False Future (16 page)

The map shows twenty airborne Axes. All of them converging on our location.

“T
hose dots are bad, right?” Peter says.

“Hold on,” I say. The canopy slams shut and then we’re airborne, swooping around the corner and heading north on Broadway. The other Axes are seconds away at most. They have training, I don’t, and I’m supremely outnumbered, so there’s really only one avenue of escape. One that might be too crazy for them to take themselves. I fly us up, rising to the tenth or eleventh floor of the buildings on either side.

“Miranda, I don’t think— Look!”

Two Axes have rounded the corner of the block at the far end. They’re coming straight at us.

“Turn around!” Peter says, but there’s no time. They’ll chase us and shoot us down. I rotate the Ax ninety degrees until I’m facing the window of an office building. I push both sticks forward and we fly through the glass and into the building. The glow from my engines shows desks and chairs and rows of cubicles, all of them immediately crushed under the Ax. A few things catch fire from our passing.

“Are they following?”

Peter checks. “Too much debris to tell, but probably!”

We crash through the far end of the building and I pull up, cutting hard to the left and then swooping back down toward the street. A quick check of the map shows I’ve confused them briefly, which I hope is enough for my next plan. It has to be enough.

I point at the live map. “I need you to figure out how to shut off the transponder or whatever it is that’s letting them know where we are.”

“On it,” Peter says, and begins fiddling with the controls.

I bring the Ax down low over the avenue, then dive down another side street. Then it’s up another avenue till the next block. Constant zigging and zagging. I can’t risk being in their line of sight again.

Peter seems to figure it out right away, erasing our dot from the map.

“How did you know how to do that?”

He shrugs and says, “Luck. I hope this is one of your better ideas.”

“Me too,” I say.

On the map an Ax is nearing the corner ahead, trying to cut us off, so I make a hard right up the next avenue, staying low, but really leaning on the throttle. The four engines whine louder, glowing brighter, and we rocket forward, block after block. Just as the Ax behind us is about to come into view, I swing down another side street, almost clipping the top of an abandoned semitruck.

From there it’s just a little bit farther until I’m on the West Side Highway, headed north above cars skewed all over the road. The gun turrets left behind by True Earth are still in the middle of the road amid scattered vehicles, but they’re dark now. No more attacks are coming across the river, at least from anything that runs on electricity. And with no way to communicate, any kind of ground assault from the outside will be slow in arriving.

“I think you lost them,” Peter says, eyes on the map. That doesn’t make me get off the throttle. The buildings are a blur to the right. Soon we’re at the north end of the island.

“There could be a second hidden transponder,” Peter says. “We should land a good bit away in case they can still find us.”

I swing off the highway and land just southeast of the George Washington Bridge. Once I’m on the ground, I kill the engines immediately (which seem to die gratefully, sputtering out with a four-note death rattle), open the canopy, and scan the area. Any civilians who saw us land could quickly gather a mob and force us to defend ourselves. But the coast seems clear.

We hop out. Peter carries the last RAW on his back. The Ax itself looks like it’s been through a meat grinder.

A few blocks north we hit 181st Street. The Washington Heights neighborhood is much less dense than the downtown area, filled with smaller apartment buildings all the same color—a dingy, brownish brick. Fires burn in the streets, most of them cars. Unlike other parts of the city, people are actually outside here. It doesn’t have the sense of panic I anticipated. One of the little farmer’s markets is still open, lit by torches and guarded by armed men. I look closer and see it’s actually a dozen or so cops in police riot gear. There’s a line of people waiting for their share of food. The sight of order being maintained isn’t enough to give me hope, but it’s good to see.

We continue traveling north toward Kellogg’s apartment building, secure in our disguises. A man starts following us, but then he sees the RAW I’m holding and decides he’s actually going the wrong way.

“Alone at last,” Peter says, and we both stop at the same time, facing each other in the dark. He kisses me then, hard and fast, and the RAW gets caught between us, pinching my injured hand, but I don’t care. I kiss him back just as hard. I sling an arm around his neck, and his hand presses on the small of my back, pulling us together so there isn’t an inch of space.

I think about the promise I made before killing the eyeless. We were in the showers of our old school, just a door between us, and I promised we would talk when everything was over. The promise was a lie, and I knew it at the time. But here I am, getting a second chance I don’t deserve.

I want to fulfill my promise this time.

“I like kissing you,” he says.

“Then do it.”

He tilts his head to the side, just slightly, and I can see the barest outline of his smile in the darkness. Then he kisses me again.

“I want to stop fighting,” I say against his lips.

