Bound to Ashes (The Altered Sequence Book 1) (20 page)

“Where are you going?” Jules calls.

Cain doesn’t answer and doesn’t even turn around. He keeps walking, back the way we came, over the hill and into the trees. The last image of him against the trees is burned into my retinas, but he’s not really there. Not anymore. I get a knot of dread like when I woke up in that white room. Part of me ripped away. Maybe he’ll come back, maybe he’s just angry for the time being... Just needs some time to blow off steam.

“We don’t need him,” Ashton says, wiping sweat from his forehead.

I turn and see the humans, staring, horrified. They stare at us like they just saw two dogs rip each other apart. A sinking feeling pulls at my gut... The humans just saw us at our worst. Truly, our lowest low. Through all the hardships our constant was each other, and now that’s shattered. And there’s nothing I can do to fix it. I couldn’t do a thing to protect it.

I can almost see Ashton’s point. Cain hardly spent any time with us. But his absence still leaves a hole in our dynamic. It’s second nature to look to him if we expect an attack. We’re missing a piece. And just like that, he’s gone. No goodbye, no nothing.

I look around at my friends. Jules flexes her hands into tight fists, though her eyes are downcast. Ashton haughtily walks off, still huffing but at least not violent anymore. I guess all it took was a few words to spark the smoldering rivalry into a burning hatred. But now the fire’s died down and we’re just a puff of aimless cinders.

We keep waiting for nothing to happen. Alessandra keeps staring at the tower, waiting for an epiphany. I, on the other hand, am waiting for someone else to snap. Maybe James? Will the pressure finally get to Alessandra? Maybe we’ll sit around long enough that giving up becomes an option. Maybe after we run out of food we’ll take a cue from Cain and turn around to go home. Every time I think about it, my fists clench and I want to hit something. It isn’t just that he’s gone. It’s that he
left
, of his own accord, without a goodbye. He doesn’t care what happens to us. He may have never cared to begin with.

I sit in the tall grass on the top of the hill and watch everyone below. Their actions seem so fruitless. James and Peregrine are taking stock of the supplies. Alessandra is pacing by the tower. Vinder gathers firewood. It would be just as productive to turn around and go home.

But then again, what home? What future does home hold? Going back to that burnt-out shell? Or would we live with Alessandra’s people, in a dying Ecodome? No. We have to get into
this
dome. We have to stake our claim and start fresh. Dying in the wilderness is not an option, either. Not while we’re so close. And I refuse to think Cain is right and that it’s all a lie. I’m not like him, I won’t abandon my friends. What else have I got except for them... nothing. A tree can’t stand without its roots.

We eventually decide to spend the night in front of the structure for lack of a better place to go. Our meager fire flickers restlessly in the unfriendly breeze. The humans sit with their limbs curled in, glaring into the fire. No one speaks for the greater part of the evening and the meal is over much sooner than usual. Alessandra instructs us that navigating the interior of the structure will probably take a while and we should save our supplies. Hunting will have to be our main source of food. I haven’t seen or heard a single animal since we’ve been in these woods.

Ashton gets to his feet and walks off to the structure to lean against it; the unspoken sleeping spot. Not a goodnight, nothing. He’s been like that since the fight. Jules stays by the smoldering fire, though, and her company takes the sting away.

Alessandra, the only human left in the circle, says in a quiet tone, “So... who was Spec?”

She’s wise to tread so carefully.

“One of us,” Jules says.

Alessandra doesn’t have to ask, her mismatched eyes do all the talking. What happened to him?

“It was a routine stop to the city. Nothing ever went that bad before,” Jules says. “They got him, but it wasn’t a clean kill. They got him in the lungs.”

Alessandra holds her breath.

Jules bites her tongue and presses her mouth together tighter.

“We took shelter in a tunnel.” They both look at me when I speak. “Spec was... not breathing right. Ashton went to pick him up, to take him home, where all our supplies were. He said if we got him there fast enough, there was still a chance.”

