The World Forgot (22 page)

“Don't worry,” Cole says. “The Jin'Kai will probably follow the same power source we did. Maybe your Dad and the others can take off safely while the Devastators attack us here.”

“Very comforting, Cole,” I tell him. Damn. We were so close. I could practically taste the deus ex—

“Pardon me, but would you like me to activate this installation's defensive systems?”

We all turn and stare at Merv, mouths agape.

“I thought you said there were no weapons left on the planet!” Cole screeches.

“There are no weapons that you could use off-planet in a conflict. However, this installation is fortified with energy shielding, several direct-energy turrets, and—”

“Yes. Yes! Activate them!” we all shout.

“Very good. Shall I transport your friends on the stealthed vessel inside before raising the shields?”

“You have
molecular transporters
?” Byron asks. “I'm most impressed.”

“Could have used that information
before
my heart attack, Merv,” I say. “But, yes. Beam them up, Scotty.”

“I am not sure I understand the command. Accessing . . .”
Merv's eyes twist in his head for several seconds.
“Ah, yes. ‘Scotty.' Charming. There is interference from the rudimentary stealth field. I cannot ascertain if they are all friendlies. There are more than a dozen life-forms aboard. Perhaps these ‘Jin'Kai' have already boarded?”

“No, that would be our in-house cheerleading squad,” I say. “They're not exactly friendlies . . . but I guess you'd better beam them all in anyway.”

Beside me Chloe lets out a groan. And I can't even blame her.

“Very well. Initiating transport.”

There is a flickering light in the center of the room, and forms begin to take shape. At first they're transparent, but as the shimmering light around them fades, they become more solid. But something's wrong. Only a handful of them are standing up. Most of them are lying flat on the ground. As they come into focus, it looks like all of the Brittas are out cold on the floor. Then I spot Marnie, also unconscious. The hairs on the back of my neck prickle.

“What the hell?” Chloe asks.

Standing next to the unconscious girls are three people—Dad and Ducky, wearing some sort of hooded suits, and behind them . . .

“You just won't stay dead, will you, Doc?”

Marsden looks discombobulated. Which I guess is to be expected when you've just been de- and re-molecularized.

“What is this?” he asks. His muscles are coiled and his eyes wide. Then, as though it's the only logical move, Marsden swiftly grabs Ducky and pulls him into a headlock, brandishing a weapon and pointing it directly at Duck's noggin.

“Easy with that thing,” I say. The blood in my veins runs ice cold, but I try to explain things as calmly as I can to the madman with the ray gun. “You're on Mars. Or, well, under it.” He still seems confused. “Lemme guess,” I continue. “You hid on the shuttle when we blasted our way out of the Rust Belt, like a rat leaving a sinking ship.”

“Such a way with words,” Marsden says, quickly returning to his usual evil-scientist-in-charge shtick. “You wouldn't believe that I always forget that.” He makes a quick survey of the room. “Weapons. All of them. Kick them over.”

Reluctantly Byron and Cole take the blasters they used to carve the rock face and slide them across the floor toward Marsden.

“What did you do, Marsden?” I ask. “Are they all dead?”

“What, the cattle?” Marsden asks, darting his eyes down toward Marnie and the Brittas. “No. The plan was to gas everyone and then commandeer the ship.”

“Donald and I were outside doing repairs,” Dad explains, pulling his shielded hood back so that he can be heard. “When we reentered the ship, we found the girls unconscious and our friend here trying to start up the engines.”

You'd think I'd be insanely pissed about this new development. But the fact that I don't have to listen to a bunch of Brittas prattle about Cole's butt in this tense moment is lessening my rage.

Marsden's still got my bestie in a headlock, though, so there's that to deal with.

“Mind telling me what is going on?” Marsden asks. And given the gun and all, I'm inclined to answer him.

