The Ark

Six

The car door slammed shut, and I blinked at the harsh white of the sidewalk in front of Isaiah’s home.

He was already at the front door. He’d dealt with Cassa almost single-handedly, and he’d had no problem directing me to his house, so I couldn’t figure why it struck me as bizarre to watch him find his way to the front door without me.

It wasn’t his blindness. In juvy, he’d moved with an easy confidence. It was magnetic. Other people sought him out, and when they walked together, they matched their pace to his.

But he was different here, in this moment. He looked out of place. His confidence had dissipated, and only determination filled its place. He was slower, relying heavily on his cane. I watched it sweep over the path to the door, making more passes than usual. I wasn’t fooled for a moment. He could have found his way without it. Then he reached forward to knock on the door, and I felt his shame, his brokenness, as he’d put it, and understood.

It sucks to knock on the door of your own home.

I continued to stare as a small curtain shifted to reveal a face. The curtain froze, then swished back into place. Long moments passed before the door finally cracked.

A young man stepped onto the porch and regarded Isaiah with frank distaste. I regretted leaving our weapons in the car, but Isaiah had insisted.

The man shook his head. “So they let you out.”

Isaiah cleared his throat. “Something like that.” He seemed younger, suddenly. He’d always been, to me, one of the oldest souls in juvy. Full of wisdom and easy laughter. But all that was gone now. He was exposed, vulnerable. Childlike.

“And you came here.”

“Abel. I just want to see Mom.”

“There’s nothing for you here, Ise. Leave us be.”

This must be Isaiah’s brother. The man who’d blinded him. They stood there like statues, but I wanted to scream. “He can’t leave, not now. It’s the last—”

Abel looked at me. My jaw snapped shut, and I stepped back inadvertently. But his words to me were softer than I expected. “It’s too late for him. You can stay, if you need a place to be. But Isaiah is not welcome here.”

Isaiah let out a long breath. For the first time since I’d known him, I saw his youth. Really saw it. His cheeks and lips were full. His hands were smooth against his cane. The lines on his forehead would have disappeared if he’d relaxed his face.

When he spoke, his voice was small. “Just let me see Mom. Just tell her I’m here.”

Abel’s face hardened, and I lay a hand on Isaiah’s arm. I knew that look, and I could guess what was coming next. The door opened a hair further, and the gun sliced into view.

Abel cocked it, so that Isaiah knew it was there, and spoke through tight lips. “Get out. Last chance, Ise.” He’d stopped just short of aiming the barrel at his brother, but Isaiah couldn’t have known that.

Isaiah’s hands lifted in surrender, then jerked back to his side. “No.”

I pulled against him, and he was obliged to step backward. “We’re leaving. We’re leaving, Isaiah.”

Abel nodded at me, and I put my full weight into dragging Isaiah off the porch. “Come on. There’s a step down here.”

Isaiah stumbled, and for a moment, he allowed me to lead him. But halfway off the stoop, he stopped. I tugged harder, not caring that he could stumble. Everyone had a gun these days, but Abel was ready to use his. I could almost have understood him, at the time. He wanted to protect his family for as long as he could.

It was a few seconds before I realized that Isaiah wasn’t moving any more, no matter how hard I tried. He might as well have been an oak tree, for all the good it did me to pull on him like that. Another moment passed, and I gave up struggling.

I looked at Abel, wide-eyed. There would be no consequences for shooting us. We’d just done the same to Cassa, after all.

I kept a hand on Isaiah’s arm, so he’d know I hadn’t left him, but it fell to my side when he uttered his next words.

“I found the Remnant.”

Abel snorted. “You’re too old for this. I’m too old for this.”

“He did,” I blurted out before thinking. “He found them.”

Some small muscle twitched in Isaiah’s neck, but he stayed steady. Abel looked at me, unconvinced, and I summoned every ounce of steel I had. I could not afford to flinch. “You knew he would.”

“That’s just some story people tell.”

“They’re real, Abe. It’s gonna be a whole new setup up there. Let me see Mom, and I’ll take you with me.”

“What about Mom? You’ll take her, too?”

Isaiah hesitated. “It doesn’t work like that. Just you and me.”

That was smart. If he’d promised to take everyone, Abel would never have believed the lie. Isaiah was back to form.

Abel glanced at me. “And the girl?”

I gave him a convincing smile. “Obviously. Why do you think I’m with him?”

His doubts were smattered across his face, but the Remnant was more than anyone could resist. The gun disappeared behind his back. His face remained tense. “I’m warning you, Ise. I’m done with your games. You play me, you’ll regret it. It’s not too late to make you regret it.”

Isaiah’s shoulders relaxed. I allowed myself a breath.

That was when the impossibility of my situation hit me. Something slippery swirled in my stomach, and I felt sick. I couldn’t stay with Isaiah and his family, or I’d miss the OPT. But I couldn’t leave, either, because Abel would know we were lying, and Isaiah would pay for it.

