I WASN’T SURE HOW WE would get the missile warehouse’s location from Eden. She wasn’t likely to volunteer the information, not when we weren’t sure the blast wouldn’t reach the city and destroy her and her people. There were still children there. An unwelcome and unbidden memory assailed me: Wendell, the little boy whose power Eden used to show us the past. His big eyes and the way he’d smiled when Eden promised him chocolate. I glanced at Rune and found her jaw set, her eyes resolute. But her hands were trembling. Was her mind traveling a similar route?
“We’ll try to make sure we’re in an isolated area,” Cage soothed, reading my mind as he often seemed able to. “But remember, if we can actually kill those things, we’ll be helping the people on this planet as much as we’re helping ourselves. Kenzie, are you sure that destroying Karoch will get rid of all the creatures?”
I shook my head crossly. “Of course I’m not sure. I’m trying to put concepts and ideas to words without any equivalent in English. In any human language. But I think there’s a good chance.”
Cage flashed me a grin. “Well, that’s better than what we had a couple of hours ago. I’ll take it.”
Of course, no one much relished trekking all the way back to the city. It was at least an hour’s walk in the scorching afternoon heat, and once we got there, we had no guarantee we’d be able to get a vehicle working, even with Rune’s help. But at least we’d be out of the sun, whatever happened.
I caught myself glaring at everyone and closed my eyes, trying to ease the headache away. The tingling presence in my brain hadn’t faded, and I didn’t think having the aliens residing in my head was doing me much good. We were linked now—just barely, an uncomfortable itch I couldn’t scratch. They didn’t seem aware of the continued link, or if they were, they weren’t letting me know. I hoped that would work to our advantage. It was the only compensation I found for having these things in my head in the first place.
Right now it was mostly a sense of direction and an occasional stir of anger or determination. It was weird, uncomfortable, but manageable.
“Ready to go?” I asked Jasper and Imani, reluctantly shouldering my backpack. I didn’t dare leave anything behind. My weapons or armor weren’t likely to help if we ran into Karoch, but they might be useful against the other aliens.
“Hey,” called Hallam from behind me. “Wanna hold up a second?”
We pivoted to where Hallam was staring at the ground about twenty feet behind our makeshift warehouse, his lined face creased in a frown. “What’s up?” asked Priya, jogging to his side.
Hallam said something I didn’t hear, and Priya dropped to her knees, pressing her hands to the ground. A second later Matt joined them and repeated her actions.
Rune and I exchanged mystified glances. “What’s going on?” she whispered.
“I don’t know. …”
“There’s something down here,” Matt called.
The rest of us gathered around him, even though my exhaustion urged me to ignore his statement and just keep going. I didn’t want to deal with anything else. “What kind of something?” I demanded.
“A separate space,” said Hallam. “Just far enough off the main building to survive the explosion.” He caught my gaze and explained, “I can send a sonar signal through the ground and search for hollow spots. I don’t know what’s down there—if anything—but I got suspicious and wanted to check before we left. A place like this, you’d think they’d have vehicles, unless they’d all been stolen. But if they did still have them, they’d have to keep them in a garage.” He nodded at the sand. “If this is what I think, we might have a much better option than walking back to the city.”
Priya nodded. “Let’s map out the area.”
Legion spread out in three separate directions. They were methodical, crouching on the ground and resting their hands against it, closing their eyes, then straightening and moving ten steps in another direction before trying again. I noticed Hallam had removed the fingerless gloves he always wore. Maybe they needed their skin exposed to make the cybernetics work? It was appalling how little we knew about people who were supposed to be our allies, and I made a mental note to rectify that soon. Matt might trust me enough to share … and if he didn’t, well, he trusted Rune.
I winced. That sounded more like Cage than me, using someone I cared about to get information. But at the same time, I wanted to survive. I wanted to escape this dimension. I wanted to go back to my own Earth, even without any family there waiting for me, even with Omnistellar probably poised to arrest me. And if possible, I wanted to do it without aliens in pursuit.
