Cut Off (42 page)

Nothing happened.

His index finger was wrapped around the handle, covering the first trigger-button, but his thumb was on the back of the gun, leaving the second button exposed. "What the fuck?"

He clicked it again. Tristan pivoted to her left, hooking a punch at his inner forearm, meanwhile slamming the heel of her left hand into the back of his arm. Both her hands landed at once, her palm holding his arm in place while her fist smashed home. His hand jarred open, the pistol sailing to the side. Lewis pulled back his arm with a shout. While he was busy clutching it to his chest, she threw a straight punch at his nose. She felt it shift beneath her knuckles but wasn't certain it had broken.

While he was reeling, she grabbed the laser from the corner of the room, gave him a pitying look, and pressed both buttons. A blue line punched into his chest. He gasped, trying to scream, but the air was being ionized in his lungs. The box filled with the sweet stink of charred meat. Lewis staggered against the wall. She shot him in the head.

There was no need to check for a pulse. She stood over him a minute, catching her breath and ensuring her ribs were all right, then pocketed the gun and pulled herself out. She dragged the lid back over the top and sealed Lewis in his coffin.

She went box to box, opening lids, helping the men and women inside to climb out. Each time, she directed them to the back of the room and gave them a brief spiel about staying quiet and still. Two-thirds of the containers were empty, but by the time she'd finished, she'd extracted twelve subjects. The last one didn't wake up when she opened the lid, or when she called down to him.

"You," she said, beckoning an athletic young woman from the watching prisoners. "What's your name?"

"Georgia." The woman washed the fear from her face. "What do you need?"

"A hand getting this one out. He's injured." She gestured to two of the men. "Get up here. We'll hand him up to you."

The three conscripts helped each other to the top of the orange boxes. Tristan dropped inside, followed by Georgia. The man lying before them was Asian, drenched in perspiration, and missing his right leg from above the knee. The bandage looked fresh. He didn't wake as they lifted him to the two men above.

Once they had him safely to the ground, Tristan assembled the escapees near the front of the room. "Here's the deal. I'm about to lead you out of here. But before we go, we need to find a cart. Anything with wheels. Failing that, a sledge."

"For him?" Georgia said, jerking her chin at the man with the missing leg.

Tristan shook her head. "There's an alien. In the tunnels. It's too hurt to move, but it's vital we get it up here."

Georgia glanced at the other prisoners. "For study?"

"It's not hostile—it's an ally. And it's going to help us destroy this place."

Most looked unnerved, but Georgia didn't miss a beat. "Be right back."

She jogged out the back door into the hallway. Tristan was inclined to follow, but remained with the refugees. "Is anyone here from Hana?"

The others exchanged looks. One of the two men who'd helped her bring out the wounded man stepped forward. "I'm Zach. I've lived in Hana fifteen years."

"Perfect. You know Papa Ohe'o?"

"Who doesn't?"

"The tunnel leads straight down to the beach near the Sacred Pools. Get to Papa Ohe'o as fast as you can. Tell him to get weapons and bring everyone he can back up here."

Zach touched the stubble on his scalp. "To do what? I thought we were getting out of here."

"Can't do that just yet," she said. "There's a new plague."

"A new plague?" another man said. "That's why they brought us here, isn't it? Are we
infected
?"

"If you were infected, you'd already be dead. I need Papa O'heo's help to seize this place before the aliens can set the virus loose."

Georgia appeared from the back door pushing a metal gurney, its wheels rumbling lowly. "This do the job?"

Tristan gave her a thumbs up and moved to the front of the room. She left the prisoners inside while she had a quick look around the garden, then beckoned them out and led them along the curve of the wall, then into the doorway housing the ramp to the lava tube.

"My friend's down the tunnel with the alien," she said. "Follow my light and you'll be fine."

She tapped on the tablet until it glowed, then moved down the tube at a brisk walk. None of the others had shoes, but after so long locked in the orange, they voiced no complaint about walking on the alien surface.

"Who are you?" Georgia asked after they'd descended a few hundred yards.

"Nobody."

"What kind of nobody puts their ass on the line for a bunch of total strangers?"