“We will soon. Just a little bit longer. We just have to fight a little bit longer.”

I know there’s still so much to do, so many answers to find, so much that’s uncertain. But I listen to him anyway, and we keep walking. We hold hands. And for five seconds, I think everything might turn out all right. But those five seconds can’t stand up to the black hole I feel inside me.

We pass a wine store, which I know is empty before I can see inside. I imagine people inside their bitter-cold apartments drinking themselves to death, or drinking just to keep warm. On the side of the store is a colorful mural of cartoon stick figures crossing a street, with the words
ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE
above them in big poofy letters. If only…

When we reach Kellogg’s building, there’s a man in the lobby to greet us.

With a shotgun.

He levels it at us. We hold the RAWs loosely, barrels angled toward the floor.

“We’re here to meet Kellogg,” I say. “He sent us. He’s on his way.”

“The soldier man?” the guy says. He’s wearing a blue peacoat, hipsterish glasses with big black frames, and a nice, stylish scarf. It’s weird to see him with the shotgun in his hands. Like with Natalie, the end of the barrel bobs and sways. Some people should not carry weapons.

“Please don’t accidentally shoot us,” Peter says. “Notice how we came in? Nice and easy? We’re on your side.”

“Oh really?” the man says.

“What apartment is Kellogg’s?” I say.

“I don’t know. 2H or 2G or something.”

“May we go there?” I step forward slowly, curl my fingers around the top of the barrel slowly, and then push it toward the floor, also slowly. The man’s lower lip is quivering.

“They put me on guard duty for the next hour,” the man says. I’m not sure if that’s a yes or a no.

“What if we just stay here with you?” I say. “We can wait for Kellogg.” At least we’re out of the wind.

He nods after a moment. “That sounds fine, I guess.” And then he says, “My wife died.”

“I’m really sorry,” I say, because I don’t know what else to say.

“I was out looking for food and someone broke into our apartment. Next week I was going to start buying more groceries and stop getting so much takeout. We had talked about it. About how much money we were wasting on delivery, you know.”

I nod like I know what he’s talking about. Is there even a way to make someone feel better in this situation? Probably not. Not with faces like mine and Peter’s.

“They left her tangled in the bathroom, half-wrapped in the shower curtain.”

“I’m sorry,” I say again.

“But one of them dropped his wallet. I knew who he was.” He hefts the shotgun, as if that explains everything, and in a way it does.

No one speaks again. We settle onto the floor facing the door with our weapons across our laps. Peter rests his head against my shoulder, and then I rest my head on his. Somehow his hair still smells good. I wonder what he would do if he came home and found me dead on the bathroom floor. I actually feel bad for the imaginary people who kill me.

After what feels like hours, Kellogg shows up with around a hundred people in tow.

Kellogg shakes the man’s hand. “Zachary,” he says. I never thought to ask for the man’s name.

“Who are all these people?” Zachary says, clearly not happy to see them.

“Survivors. Including most of my men.”

“We can’t feed them. The building has enough food for a few days. And that’s with weak rations. You get that, right?”

“I do. We’ll think of something.”

“You gonna raid another building with your soldiers and their guns?” His eyes fill with tears; he’s thinking of his wife, no doubt.

Kellogg holds his gaze. “No. I’m not. I said we’ll think of something.” He wedges the door to the lobby open with a newspaper, and people begin to file inside. One of his soldiers comes in, and Kellogg says, “Make a fire in the courtyard. It’ll be hidden there.”

“These people are hungry,” the soldier says.

“It’s been four days. They don’t know what hungry is yet.”

Then Noble and Sophia stagger in with the rest of the crowd. They manage a smile for me and Peter, and I hug them both at the same time.

“Safe trip?” Noble says.

“There have been worse,” I reply. “You?”

“Spiders,” Sophia says, shivering from either the cold or the word. “We burned through a lot of ammunition, but there were only two casualties.”

That night we gather around a fire in the courtyard, which is taller than anyone. People clump around it, no one talking much. A few people complain about being hungry. The harsh firelight coupled with the darkness just beyond it hide Peter’s and my faces well. People that do recognize us give us dirty looks, but I assume Kellogg briefed them all on who we are and why we’re here.

As the night goes on it’s actually not that bad of a time. One guy starts telling rude jokes, and people laugh. I see two kids playing with little toy cars, packing the snow into makeshift ramps.

Then I see Albin standing next to the fire. I gasp, but he holds a finger to his lips. I look at the faces around him, but no one is looking at him. He’s hidden himself in their minds.

“Meet me in the park,” he says. “Come alone, or everyone dies.”

