ARC10

Chapter 1.2

We descend into the cellar where scattered remnants of the Before Days lie in ruins. I thrust the kid into a corner tucked away behind pipes and bricks.

"Get down and cover your vitals." I place his hands over the back of his neck and shove his head into his lap.

The house rattles as the Invaders draw near.

"Captain Lorn, status report."

Unbidden, my repressed memories of previous encounters with Invader lights leak into my reality. The haunting stench of burning flesh wafts through the air. I freeze.

"Captain Lorn? Come in. How copy?"

I can't find my voice. Fear seizes control of all functions. But I want to beg them to keep talking. To tell them I'm glad they haven't abandoned me.

Not that they won't. The future was still wide with possibility.

"SCOPE TOP to Captain Lorn. How copy?"

I shield my eyes against the bursting flash of artificial day, but the blinding light has already done its damage. The building, the bricks, the pipes, and the structure above us quiver and topple, wavering on its foundation. One wall shatters and then the other. I finally regain my limbs and use the nanoseconds we have left to throw my body over the kid's head.

The world returns to darkness.

Swirling dust is the first sight I register when I open my eyes. I wiggle all appendages. Fingers, legs, toes, and arms are accounted for.

When I shift right, pain rips through my side. Ribs. Those don't seem to exist anymore.

"Hey, Saguro, you okay?"

I get no response. When I make a feeble scan around the room, I realize I'm alone.

"That little shit."

"SCOPE TOP to Captain Lorn. What's your location?" the grainy voice requests.

With a simple bend of my middle finger, I tap the blue holographic icon hovering over my hand and flick it away.

"Sending Tactical Recovery Team. ETA forty-nine minutes."

"Good." I try to extricate myself from the rubble and hiss low when the pain of what must be a cracked rib flares through my side.

I realize that I blend perfectly into the night—I've become another heaping pile of broken bits on an old street that no one visits. With the little strands of consciousness I have left, I wonder what's taking Tactical Recovery so long.

When they get me out, I'll find Saguro. I'll kill him. Then I'll tell his father it was some kind of weird accident. Sorry, Monty. The Topside is a strange and unimaginable place. Shit happens.

The vehicle approaches with a gentle hum. I gather my joy in one diminutive shrug.

I'm going home.

The truck idles on the street. Through the small window above, I view three sets of military grade boots in deep black with ash-gray utilities tucked inside. One specific and incredibly familiar pair of extra-large boots strolls onto the scene.

Captain Dean Freyer's sense of urgency appears to have escaped him tonight. For a pinch of a second, I wonder if he's mad about how I left him a few nights ago.

No. If Dean is anything, it's a professional.

I drum my fingers over the cold stones under my chest.

When his face appears at the top of the few remaining stairs, I can't curtail the scathing comment when it explodes from me. "Did you get stuck in traffic?"

He slowly descends, his enormous frame dodging the low-hanging structures around him. With a swift lift, he hoists the materials off and crouches beside me in the wreckage. "Colonel recommended I leave you here. Now why would he suggest a thing like that?"

After he frees my arms from the heavy beams, I'm able to shake off some of the dust and tentatively poke ribs that feel like they've been pulverized to salt. I wince with pain as I attempt to defend myself. "I told Monty Saguro I'd watch out for his kid who is apparently old enough to take his dad's place in the scrap business but not old enough to use his fucking common sense." I ignore Dean's glower. "Monty's a regular. He gives my dad a good deal on dish soap every week. I had to keep his kid alive. You know how much my dad obsesses over his soap."

"You should have listened to Scope. Colonel is out for your blood."

I put weight on my arms and slump over from exertion.

"You could have died this time."

"You say that every time."

He shakes his head, conceding to our age-old argument. This is part of our dance. I have the next steps memorized.

He rises and extends his hand to me.

I grab it and pull myself free from the rest of the rubble. On unsteady legs, I fall into him. Together, we hobble out of the house's remains.

***

On the torturously bumpy ride home, I throw accusatory glares at Saguro. TR picked him up around the corner, desperately searching for the pieces that had been swept away by the Invader's winds.

Across the truck, Dean stares absently at the floor next to my boot.

The sun is rising.

I shut off the hologram of my PAHLM, sucking the blue lights into the single, black-faced device. I angle it until I catch one of the sun's rising rays and reflect it right into the place where Dean is watching.

He jerks his head up, startled out of his trance. He catches my gaze, but doesn't reciprocate my mirth.

Raising a brow in challenge, I turn my antics on a soldier dozing on an elbow. His hand attempts to swat the light fluttering around his eyes as he remains in half-sleep.

When I peer at Dean again, the first small crack of a smile appears. Defeated, he leans back on the bench and faces the sunrise, extending his long legs into the space between us. He rhythmically taps my boot with his.

I face the rear of the truck to watch it with him.

After all, it isn't too often we get to see the sun anymore.

Once we arrive at the entrance of the URE, the truck descends with a steep nosedive into the underground labyrinth where the last remaining people of Earth exist.

The truck rumbles into its assigned parking spot on Level 1.

"LORN!"

When I flinch, it's not from pain.

The colonel's thunderous baritone bellows from the main port. He stands in the entrance, his fists clenched like they are two cannonballs.

Dean jumps off the truck and lands at my side. "You are in so much trouble."

I snort. "What's new?"