"Someone who isn't too fond of schemes to eradicate humanity." She gave the woman a wry look. "Anyway, I'm not here for you."

The prisoners looked rickety, but they still had their strength, padding along behind her. It wasn't long before Ness' voice floated up from down the tunnel. "Tristan?"

"Who else?"

"You tell me. Sounds like you found a herd of elephants!"

She drew close enough to silhouette him with the light of the tablet. "The squids were kind enough to assemble an army for us. Just add freedom."

He laughed, walking toward them. "Is that a gurney?"

One of the woman saw Sebastian and gasped. "Is it dead?"

Ness took the gurney from Georgia and wheeled it beside Sebastian. Already gesturing at the creature, he said, "Not yet."

"Here's what happens next," Tristan announced. "We load up the alien and head back up top. We get you some guns. And we hold down the fort until reinforcements arrive."

They stared at her, eyes glowing with the light of the tablet. Wordless, a man snatched it from her hand and raced down the tunnel.

"Stop!" Tristan shouted. Others streamed past her, shadows in the fading light. She raised her gun but knew that pulling the trigger couldn't turn them around. She could do nothing but watch as her army melted away into the darkness.

28

Crouched over Sebastian, Ness was plunged into blackness. He looked up sharply. "Did you tell them to do that?"

"Yes, I told my troops to abandon us," Tristan said from somewhere downslope. "Zach!
Zach!
"

"I saw him go running with the others," a woman said.

"How many of you are still here? Count off, starting with Georgia."

"One," the woman said.

"Two," two men said simultaneously. One amended, "Three."

There wasn't a four. Tristan began swearing, arguing with one of the men. Ness signed into the darkness, "Can you stand? Or am I going to have to roll you onto this thing?"

In response, Sebastian tapped him on the arm twice, the signal for yes. Tentacles rustled. Metal creaked. Ness moved forward blindly, hands out before him, until he touched the hard surface of one of Sebastian's thorax plates. He pushed up, steadying Sebastian's weight as the alien settled himself on the gurney.

"Hey Tristan," Ness called over the bickering, "give me a hand here?"

"You can't be serious," she said.

"About saving my friend from bleeding to death?" He leaned against the gurney, its wheels whining. "Comin' through."

"There's five of us and how many of them? Thirty? Forty?"

"As of the last census."

"The guy who was supposed to bring our backup lit out, too. We have no idea if he's coming back. The only thing that makes sense is for us to get outside, gather as many of the locals as we can, and
then
make our strike."

"I don't have time for this." Ness pushed the gurney past her voice. Feet shuffled out of the way. "Do whatever your inside star tells you. My path is clear."

He rolled onward, correcting the cart's path whenever he felt its wheels slip off the orange track and grate against the stone on the shoulder. The others listened to him go, then began to argue, their low, urgent tones bouncing after him. Ness realized he didn't know where he was going and the only way he could generate light would be to fire a laser into the wall, but this thought rested on his mind like oil in water, unable to emulsify with the folds of his brain. It didn't matter that most of the volunteer army had abruptly un-volunteered. The woman had come back and opened a road forward. All Ness had to do was follow the Way.

He dug his toes into the rubbery floor, advancing one step after another, the only way he knew how. After a minute, footsteps closed on him from behind.

"You really mean to fight them by yourself?" Tristan said.

"I mean to patch up Sebastian," he said over his shoulder. The left wheels veered onto the rocky floor and he wrestled the gurney back onto the carpet of organic matter. "Without him, it's only a matter of time before these sons of bitches unleash the virus."

"And if they come for us?"

He shrugged to himself. "Then trust that we'll figure something out."

"Trust you?" she laughed. "I just met you. And your best friend's an alien."

"What do your guts have to say about it?"

Her feet swept up beside him. The gurney's weight grew lighter; she was helping to push. "That this is crazy."

"Just crazy enough to work." He chuckled, feeling inexplicably light. "Always wanted to say that."

They pushed on, the three others following behind them. Tristan got one of the men to replace her and jogged ahead to scout for the turn to the ramp. Getting the gurney up it was a bitch and a half and left Ness sweating and feeling hemmed in by the tightness of the turns. Tristan pulled open a door, spilling sunlight over them. Under the harsh noon light, Sebastian wasn't moving.