I blink and he disappears.

I
try not to look startled, but Peter must notice something change on my face. “What is it?” he says.

I just shake my head. “Uh…”

I stand up, shaking the stiffness from my cold joints. I stretch my hands over my head, trying to seem casual, but my eyes are searching for Albin in all the shadows, even though I know I won’t find him.

“Where are you going?” Peter says.

“Do you trust me?”

“Yes.” The look on his face says no.

“If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, get everyone out.”

“Miranda, what is it?”

He tries to stand up, but I press my hand to his shoulder. “Trust me.”

“Okay, but don’t go far.”

“Not far,” I say.

I leave the light of the fire and feel my way back inside to the chilly hallway. People have lit candles to line the hallway, which is thoughtful, but they’re using too many. If we fail, people will wish they’d been more careful with how many they burned.

The guards at the main door look at me questioningly.

“Kellogg wants me to do a patrol,” I say, which is good enough for them.

I step into the cold again, then unsling the RAW from my back. The few people on the street give me a wide berth. A man taking his dog for a walk nods at me, and I hold up a hand and say, “I’m not one of them.” He just hurries away with his dog.

Three men on the other side of the street group up behind a UPS truck, and I can hear them muttering and pointing. I break into a run, ignoring the stinging cold air in my lungs. The three men are pursuing, but halfheartedly. The street ends at a traffic circle with a bunch of leafless trees planted in the middle. I skirt around it and see the entrance to the park straight ahead.

And standing right there is a man wearing a suit of plum-colored armor. Albin holds my gaze for a moment, then turns around and runs into the park.

“Oh come
on
,” I say. We can’t just talk out here? I have to follow him inside?

The cautious part of me thinks it could be a trap, but the sensible part knows that’s not logical. If True Earth knew where we were, they could just hover an Ax over the courtyard and drop a bomb on us. Plus Albin only called for me, when Peter is just as valuable. No, this is something else.

I jog after him, eyes scanning left and right for any movement. I level my RAW at a black squirrel climbing a tree, then spin again as a few dead leaves rustle over a mound of snow. Somehow it’s lighter here—unnaturally light. I can see the trees all around me, their bare branches swaying back and forth.

It’s an illusion.
Albin is letting me see so I can follow him. Above, the sky is still pure black, a night sky without stars or a moon.

I move deeper into the park. Behind me, the wall of darkness is steadily filling in again, a black sheet pushing me onward.

“This is far enough,” I say.

No it isn’t,
Albin says in my head.

I hear the sound of rushing wind, and behind me the wall of darkness moves faster than before. I break into a run, up a set of stairs and into an open area set against a cliff overlooking the Hudson River. I sprint across the stones covering the ground, but then something invisible and solid strikes me mid-thigh. I topple over sideways. My hands slam down, grabbing at whatever tripped me. They catch on something in the air, what feels like a rock wall, and then my feet are dangling over nothing. The RAW is gone.

The darkness dissolves back into light, with Albin hovering above me as I dangle over the side of a cliff.

It’s so obvious now I could laugh—or cry. Instead I only glare up at him. He tricked me with an illusion once again. I thought I was far away from the edge, but I wasn’t. The rock wall that looked ten feet away was right in front of me.

Albin smiles down at me with that perfect smile—perfect in structure, at least, since the smile doesn’t feel all that genuine. But his honey-colored eyes are warm, as before.

“You realize I’m doing this for my protection only,” he says. “That weapon was too dangerous for you to have if we’re going to talk.”

“I needed it, you idiot. You have more. And I don’t trust you.”

“Then we have something in common already.”

He takes a laborious breath, then looks around our little clearing high above the river.

“If I help you up, can I trust you?” he says.

“I came all this way, didn’t I? Alone.”

“A simple yes or no will suffice.”

“Let’s call it a truce instead.”

He grabs my wrist and hauls me up with considerable strength. I swing my legs back onto solid ground.

We stand a safe distance away from each other. “You’re strong,” he says.

“Thanks.”

“Which is why I came to you. The girl who has been through so much. Through multiple lives already. I know what you are willing to risk.”

My cheek tingles when I think about the bruise he gave me. “Your illness is gone,” I say.

He sniffles, like a reflex, and then coughs on leftover gunk in his lungs. “I’m recovering. I come from a world without disease. It is to my shame that I wasn’t ready to experience this place.”

“What are you, some kind of robot?”

He actually laughs. “No. Well, parts of me are not biological, but I assure you, I am almost completely organic. I come from a world separate from your time line entirely, or rather, one which split away long ago. You could call my world a rival of True Earth’s, both societies trying to prove how utterly
perfect
they are.”