“But Cain...” Alessandra knows the story before we can tell it.

“He wanted to put Spec out of his misery,” Jules says. “Said he’d slow us down, he was going to die anyway.”

The fire is almost completely out now. It casts a weak red glow on our faces. Kindling shifts and crumbles, spraying orange cinders. “Spec died before they could do anything.”

Blackened kindling crushes the last lick of flame. The glow dies. The cinders flare with every slight shift in breeze, but eventually they fade to blackness, too.

“I’m sorry,” Alessandra says.

Jules stands up and regards her. “That’s okay,” she says, “because it wasn’t you, was it?” And she moves off to join Ashton by the structure.

Alessandra watches her go, then glances at me one last time before heading off herself. 

It wasn’t Alessandra or her people. It was Heydrich’s.

It wasn’t you, was it?

The sun rising reminds me we’re running out of time.

Ashton and I, for lack of anything else to do, walk aimlessly through the pine-needle carpet between trees.

“Do you think we’ll make it?” He asks. He stares straight ahead and his whole body is tense.

“I don’t know, Ash.” I sigh, mostly irritated he even brought it up. What’s the point of talking about it? “Probably, I guess.”

“What makes you say that?”

“We’ve still got our wits about us. Alessandra will figure out a way in soon and we’ll... we’ll find a way.” I’m mostly trying to convince myself. I’m being way too optimistic.

Ashton smirks and says, “Wish I could be as confident as you.”

I just laugh. He couldn’t be more wrong.

While we sit around the fire, Punk returns to his old self. Making stupid muttering noises, digging useless holes, and jumping around for no reason.

“You know, that dog looks pretty well-fed,” James says dubiously.

“Guess he’s the only half-decent hunter around here.” I’m sure if James had a convenient projectile nearby he’d have launched it at me, but he settles down and grumbles something about being hungry. Yeah, so what, we all are. But we’re used to it.

Punk doesn’t settle down even by the time we have to toss more wood on the fire. He doesn’t even catch the hint when I shove him. He just whines, his ears pinned back, panting and drooling anxiously. He pins the top of his head against my leg and starts digging furiously. I push him away but he doesn’t let up, not even registering I’m here or I touched him at all. It’s like that hole he’s digging is the only thing in the universe

I stand up. He wins.

“What did he find, a mole?” Peregrine asks.

“Hopefully,” Ashton says, staring at the hole.

“If he weren’t so full of ticks and fleas, I’d say let’s eat
him
,” Peregrine says. “But I’d like my last meal to be more special than Lyme Disease du Jour.”

Punk just keeps on digging. And digging. Not stopping. After a while I think he might dig himself into a coma. “Should we stop him...?”

“No,” James puts in, “if he dies of exhaustion,
I’ll
eat him, ticks and all.” Alessandra punches his arm. “What? Better than nothing....”

Eventually Punk stops and surfaces for air, barking and prancing around. He dug what looks like three feet down. Impressive for a dog his size, actually. His mouth is crazily wide and his tongue is lolling.

Jules sticks her head in the hole and reaches down to feel for anything. “Could someone bring a light or something?”

I pull a twig out of the fire and hand it to Jules, who sticks it in the hole.

“There’s something... metal down here!” She announces once she comes back up, already filthy.

“What?” Alessandra says, excited. “Can we clear it out?”

“Of course we can,” Ashton says.

“If I have to dig anymore,” Vinder says, lying back on the grass, “I’m gonna puke.”

We’re all filthy but Punk’s hole is now more of an excavation site.

Punk lies on the edge of the dirt crater, head resting on his dirty paws. I give him a resentful pat on the head. Credit where credit is due, after all.

“This Ecodome better have showers,” James says, picking something out of his mouth. Everyone is pretty coated in earth. I wonder if the humans had showers back at their base. I haven’t had a shower since I was a kid. After a while you stop missing things you can never have.

