A few more people are awake now, sitting up, stretching, wincing as new bruises and aching muscles make themselves known. Murmurs drift quietly through the trees, and I know it won’t be long before the rest are up, woken by their fellow students’ stirring. I stroll quietly through the camp, taking the opportunity for a quick head count before people start moving around and wandering into the jungle to relieve themselves.
Three, nine, fifteen, twenty-one, thirty-five. Plus me makes thirty-six. Thirty-six people, hiking who knows how many klicks through the jungle, to find a long-lost terraforming bunker of indeterminate location, in hopes of catching a military transport off-world before being taken over by invisible aliens.
Yeah. This is going to be a long day.
“Aahhh! What is it?! Get it off! Get it off!”
“Gross! Look at the size of that thing!”
“For vac’s sake, it’s just a lion-claw tarantula.” Vida’s scornful voice floats above the others. “It’s not even poisonous.”
Make that a really long day.
Leaving the rest to deal with the screamer, I retreat back into the trees at the edge of the camp. As amusing as it may be to watch Djen battle a spider the size of her hand, we have bigger problems than oversize arachnids.
Queuing up my chit, I start by pulling up the force fence network. It takes a while to come up, far longer than I expect, but finally the holo is pooling over my hand. Almost every fence in all five settlements has gone red, but to my relief, the perimeter fences are still holding. I say a silent prayer that they stay that way, and then I move on to the bigger issue: finding the terraforming bunker.
The problem isn’t the bunker’s position—I have its GPS coordinates from the last time I was there—but without knowing where we are, the coordinates do me no good. Not unless I can manage to interface with a GPS satellite, not an easy task when the thick canopy makes line of sight nearly impossible.
I touch the sat-link embedded in my hand. When I stood on the back of that roamer and said we’d call for pickup, I made it sound so easy—and it will be, once we’re at the landing platform. The clearing over the pad is plenty big enough to give us a line of sight, and the extra power from the sat-link should boost the signal enough to be heard by any ships in orbit. We just have to get there. Too bad we don’t have a convenient path leading to the bunker the way I did the first time. I would’ve searched for it last night, but it was too dark, and we bugged out too fast. And now that we’re buried deep in the jungle, I doubt I’ll ever find it again. Not without a convenient piece of ripped jumpsuit to point the way.
I pull out said jumpsuit and run it through my fingers. Was it a fortuitous accident that Shar ripped her suit there, or did she leave this cloth there on purpose? That’s just one more question I’ll probably never have the answer to.
A strange sensation suddenly crawls over me, like I’m being watched, and I jerk my head up. Zane’s staring at me from across the way, eyes fixed on my hands and brow furrowed—probably wondering why the hell I’m stroking a random piece of fabric. Flushing, I quickly stuff it into my pocket. Our best shot is to get the sat-link working, and I’m not going to do that sitting around here.
Powering up the sat-link, I take a few minutes to interface the new hardware to my chit, watching as the six red lights around the edge of the disc turn from red to blue. Link ready, I search for a signal.
*Error: No Satellite Signal*
No surprise there. The canopy overhead is leaves, branches, and birds as far as I can see. However, if I can find a hole, something big enough to connect temporarily, I can at least get some idea of which way to head.
Getting to my feet, I pause long enough to pull out my roll of utility cord. Tying one end to a tree, I hang the coil on my belt and start walking, one eye on the connection holo and the other on the canopy as I make my way through jumbles of roots, shrubs, and residual boulders. The noises of our makeshift camp fade, overwritten by the caws, shrills, and shrieks of the morning birds. A glimpse of blue beckons me from the right, and I veer in that direction, pausing beneath the natural skylight.
*Searching for Satellite . . .*
*Searching . . .*
*Searching . . .*
*Satellite Link Established*
Yes! Luck is with me, at least temporarily. Pulling up my GPS program, I quickly enter the bunker’s coordinates, frowning when the results flash over my hand. Not only did we leave from a different point on the shield-line than I did the first time, but we ran in pretty much the opposite direction of the bunker, heading northwest when we should have been going southwest. The walk that took me half a day will take us a full day at least, maybe two, considering the size of the group and the fact that no one’s in shape for a trek like this. Luckily for us, Iolanthe is at the ass-end of the Expanse, and even the closest base shouldn’t be able to get ships here for a good three days. As long as we get walking soon and maintain a reasonable pace, we should make it in time. Or at least, I can make it in time. Anyone who can’t is ghoul bait, as far as I’m concerned.
Knowing the satellite connection will disappear as soon as I leave this spot, I take a freeze-frame of the map, marking out and highlighting all the major landmarks between us and the bunker. My GPS program calculates a route, complete with compass headings and distance readings, which I lay overtop. Examining it for a minute, I finally nod in satisfaction. It’s not ideal, but with some occasional GPS check-ins when the terrain permits, this should be more than enough to get us to the bunker. Theoretically.
My task done, I head back to our makeshift camp, following my utility cord and coiling it as I go. Not that I really need it. The loud voices raised in argument guide me long before I reach the end of my cord. Stepping into the camp, I hang back and assess the situation. Unsurprisingly, the two main combatants are Vida and Jovan, their argument, for once, not relational but navigational. Everyone else is scattered around the area—eating, drinking, using their chits—but all with ears tuned to the debate. Their faces are scared and their bodies tense as they look to our established leaders to show them the way. Not that those two “leaders” seem to have any more idea what to do than they.
“. . . your solution? Run back to ghoul central?”
“No, but wandering around in the Rainforest isn’t going to do any good either! At least if we retrace our steps back to the fence, we’ll have an idea where we are.”
“That’s the last place we should go. I’m telling you, we need to head due south,” Vida says, flinging out her hand to point in said direction with surprising accuracy. “There are some outlying homesteads that way. If we can just reach one, we can get—”
“Like you have any idea which way south is, let alone what we’ll find there. We should have tried for the spaceport when we had the chance!” Jovan fumes. “I bet we could’ve made it. Anything would be better than this.”
“Well, we didn’t, and we’re here. Deal with it!”
“Don’t tell me what to do!”
Sensing one of their patented breakup arguments on the horizon, I step out of the shadows and into view. Clearly, it’s time for more oxygen-rich heads to take charge.
“We’re not going back to town, and we’re not wandering aimlessly around the forest,” I tell them. “We need to head to the bunker, and we need to do it now.”
“Where have you been?” Vida asks, followed by Jovan’s, “You’re the one who got us into this in the first place. Why should we listen to you?”
With a flick of my finger, the map pooled on my palm springs into three-dimensional glory above my palm. “Because I have a map.”
A boggled silence fills the camp, a bona fide holo map the last thing anyone expected me to whip out on the fly. I smile smugly, taking a perverse satisfaction in being, as usual, three steps ahead of everyone else. It’s Mercury who finally shrugs and says, “Can’t argue with that.”
“The nearest naval base is approximately three days away,” I continue, impervious to their shocked stares. “Subtract the nearly half a day we’ve already wasted, and that gives us two, maybe two and a half days to get there. Keeping in mind, of course, that should we fail to reach the bunker and signal for a pickup before they lay the planetary net, we’ll be stuck here forever.”
More slack-jawed expressions meet my pronouncement. I grab my bag, heft it over my shoulder, and flash them all a frosty smile.
“Shall we go?”
Ten minutes later, we’re loaded up and staggering off into the Rainforest.