“But you work together….”

“Not exactly. One of the leaders of my world liked what the director of True Earth was doing, and he tried to help. Walk with me.”

He starts toward the other end of the open area, but I don’t move.

“How can I trust anything you’re saying?” I call after him.

He spins around, brow lowered in anger. “Don’t you see? You’re only here because of me. Do you think the director was really going to let you go, only to allow you to keep fighting back? I hid your meeting with Olivia from her, giving you time to escape. The director was disappointed and surprised when you didn’t show up in the Verge. But now she’s moved on to anger.”

“Why the change of heart in helping me?” If I can trust him, I do need his help. But I will never forget the hand he had in Rhys’s death. I can’t.

“Because the director lied to me, and to my people. I came here because I thought we were destroying your world completely. I thought this was another errant world that might one day be a threat to all others. Then I discover that, no, it’s the past of True Earth, and they have no intention of destroying it. When I discovered the lie, I reported it and was ordered to stop the director. My goals are now in line with yours. We only serve True Earth when it serves
us
.”

This should be good news, but instead it churns my stomach. What evil logic. “It’s that simple, huh? You had no problem destroying us before, but now that you know hurting us is helping True Earth, you’re against it.”

“Essentially,” he says. “At the start of this mission we thought there could be peace between us, but as the name implies, there is only one true earth. The director lied because she wanted our Key, which we loaned to her, against our good judgment. And then she lost it to one of her creations, this East person. Now we don’t want her to have it at all.”

I start walking with him. I make the choice to trust him. We follow a trail down a hill side by side.

“You’re cold,” he says with kindness that sounds a little too false. Almost like he’s trying it out.

“I’m fine.”

But then I blink, and the barren ice world that is New York transforms into a summer day. The trees have leaves, there is a gentle breeze, and birds chirp all around us. I can smell flowers and new grass. And the air on my face feels warm. It almost doesn’t matter that it’s not real.

“How do you do that?”

“My world has created warriors, not unlike the Roses of True Earth. But we try not to terrify our enemies into submission.”

“Just deceive.”

He nods. No way he can deny it. Then we come across our first body, a middle-aged man on his stomach, frozen and thick with frost. It looks so out of place in the illusion. Albin doesn’t bother to hide it.

“So this Key leads to a room….”

He nods again. “We created a room from where the Black can be controlled. Where it can be used as a weapon.”

“If you’re so powerful you can dupe the director, why don’t you just take it?”

“I have to follow rules about interference. There are other worlds watching, all the time. The multiverse is bigger than you can imagine, with nearly infinite time lines.”

“What do you want me to do once I have the Key?”

“There’s only one thing you can do, isn’t there? If you remove the Black from this world, power will be restored, and it will recover. But once the Black is released the way it has been, it can’t go back. It’s out there and must occupy another world. Imagine puncturing a can of soda and trying to put the liquid back inside. It wouldn’t work.”

“So it has to go somewhere. Where?”

He stops walking. So do I. “You know where it has to go,” he says.

True Earth.

He picks a flower growing next to his foot and holds it up between us, inspecting it.

My throat is tight. I swallow, and it gets even tighter. “So you expect me to just destroy their world.
Our
future.”

“I’m afraid at this juncture, you can either live in eternal darkness now or eternal darkness later. It seems like a problem I’d rather deal with in a thousand years, wouldn’t you say? And who knows. Perhaps in a thousand years, your world will figure out a solution before it happens.”

He lets the flower fall, and it disappears before it hits the ground. As does the rest of the illusion. The cold hits me all at once, and I start shivering despite my armor and clothes.

“I think deep down you know that’s been the choice all along. What are you willing to do, how
terrible
are you willing to become, in order to save your world?”

My teeth are chattering. “You don’t care about us. We’re nothing to you. We’re just animals.”

“That’s true. But I see that you’re not nothing to one another. Perspective is everything.”

“Why do I think you’re just too afraid to do it yourself?”

“I don’t know,” he says.

We’re back on the road to Kellogg’s building, where I will really have to make the choice.

“Even if I got the Key and do what you want—and I’m not saying I will—what guarantee do I have that some other True Earth won’t spring up and become a threat to us again? Or even
your
world, which I know nothing about, by the way.”

He’s silent for a long moment.

“The Dark Room”—he says it like that,
The Dark Room
—“doesn’t just direct the flow of the Black….”

“Tell me.”

“From the Dark Room, a person could poison the Black forever. They could make it so no one could ever travel through it and survive ever again.”