It’s pitch dark outside, the hole even more so—not even I can see what’s down there. So I grab another twig and hop inside. My feet make a
clunk
sound when they hit the ground. Big and hollow and metal. I kneel down and feel it—smooth, definitely not rock. I hold the fire closer to illuminate the surface. Yellow lettering. My heart races, I brush the dirt away and my fingers stop by a small ledge. I dig at it until it’s clear. A filthy, foot-wide window. It’s glass, or some sort of clear plastic.

“What is it?” Alessandra calls down.

“Buried treasure?” Jules cackles.

“Come see!”

Alessandra jumps down and leans in. She gasps. “No,” she says in disbelief.

I’m about to reply when the dirt hole lights up with an artificial yellow light coming from the small window.

11
• welcome home

[Dev]

“Now,” Jules says, clapping her dirty hands together. “How do we open it.”

“Definitely not that big silver handle,” I point out.

“Out of the question,” she agrees.

I feel lighter, more energized, from the excitement. I try the handle but there’s no give. Ashton comes and joins me, putting one of his legs under him like a coiled spring.

“Three, two—” he says, but the handle pivots to the side like it was holding out on us. We thump hard against the dirt wall behind us. Alessandra and Jules laugh. “Shut up,” Ashton says, smiling and brushing dirt off his back. “It was stuck.”

The door opens more quickly than the handle did, thankfully. The heavy door falls open after one push, offering a passage in its place. The stairs disappear quickly down the steep incline, a thick layer of untouched dust coating it.

Vinder grabs the edge of the door and measures its thickness with one hand. Almost the span of his fingers. “Damn,” he says.

Punk makes to follow us, of course. But Alessandra has other plans. She says, “stay,” over and over, holding her hands palm-out at Punk, as if he’ll listen. His tongue lolls to the side and he stares at her blankly.

“Why can’t he come?” Ashton asks.

“I have no idea what’s down there,” Alessandra says. “But it’s probably not suited for dogs. Even ones like Punk.”

“She’s right. He’ll probably just get in the way.” It’s one of the only things he’s good at, except maybe digging.

Everyone files in and stands in the stairwell. Ashton and I lower the door while pushing Punk out, so it snaps shut before he can stick his muzzle or paw in. For a while we hear his scratching and, faintly, whining. At least he can’t get in our way down here.

The corridor, lit by bare yellow bulbs, leads straight down. The lights must be automated. Like the CadTech fences that only ran a current when a warm body was nearby.

When we get down to a level plane, the structure looks a lot like the humans’ old base: brushed metal and plain walls. After a few paces, the lights disappear, but thankfully the first room is the control room. Or something. Alessandra, running her hands along the panels, brushes past buttons and switches like braille. It must be too dark for her to see despite the dim lights behind us.

“What are you looking for?” I’m quickly overwhelmed by the amount of buttons and labels.

“Main lobby power,” she says. “I remember hanging out with the guys who worked here and that’s how they’d close down the living quarters for the night....”

“Here.” I lean over her and flip the designated switch.

There’s a whirr and down the hall a few light buzz violently, but for the most part, everything seems to be working. They come on like clockwork, as if the facility is just waiting for its owners to come back in the morning.

Alessandra looks over her shoulder and smiles at me in thanks. “Alright,” she says. She brushes off some fine grey dust on one of the spinning office chairs. She plops down and crosses her legs and says, “It’s been a few years, but I grew up here, so I’ll do my best to lead the way. Since we lost all the schematics,” she says with a bitter edge to her voice, “we’re operating on my memory only.”

“I feel better already,” Peregrine says, smiling. Alessandra laughs a little.

“Let’s get going.”

[Alessandra]

I’m really back home. This is really happening.