“Hey!” called Matt suddenly. “Over here!”
He was at least thirty feet away, and we all scrambled toward him over the shifting sand. “What did you find?” Priya shouted.
“I hit what must be the border wall.”
Priya and Hallam crouched on the ground, closing their eyes. Then, moving as one, they spread in opposite directions. “Border here,” Priya announced after a moment.
Hallam took a few minutes longer before he said, “Same here.”
Matt, meanwhile, was moving perpendicular to the two of them. He got quite a bit farther away and then said, “And here.”
“So what’s down there?” I asked impatiently.
“No way to know until we get in.” Matt glanced at Jasper. “What do you think?”
“Worth a try.” Jasper cracked his knuckles. “Everyone stand back.”
“Let me help you,” I said.
Jasper hesitated a second, then nodded. “I could probably use it, to be honest.”
I drew close to him and reached for his power, obsidian laced with shards of red. “What are we doing?”
“Trying to pull something above ground. Carefully. We don’t know what we’re dealing with.” He smiled slightly. “Maybe it’s our nuke.”
“God, I hope not.”
Jasper made an X in the ground with his hand and retreated, taking me with him. “Aim there.”
“What’s there?”
“Damned if I know.” He flashed me a grin, one of the first times he’d smiled since we’d arrived in this godforsaken hellscape. “Let’s find out.”
“Wait.” Priya stepped between us, holding her hand up and glaring at the X in the sand like it was going to come to life. “Matt?”
I blinked at her in confusion, then dawning comprehension. Of course. If we were going to tear our way into an underground bunker, we’d probably want to make sure there was nothing waiting for us there.
Matt closed his eyes, then shrugged. “No signs of life. But remember, I can’t sense the aliens.”
“I think I can,” I replied dubiously. I wasn’t sure about my newfound connection yet, but something told me that if the creatures were this close, I would know it. “I don’t think they’re down there. Anyway, it’s worth the risk if it means we can escape this desert.” When no one argued, I turned to Jasper. “What do I do?”
“Feel for something solid, then pull. You’ll know when you’ve found it.”
“Okay,” I repeated, letting Jasper’s power flow through me. I’d never used his ability before. Feel for something solid. It wasn’t as natural as, say, running quickly or fading into invisibility. This took effort and strength. But as I adjusted to his power, I felt it: a connection to something beneath the ground. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
“Then let’s go!” I pulled with all my might. Instantly I lurched forward as something jerked against me. Jasper did the same and ground his teeth together, digging his heels into the sand, his arms raised as if physically wrestling with whatever we were pulling. I mimicked his actions, sweat beading on my forehead as I tugged. A compelling force nudged the edge of my awareness. We could go much quicker if we simply demolished whatever we were battling, tearing it to shreds and ripping the pieces up individually—but if it was something mechanical or, worse yet, a weapon, we might wreck it or kill ourselves in the process. So I resisted the destructive urge and focused on pulling, my breath shortening, my lungs tight, until finally the sand gave in a shower of silt and grain.
A huge chunk of metal tore straight into the sky, and with its release Jasper and I lurched backward, landing flat in the dirt. The metal spun overhead and plummeted toward us, and instinctively I threw up my hands, but before it could hit, shadows dove in front of me.
Matt and Priya. They’d caught the jagged, torn metal—easily seven feet by ten—and were holding it over their heads with minimal effort, although they were crouched low with the force of impact. They tossed it aside, and it landed twenty feet away.
I groaned and dropped to my back, the hot sand burning my exposed neck. All that work for a huge chunk of metal. We’d probably torn out part of a wall. “Great,” I managed. “We’ve discovered sheet metal. Good work, Jasper.”
“Um, guys?”
I straightened. Rune was standing over the hole we’d torn in the ground, and when she looked up, there was a wide grin across her face. “I think you’d better come see this.”