I point to the hologram who's been taking in our standoff with fascinated detachment. “This is Merv,” I explain. “He's kind of the resident record-keeper here on Mars. We came here looking for a superweapon to blast your buddies to smithereens with, but what we found instead was a big old truth bomb. It's all pretty long and convoluted, but the short version is: You're done. It's all over. Your experiments are based on bad science, Doctor. You let your prejudice blind you to the truth. The mutation responsible for the Enosi hybrids does not originate in the Almiri but in man.”

Marsden slits his eyes at me. “That's impossible,” he says. “The mutation appears in the gestating Almiri fetus.”

“See for yourself,” I say. I flick through the screen in front of me. “Merv, put the pertinent info up for the good doctor to read, would you?”

“This has been the strangest day,”
Merv replies, but he follows orders. The data streams on a holographic display in front of Marsden.

Marsden's eyes scroll over the text, and you can practically see his conviction melting away with each line he reads.

“This is impossible,” he repeats.

“It doesn't matter how many times you try to graft your own DNA onto any of us,” I tell him. “The stronger species will always win out. And humans are the stronger species. So suck on that until it tastes like candy.”

“I am not in the mood for games, Elvie.”

“Neither am I. The writing is literally on the wall, Doc. So maybe you should just put down the gun and go to your Devastator buddies out there for an honorable beheading, or whatever.”

“Speaking of which,”
Merv interjects.
“The encroaching aliens have come into contact with the first line of turrets. Shields at ninety-three percent. Analysis suggests defensive systems will hold for ten minutes.”

“They're here?” Marsden asks, his face going white.

“Dearheart, what exactly is going on?” Dad asks.

“Same old stuff, Dad. Aliens. Revelation. Drama. Put the gun down, Doc.”

Marsden ignores me, staring intently at the genetic analysis scrolling in front of him. “My work . . .” I've got to give it to him, the man sounds truly gutted. “If all this is true . . . If we had known, we never would have come to your backward planet.”

And there it is. The cartoon lightbulb going off above my head. “I guess you wouldn't have, would you?” I say. I turn to my new buddy the hologram. “Merv, maybe you can help us out after all.”

“As I mentioned previously, there are no weapons systems left on the planet that would be of use to you in a planetary conflict.”

“We don't need to beat the Devastators,” I say, thinking things through out loud. “We only need to make them realize how pointless beating us would be.”

Byron shakes his head. “I don't follow,” he says.

“What are you getting at, Elvie?” Marsden asks. His grip on Ducky has not loosened in the slightest.

“The whole point of this stupid invasion is for the Jin'Kai to find a new source of baby mommas, right? But if we could get a signal out, share the info about the mutation, let them see that hybridization is an inevitable and systemic thing at this point, and there's no reason to stay . . .”

“Then they'll just exterminate the whole planet,” Marsden says.

“That sounds bad,” Cole puts in.

“They wouldn't waste their time with extermination if they have somewhere better to be,” I say. “Heck, this might even save
your
bacon, Doc.”

“Elvie . . .” Ducky starts to ask. But Marsden squeezes more tightly, and he shuts up.

“Merv,” I say, attempting to keep my cool.
A plan, Elvie. All you need is a plan.
“You said there are, what, four hundred some species out there compatible with the Klahnia? I'm assuming they're pretty far away, right? I mean, seeing as the Almiri never found them before.”

“The species are a considerable distance from this system, yes.”

“And you have broadcast capabilities, right? If I wanted to transmit a message on an open frequency, the Jin'Kai fleet would be able to pick it up and understand it?”

“That is correct.”

“So if they're so desperate to start making babies, there'd be very little reason to stay here and fight before they left. If we could send them coordinates . . .”

“It is against my programming to allow you to expose a vulnerable species to an aggressor.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” I say. “Do you have a user interface I can operate manually?”

“Yes, but—”

“Can you activate it, please?”

“It is against my programming to—”

“I got that part. Just open the goddamn interface.”

“Very well.”
Merv's eyes widen and spin, and a three-­dimensional holographic keyboard panel appears in front of me, complete with a monitor. But when Marsden retrains his gun on me, I take a step back from the keyboard, arms raised.