Everything feels half-familiar. I’m seeing it for the first time in—has it really been eleven years? I can’t wait until we get to the parts I know best. The living quarters, the labs, the hallways and the automatic elevators... the ‘swoosh’ sound is still fresh in my memory. Other sounds trigger my memory. The clank, clank of feet on the metal grates. Through a set of thick metal doors, we reach one of the caverns. It was easier than the official ‘sphere’ names. Outersphere, innersphere, centersphere. We only just walked into the crust of this mechanical planet. The sound of echoing voices, so small in this chasm of a place, jerk me back to years ago. Mom only let us on the bridges with supervision, the drop is for miles. We’d lean over as much as we could, shouting into the blackness and listening to our voices fall into the black.

I feel safer here. Up on the surface, everything wants to kill you. Other survivors, what animals are left... down here, we’re the only living things for miles. Literally miles of cold mechanical canyons. Nothing bad ever happened here.

Well, until the defense systems wake up.

No, no... if they wake up. Gotta stay positive.

I lead everyone across the narrow bridges, a thin strip of metal the only thing between us and an almost endless drop. The chasm below is so deep, you can’t see the bottom. It descends into blackness immediately, not even bothering with a nice gradient from dark to darker. I remember dad telling me this place used to be a mine. Our company bought this place when the minerals were all depleted. He said it was the perfect place for humanity’s new home.

He never expected there wouldn’t be almost any humanity left.

I didn’t want to admit it before, but I’m facing it now: the virus hit here as well. It looks like the human race was reduced to who was immune, no matter how deep they were buried. Someone would have found us by now, probably. But no one’s arrived, and I have a feeling no one will. Maybe that’s how it should be. A raw wave of soreness washes through me, the same kind I used to get back when the virus was still fresh. Everyone in the facility, every worker and every scientist.... everyone I ever knew growing up. Gone.

“Come on.” I wave everyone along. “We should be crossing to the freight hangar. It’ll take us directly to the dome’s entrance.”

“Should,” James says.

“Well.... I
think
it’s this way.”

James sniffs and presses his mouth tighter.

“But wait until you see the next area.” I can’t wait to show them. Dad always knew how to show off for guests. I hope it’s just as dazzling as it was when I was little.

As we enter the new chamber, the light ripples with greens and blues. The vaulted ceiling, lined with shining metal supports like a spider web, supports a massive glass mosaic above us. As we walk the narrow path connected to the circular platform, glass shards crunch under our feet.

The platform might as well be torn from a modern living magazine—smooth white furniture, glass topped coffee table. I used to brag to my friends that the chairs cost, on their own, a hundred grand each. Commissioned by my father, designed by some famous designer who’s probably dead now. Running around with the other kids in the facility seems like a different life, now.

“Welcome to the entry hall.” My voice echoes for ages, and for a second it doesn’t feel as desolate anymore. The others crane their necks looking up and around at the gigantic blue-green dome above them. The light shining down on us isn’t the sun, it’s the same fake sun as in the Ecodome. But it’s as brilliant as sunlight. It’s just a tease. It says, ‘Here’s what it’ll be like in the dome. All this light and all this warmth.’ And I never noticed until now, but the greens and blues form the oceans and continents. It’s perfectly dwarfing. I can’t stop smiling.

Arching around the circular platform we stand on is a lattice of staggered planters with gigantic lush plants spilling out of them. Shoots and vines spill down the planters and dangle over the abyss. I have no name for most of these plants, but they seem exotic with their waxy leaves and bright red spines. The hydroponic systems gurgle softly in the background. Besides being overgrown and crowded, the plants seem to be doing alright. And if the decorations are thriving... my heart swells. The dome must be magnificent.

“Fancy,” Vinder says. His voice is swallowed by the expanse of the chamber.

James chuckles at the understatement.

Dev walks past the purple orchid in a cube-shaped container on the table. It sits perfectly on its own self-contained hydroponic vase. He touches the leaves, doubting they’re real. It seems to pique his curiosity. He gently lifts the white ceramic pot off its base. The trickle of water stops. He hesitates, then sets is back. The pump starts up again. His open hand hovers around it and I’m glad he’s not watching me—I can’t help but smile.