I told myself that I didn’t have a choice, that it was his decision to come here. But deep down, I didn’t know if I had what it took to walk away.

For now, at least, I still had time before I had to act, time to find the smart move. I could play this out. I willed the slippery thing to hold still for a little longer.

I squared my shoulders, and noticed Isaiah doing the same. “You can keep the gun out, Abe,” he said. “I’ve gotta get something from the car.”

“Like hell you do.”

“Like I said. Keep the gun out if you like. That way, we understand each other.”

“Maybe we don’t.”

But Isaiah was already halfway to the car. I shrugged at Abel, pretending not to understand the warning in his voice, and casually placed myself between Isaiah and the gun.

Isaiah popped the trunk a moment later. As I expected, he came out with Meghan’s rifle. What I didn’t expect was where he aimed it.

At me.

“Step aside, Abe. I’m a fair shot, most of the time, but I’m not as sure as I used to be.”

I floundered, trying to figure out the play here, and felt the slippery thing in my belly harden into stone. Surely Isaiah would never tell Abel about my starpass. Surely.

“No.” The word escaped my lips before I thought it. “Isaiah. Don’t do this.”

“I can take one person with me, little bird. And it’s not you.”

I shook my head, confused. I glanced back at Abel in time to see him pull his gun again.

“I got her,” he said.

“No need,” said Isaiah. “Get in the car, Char. Drive away. I’m only gonna say it once.”

It was the way he said my name that finally tipped me off to his plan. He had never called me Char. It was an act.

Abel spoke. “We don’t have to kill you unless you get stubborn. So you better start moving.”

I stole one final glance at Isaiah before I started running.

He almost seemed to return my gaze. “Thanks for the ride, sweetheart.”

Another phony name. It was the perfect move. He was saving both of us, in a way I never could. So it made no sense to me, in that moment, that my heart was breaking.

I shut the door and powered on the car like a robot.

It wasn’t until I turned the corner, never to see him again, that I realized we never said goodbye.

Seven

I made it to Calais, Maine, in record time, not that I knew much about what constituted regular time. Maine wasn’t the type of place where girls like me tended to take road trips. Every so often, I’d think about how much time I had left, before the gate closed, and the blood would pull away from the tips of my fingers, leaving them slightly blue.

Whenever I passed a town, or a deserted shopping mall, I tried to fit it in my head that in a few hours, they wouldn’t exist anymore. They’d be gone. Space debris.

I couldn’t picture it, no matter how hard I tried. There were no cars on the road, and most of the cops were up in space already, so I pretty much floored it the whole way. As soon as I got to Calais, however, traffic materialized out of nowhere, and I screeched to a stop. I was still seventy-five miles from the launch site in Saint John.

It took me a good ten minutes to realize that traffic was going nowhere. Everyone on this side of the continent wanted to be in Saint John right now, including me. A lot of people, like Meghan, had chosen to spend their remaining hours in the comfort of their home. People who had no shot at getting on board, due to age or disability. But a lot of people would try to get on the OPT at the last minute, whether or not they had a ticket. People like me. And the OPT wouldn’t let them, and their cars would stay in the road, and I would never get there.

I needed a plan B. I jerked the wheel to the right and steered the car through the shoulder and toward the nearest exit ramp, which was also blocked. “Car!” I shouted, activating the system.

“Good afternoon.” The reply was cold, even for a robot.

“Is there an airport nearby?”

“You are four miles from Saint Stephen Airport.”

“Are there any planes there?”

“The airport is currently out of service.” That made sense. Under the Treaty, every airplane on Earth was grounded all week. Hijacking and piloting an abandoned airplane was above my pay grade, so I needed another tack. “What about the harbor?”

“You are one half-mile from the harbor. An international edict prevents navigation of waterways within one hundred miles of Saint John, New Brunswick.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not like there’s anyone left to stop me.” I turned east and pressed the accelerator into the floorboard, sending the car flying over a curb and through a vacant parking lot.

“You may steer the car away from the port now.”

“No chance of that.” I was about four feet from a mostly empty side street, and I felt a tiny thrill of adrenaline as I pressed the accelerator harder. The electric engine snapped gently at the sudden velocity, then… clicked off. My chest slammed into my seatbelt.

“What the heck, car!”

“Your criminal intent is apparent. Car is powering down. Goodbye.”

So the cars on the road weren’t just stuck in traffic. They had probably powered down, too, at some point nearer the launch site. Awesome.

I slipped off my heels and shoved them into the satchel. Then I grabbed what was left of the food and a coat from the back seat and sprinted toward the water for all I was worth. I would have to try my luck with the boats.

