Authors: Josin L. McQuein
Meridian
TOBIN
W
E’RE
at Day 49 AF—days since the Arc fell.
Almost two months ago, a group of kids with rocks took down the security lights that had guarded this compound for generations, and the Fade walked through. No one died. No one was stolen away to the Dark. In fact, it was the opposite. They brought back the people we’d written off as lost.
Everything changed, but you’d never know it the way things have settled.
Walk the perimeter. See nothing. Report nothing.
Test the lights.
Walk the perimeter. See nothing. Report nothing.
Lock step and follow orders.
Training for a security position should involve more action, but that’s all been past tense since the night my friends and I brought the Arc down.
“Twenty-seven?”
Mr. Pace’s voice crackles through my radio, at the same exact second he calls every night.
“Present, Teacher,” I say, using a voice I know he can’t stand.
“That wasn’t even funny the first time.”
“Present,
Elias
?”
“Tobin . . .”
“Sorry.”
“And I’m pretty sure I’ve warned you about lying to a superior, too.”
“So write me up for apologizing. I dare you.”
He’s got no one to report me to. With our former leader, Honoria, hiding in the lower parts of the compound, he’s as high up the chain of command as you can go.
“Keep it up, and I’ll do you one better,” he says sourly. “I’ll tell your father.”
Okay, that
would
be worse than the write-up.
Things have been weird with my dad since he came back from the Dark. I don’t mean to avoid him, but the Fade are
in his eyes
, all silver and shiny—everyone sees it, and everyone whispers when they think he can’t hear them. It’s worse being in the same house and wondering if the hive sees what he sees. Thinking about it makes my skin crawl, and that reminds me of
them
, too.
We’re supposedly in a state of neutrality with the shadow crawlers, but I can’t shake the idea that
neutral
is a code word for something we haven’t anticipated.
“You have to take this seriously,” Mr. Pace says. “It’s not a drill anymore.”
“Assign me something more interesting than watching the sun set and I’ll take it as seriously as you want.”
“Interesting is overrated. And
stop
staring at the sun; you’ll go blind.”
“Would that get me another assignment?”
“The system’s about to cycle.” Mr. Pace sighs. “Keep your eyes on the perimeter and off the flaming ball of solar gas.”
“Yes, sir.”
I wish the cameras were online. I’d salute, just to piss him off.
The radio goes quiet, matching the rest of my assigned perimeter stretch, only quiet never makes it all the way to silence anymore. I can’t say for sure that my hearing’s sharper since
he
did his little magic trick and healed the gunshot wound that should have killed me, but I’m definitely more aware of my surroundings. I listen harder and look deeper. I never take for granted that what I see is all that’s out there. And I never forget that the white nightmare drew blood long before Honoria did. If he hadn’t recognized Marina when we went hand-to-hand outside my door, he wouldn’t have stopped with slashing me across the shoulder. He probably would have taken my head off.
Marina never thinks of him as anything other than “Rue”—short for Rueful—“
sorry
.”
More like sorry-ass.
He’s a walking pile of genetically altered apologies with a broken heart. She swears he never intended to hurt anyone that day he took on five of us, but it’s not that simple. Thanks to the emergency share of his nanites, I know that the Fade don’t hate
humans
, but I also know that there is
one
Fade who does hate
me
. I know exactly how close he came to saying no when she begged him to save my life.
He still wouldn’t have gotten what he wants. Me dead wouldn’t make Marina more Fade or less human.
I stop at the center of my assigned route, something I’ve done often enough to leave footprints.
“Ready,” I say into my radio, and start a mental countdown. The lights in my section go through a prearranged pattern of tests before blazing full bright. In my head, it’s set to music. A billion notes blended into the current.
“How’s it look?” Mr. Pace asks.
“Same as yesterday.”
Things repeat so often around here, I’m surprised I haven’t been hypnotized.
“Good, then the reroutes haven’t done any new damage.”
Most of the damage Annie and the others did to the lamps was superficial, only requiring new bulbs and covers, which would be perfect except that while it was happening, the techs panicked. They thought the problem was more complex than broken bulbs, and they tried to force more power into the lights, causing massive shorts in the system by routing too much voltage. Now all that damage has to be unraveled like a giant, layered knot.
“There’s a pulse headed your way.”
“I’ll be here.”
I step back from the perimeter, and wait for the heat.
A pulse is exactly what it sounds like. Mr. Pace takes each section of the boundary in turn and sends high power bursts through the lamps, so we can highlight any points weak enough to buckle. The bulbs come on so strong and hot that they cook the fog right out of the Grey for several feet around the Arc. There’s something about the uncovered desolation that gives me chills, even though I’m sweating from the burn.
It’s depressing.
Lonely
.
On the short side of the Grey, where Annie and I had crossed to go after Marina, the Dark’s so close that you can see it, even through the fog. When the lights go bright on that side, the trees shudder from the shock, but here, there’s nothing. The Dark sits below the horizon, dipping out of sight in the extreme distance. It’s easy to pretend there’s nothing out there beyond rocks and tree stumps and trash that’s blown into the Grey as a reminder of the world before.
“What’s the damage?” Mr. Pace asks.