Peregrine appears by my side and grabs my hand, giving it an excited squeeze. “We’re here,” she says.

Hearing her say it makes me swell with excitement and anxiety. My pulse beats in my ears. “We are.” I squeeze her hand back.

I could watch these guys gawk over the welcoming platform forever. Everyone stares up at the glass, smiling, or just in awe. Ashton gingerly steps around the furniture and looks like a wild animal in a home life magazine. And soon enough we’ll be inside the dome and there will be even more to stare at. Dev brushes past the back of the couch and disturbs a cloud of thick dust. Soon we’ll be there, E4-17, and I’ll have made it up to you.

Even though the glass chamber is hard to leave, I move us along quickly. There’s so much left to see. The next walkway leads us down an echoing chamber and my heart surges— in the distance is the company logo. ‘STEM INC.’ The letters send an excited chill down my spine. Each letter must be at least fifteen feet high, shining metal suspended from the ceiling.

“This leads to the meeting room. Dad and the other company owners would take investors to tour the Ecodome. He had to lead them past the logo first, of course. That’s just good marketing.”

We pass between the S and the T, which curves into a spinal column.

“Why ‘stem’?” Ashton asks.

“Stem Incorporated started as a medical researching company, but eventually branched out to other subjects, like the Ecodome. He, my dad, chose ‘stem’ because that’s what all functions of life start out as: stem cells. It’s symbolic. Stem Inc. is the starting place for all new life.” I push past the swinging frosted glass doors. The mechanisms kick in and hold the doors for everyone, then slowly let them close behind us. It feels so good to be back in an automated environment. I never realized how much I missed it until now. People used to scoff at new technology—the latest smart phone, the newest luxury car—I always kept my sour feelings to myself. I wish I could have the satisfaction of saying, ‘I told you so,’ to one of them, now. Technology isn’t spoiling us or making us lazy. It’s saving us.

“A flower starts as a stem, too,” Ashton says to no one in particular, gazing around with characteristic aloofness.

“That’s the most poetic thing I’ve heard in years,” Peregrine says, her laughter colored with surprise.

Ashton falters for a second then replies, “Thanks.”

Come to think of it, I do see him writing in that little black notebook quite a lot. Wonder if it’s poetry. I can’t help but grin— poetry?

“So what do you write in that little book, Ashton?”

My question puts a snag in Ashton’s usually steady stride. He pauses for a moment, causing a ripple of awkward sideways glances.

“It’s like a journal,” he finally says. “I just write about what happens.” He slips the ragged journal out of his pocket and turns it over in his rough, bony hands. A bulldog clip on the cover serves as a slot for a warped pen. Burn marks, singed edges, the worn out black fabric covering the outside... it’s almost as scarred and dirty as its author. A stiff-lettered ‘Ash’ is carved onto the front.

“That’s good practice,” Peregrine says. “Because, I mean, I don’t mean to depress anybody, but there won’t be any more books unless we write ‘em ourselves.”

“Or movies,” Vinder says wistfully.

“TV, podcasts... there’ll never be a new Muse album,” Peregrine adds, sighing. “They were so great.”

“They were from Britain, though, right? Did the virus go overseas...?” Vinder asks hopefully.

“I hope it wiped out everyone. Because if it only hit here, that means the whole rest of the world hates us so much they left us to rot,” Peregrine says, putting her thumbs in her pants pockets and slouching. Like she couldn’t care less if the whole world hated her.

“It was all over the news. It spread via cargo ships and planes. It took Europe in two weeks,” James says impatiently.

Tch. He’s only six years older than me and Peregrine, yet he still needs to treat us like kids. As if six years’ experience counts for anything. But he’s nothing compared to the super soldiers.