"Still with me?" Ness signed.

Sebastian lifted one tentacle. "I am here."

Pistol in hand, Tristan trotted down the circular path around the outside of the profuse garden and its riotous fruits and blooms. The next room she led them into was one Ness recognized: the pens where he and Sprite had been held by the aliens.

"Holy shit, that's Sprite." Ness stopped, gawking at the unconscious man lying beside the front of the orange boxes. "Thought he died in the assault."

"I assume he had both legs then?" Tristan said.

He gave her a look. "He threw down his life so we could get out. I won't leave him here again."

"I'm not stopping you. Right now I need to secure this place the best we can."

He nodded. She took Georgia and one of the men with her while the other helped Ness wheel the gurney out the back of the room and into a corridor.

"Tell me what I'm looking for, buddy," he signed.

Sebastian stirred and took in the hall. "Keep moving."

Ness pushed the gurney on. At the third door they passed, Sebastian's tentacle shot out. Ness wheeled him to it. Sebastian propped himself up and gestured until the door peeled open.

Inside, metal tables were surrounded by poles hung with sterile-looking instruments. Sebastian pointed to one of the tables. Ness maneuvered the gurney beside it and helped Sebastian shift onto it, aided by the stoic stranger. Until then, Sebastian had appeared nearly catatonic, a lump of chitin and legs—even his baseball-sized eyes had looked glazed—but he now moved with an energy that bordered on manic, detaching pen-shaped metal instruments from hooks, booting up a monitor, and pressing one of the pen-things to his thorax.

"How can I help?" Ness signed.

"Tubes."

"Like the lava tube? You want me to go back?"

"Tubes!" Sebastian drew forth a squat bluish tube of fluid and waggled it in Ness' face. "All the most you can find."

He nodded and ran to the cabinets at the back of the room, ransacking them. Out loud, he said, "What's your name?"

The man standing back from Sebastian jerked up his head. "Me?"

"You're the only other one with ears in here."

"Kerry."

"Well, Kerry, I appreciate your help. If you don't have anything better to do, mind helping me find whatever the heck these are?"

He held up the blue tube. Kerry nodded, the focus returning to his eyes, as if his body had been a phone set aside mid-call which Kerry's mind was only now picking back up. He jogged over to the cabinets, turning out bottles and plastic bins. Unable to find what they needed, they moved to the next room, which was identical except for a marked lack of any supplies. Further down the hall, they struck gold: a small room or large closet stacked to the ceiling with bottles, tarps, metal bits, and a bushel of the blue tubes. Silvery glyphs marked them, but Ness had never learned to read their script. He and Kerry dragged the whole thing back to the other room.

Sebastian glanced at them and held up a finger-sized plastic tube of goo. "And now these."

Ness had seen these in the closet as well. As he'd been fetching equipment, Sebastian had angled a mirror over himself and withdrawn his tentacles from his wound. This was a dark hole in his gray skin; thick yellow fluid leaked from within. He installed one of the blue tubes into a crane-like apparatus beside the table. A transparent IV fed into a hole beneath one of his arms. As Ness watched, Sebastian raised a triangle-headed scalpel to the hole in his chest.

"Do you want me to do that?" Ness gestured.

Sebastian didn't look away from his work. "Can you identify my — from my — ?"

"I don't even know what you just signed."

"Then I will be the one who cuts my own body."

He moved the scalpel beside the wound, tentacles coiling in anticipation, and cut. Mucosal yellow blood oozed over his turtle-like skin. After a moment, he had to stop, unclench his claws, and relax. Ness turned away, lightheaded. A piece of metal plinked to the floor. Ness moved for it, thinking Sebastian had dropped an instrument, but it was the gnarled copper of a spent rifle bullet.

Sebastian extracted another piece of shrapnel, then tended to his wound with a bevy of foams, fluids, and a thick, pale blue substance that he applied like a tube of caulk. Finished, he dropped the tube with a clatter.

"Are you okay?" Ness gestured.

"Now we learn how well the Way likes Sebastian." He pointed to the canister at the top of the IV. "Change in time?"