“They’re holding.”
“Good. I’ll give you a heads-up before the full-perimeter burn.”
“I’ll be here,” I say again. The lamps cut off, leaving me with a predusk sky for light.
Time for target practice.
They don’t give trainees guns, but I can improvise. I bend down for a couple of stones that are just big enough to fit my hand. There’s a felled tree with its roots sticking up that I’ve been using the last few days. From my angle, the roots form an almost perfect circle.
The first rock hits the tip of a root about an inch from the center, sending a rain of dry dirt shaking off; the second clips one off the outside ridge. I reach for a third and pitch the rock high, but it must have been cracked. It splits into pieces that drop to the ground, except for one that bounces off something midair. Suspicion creeps up my neck, ticking the back of my ears.
It hit a tiny root,
I tell myself.
Or a knot on the trunk that’s just out of sight.
I crouch for another stone, then fling it sideways, two feet off the ground. This one hits something, too, but not my stump. The rock bounces off something beside it. Something invisible.
“Bring up the lights,” I whisper into my radio, standing slowly, my eyes skimming the Grey for any hint of shimmer that would tell me a Fade’s using the fallen trees for cover.
“We’re still checking other sectors, Tobin.”
Anyone from Marina’s hive can walk safely up to the boundary now. The curious ones come every night. So why would it hide?
“Is this a drill?” I ask.
“These are the same tests we’ve run for the last week. I’m not sure—”
“Not the lights—out in the Grey,” I say.
“Did you see something?”
“I
didn’t
see anything—that’s the problem.”
Maybe it’s shy
, I think,
or scared.
It could be a kid, like Marina’s little sister, but staying camouflaged is asking for trouble. It’s not even full dark. Why would it be here so early?
What if it’s more than one? We could be surrounded.
I’m going to kill Silver for skipping out on patrol and leaving me alone. Then I’ll have my new invisible friend heal her, and I’ll kill her all over again.
I take another shot at the stump, aiming for the opposite side—nothing but air, so I turn back to where I’d hit before. The rock goes sailing, but at the point I expect an impact, it changes direction. Something’s batted it away.
A stick snaps in two, displacing the dust around it, though I can’t see the foot that must have stepped there.
“If this is you getting back at me for joking around, tell me now,” I say into the radio.
“I’m not doing anything,” Mr. Pace says.
Maybe it’s
him
, come to keep an eye on me.
“Hey!” I shout. I move forward but don’t cross the Arc. Staying on my side of the line makes me feel better, lights or not. “I know you’re there!”
I pick up another stone.
“We’re the same height, Nanobot. The next one’s coming straight at your head!”
The invisible something moves again, shuffling away so fast that it bumps my target, snapping several of the roots. This isn’t Rueful. If he wanted to screw with my head, he’d have dropped the invisible act right beside me, just to prove he could get close enough to do it.
“Tobin!” Mr. Pace is shouting. I must have tuned him out.
“I’m here.”
“I heard. Can you confirm it’s Marina’s buddy with you?”
The lights come up.
“It’s not him, but there
is
something,” I tell him.
“Sykes is headed your way. Scope it. Tell me what you see.”
When Rueful came for Marina in the hospital, Mr. Pace was able to track him with the infrared from his rifle, so each trainee was assigned a light to use in situations like this. I forgot, the stupid thing’s been hanging off my wrist the whole time.
I aim the beam at the stump.
“There’s . . .
nothing
. There’s nothing there.”
I sweep the light side to side, up and down, but I never see more than the targeting dot against rocks and brush. Another dot appears next to mine, and I turn to find Lt. Sykes has joined me.
For a second I think he’s on my side. He’s got his rifle tucked in tight to his shoulder, with serious concentration on his face. He gives the Grey a much more thorough check than I do, turning the search into a grid and covering each section in a square pattern, but ultimately, Sykes drops the rifle to his side and picks up his radio.
“It’s clear,” he says. “If there was anything out there—”
“There was! I swear.” I sound like a kid throwing a fit.
“It’s gone now,” Sykes says, staring at me, but he’s not listening to me anymore. “No trace.”
“The stump has plenty of traces,” I say, pointing to it.
Sykes turns around and walks a few feet off, but my hearing’s a lot better these days.
“He’s exhausted, Elias,” Sykes says. “The kid’s got circles under his eyes dark enough to pass for Fade-marks, and his posture’s shot. Anything he saw,
if
he saw anything, could have been in his head. I don’t want him on the perimeter. Not like this.”
“Agreed. Send him home.”
When Sykes turns to deliver the message, I’m right behind him.
“You shouldn’t eavesdrop, kid.”
“You’re not old enough to call me kid, and I’m not hallucinating!”
“No one said you are.”
“That’s
exactly
what you said!”
“I said you’re exhausted, and that’s the truth. You’ve been covering your duty and Silver’s for days—we’ve noticed. It’s burning you out.”
“I can—”
“You can find your friend and tell her to pull her share of the weight, and then you can take a nap. But first show me which stump, so I can scrape for samples. Being exhausted doesn’t make you wrong.”
Maybe not, but the possibility of being right makes me never want to sleep again.