“What are you playing at?” Marsden asks.

“I'm not playing, Doc. What you're seeing here is a last ditch effort to keep us
all
alive.”

Marsden appears very unsure—an unusual look for him. His gun arm relaxes ever so slightly, which I take to mean that I momentarily have his attention. I move back to the keyboard. The cryptic martian code scrawls in front of me.

“I slept through Beginners' Martian freshman year, Merv,” I say, already furiously scrolling through the data in front of me. “Mind throwing a universal translator my way?” Cole and Chloe crowd around me as English appears on the screen. “Show me star charts for the nearest compatible species.” Merv complies.

Embedded in the charts are data about each inhabited planet, detailing varieties of plant and animal life, sentient species (some planets, remarkably, have more than one), and levels of technological advancement. It's pretty much the most astounding discovery in history, but I'll have time to contemplate it later. Hopefully. In the present I need coordinates. The
right
coordinates.

“Elvie, don't,” Byron says. “This is wrong.”

“He's right, Elvs,” Cole says. “You can't just shove the Jin'Kai off onto some other unsuspecting race because it's convenient.”

For his part Ducky makes a gagging noise that I take as agreement.

“Look, I don't know about you all,” I say, “but I just met my daughter, like, a week ago, and for most of that time she's been a real bitch. No offense, sweetie.”

“None taken.”

“I'd like a little more time to get to know her better, and worldwide annihilation would seriously get in the way of that. I mean to survive this. I mean for us all to survive.”

“If we were to sacrifice another planet's freedom to save our own skins,” Byron warns—and I swear I will knee him in the groin if he starts in on the poetry right now—“that would make us no better than the Jin'Kai.”

“He's right, dearheart,” Dad says gently. “While I cannot contemplate oblivion, I find it a sweeter fate than that of being an accomplice to mass genocide.”

“All right. That's just about enough, I think.” It's Marsden who says it. When I look up, his gun is trained steadily on me, his forearm still firmly pressed into Ducky's windpipe.

“Doc, this will work, I swear. You just have to—”

“Trust you? I think not.” He takes a step back toward the sealed door. “You are all quite convincing, but I'm not about to be hoodwinked by a half-assed ruse concocted by the Almiri and their pets.”

“This is the only way, Marsden,” I plead, doing my best to stay calm. “What do you think you're going to do, just walk out there and fly away happily with the monsters who want to kill you?”

“That's exactly what I intend to do. But they won't lay a finger on me,” he says, throwing his glance to Chloe. “Not once I have her.”

My heart does a nosedive straight to the pit of my stomach. “Forget it, Doc. She's with us now. You burned that bridge when you revealed yourself as the cold, calculating prick that you are.”

Marsden trains the gun on Chloe.

“I don't care if I have to carry her out in pieces. She's coming with me.”

“This may not be the best time,”
Merv interjects,
“but the intruders have crossed the first threshold and have engaged the secondary turret position. Shields are at sixty-seven percent.”

“I don't think you've thought this through, Doc,” I say. “Taking my daughter with you won't change any of the facts that we've learned here today.”

“This is not your daughter,” Marsden says. His tone is so matter-of-fact that it sounds like a smirk.

“What do you mean?” I feel breathless. “Of course she is.”

“Your troublesome mother took your mewling infant when she abandoned my facility weeks ago,” Marsden tells me. “This one is of my making.”

Chloe and I lock eyes with each other, and I'm not sure which of us is more terrified.

“A clone?” Cole asks. His voice is weak, nearly defeated. It's a tone I don't think I've ever heard from him.

“But the tracker . . . ,” I say. “It led me right to her. It . . . it
beeped
.”

“The tracer is genetic,” Byron offers. His voice is gentle, as though he knows that what he's about to explain will gut me. “If Chloe is really a clone, it's possible the tracer could have been transferred into her DNA as well.”