My nylons plucked against the blacktop in the first few paces, so that by the time I reached the end of the block, they were sporting gaping holes on the soles of my feet. This was for the birds. Seriously, did these things serve any purpose at all? I paused just long enough to poke my feet through the holes and bunch the shredded ends around my ankles. That would have to do. I had a lot of tricks up my sleeve, but running in heels wasn’t one of them.

I was within a few blocks of the water when the air around me seemed to change subtly. At first, I couldn’t figure out what was different. I passed a man on a bench, leaning on a cane, then a group of people sitting in a circle on a big patch of grass. Someone had a guitar out, and several in the group were holding hands. I assumed they were around college age, but when I got closer, I saw that they were families. Old and young, huddled together. Small children ran in circles at the center of the cluster. No one so much as glanced at me as I sprinted by, and that was what had changed. I was no longer an outcast to be stared at, eyes narrowed. No one was judging me. I might as well have been invisible. Death had made us all equals.

I hustled past an antique store full of digital clocks, the old-fashioned kind that people used to plug into their walls or set out on a desk or a nightstand. Every clock faced the outside, so that the window was full of green and red square-shaped numbers, all reading 9:35 p.m. That’s also when I realized that every light in town was on. Of course. No one was concerned about saving electricity anymore.

Next was a convenience store with a cardboard sign taped on the window: “Take what you need.” Its fluorescent lights illuminated empty shelves. When the water of the harbor glinted into view, I started seeing restaurants. Every chair was occupied. I slowed my pace in spite of myself, trying to take in every aspect of the scene. The woman who caught my attention was draped over a chair, her long black gown spread out over the cheap red and brown carpet. She wore a diamond necklace and matching earrings. Also at her table were a teenage boy wearing a collared shirt and a man in shorts and flip flops.

The dining room was filled with tableaus as diverse as hers. There was a lot of wine, and a single man ran among the tables with food and bottles of liquor. He wore a smile.

A group of six sitting around a table for four waved at me, beckoning me to join them. The woman—I assumed she was the mother—slid to the side of her seat, indicating that I could share it with her. I didn’t even know I had stopped running. I was just standing at the window, taking it all in.

I almost joined her. I almost sat among this family of strangers and whiled away my remaining hours of life basking in their companionship, their acceptance. Maybe I would even tell them the truth about my life: that I had failed, in every possible way, that my family could never love me, that they’d left me to die in a prison commissary. I glanced at one of the boys at their table and thought that I would at least tell them about West, but not that he hadn’t come for me. I couldn’t tell anyone about that.

But I wasn’t one of them. I didn’t belong with their family. As much as I longed to fit into a group like that, it wasn’t in me. Maybe I would make it onto the OPT, and maybe I would die when the meteor struck. Maybe I would get all the way to the Ark, but not make it inside. Then I would die in space, alone. But I could never sit in a restaurant, drinking wine, and wait for fate to take me. One way or another, I was going to Saint John.

The harbor was clean and dark, and it smelled like fish and saltwater. A faint steam rose from the tips of the small waves, which were painted silver in the moonlight and dancing under the lights from the harbor. There were several larger boats and a few fishing rigs docked along a series of short piers. Glancing around, I climbed to the tallest point I could—a set of concrete steps leading to an American flag—and began to scan the gently bobbing boats. Most would have government-issue GPS systems and wouldn’t run. After checking the first few rows, I started to panic, just a little.

Then I saw it. It was about the size of a ski boat and mostly white, with plenty of peeling paint. The word “Bandito” scrolled across the bow in elegant script. It had to be at least twenty-five years old, before they started installing GPS on everything that moved. It was perfect.

It was also occupied. A man stood along the pier, pulling a length of rope hand over fist. Despite the slight chill in the summer air, he was stripped to the waist, and his skin appeared tanned in the half-light.

He turned to me as soon as the dock bobbled with my weight, and I raised my eyebrows.

“You’re Trin Lector.” I’d seen all his movies. His latest, about a group of renegade astronauts sent to uncover a plot to destroy the International Space Station, had been screened in the detention center right after the news about the meteor broke. It had broken every box office record ever, and it hadn’t even been that good, at least in my opinion. Not like his earlier stuff, anyway. But people flocked to anything involving spaceships these days.

The movie industry imploded after that, like everything else, but the demand for movies was higher than ever. No one cared about money. Executives quit. Studios collapsed. But the actors kept acting, and the writers kept writing. They said they were doing it for the fans, but I knew better. Immortality had never been more appealing, more urgent.

The most famous movie star in the world snorted at me. “No autographs.”

So he was a jerk. A jerk with a boat, though, so I couldn’t respond in kind. “No. I mean, sure. I am a fan, though.”

“Great.”

A cigarette dangled from his lips, and for an instant, I just stared. I hadn’t seen a real, lit cigarette since right after my first stint in detention, when Kip had given me one as a welcome home present. This guy must have saved up a pretty big supply when they went off the market fifteen years ago. That, or he’d only saved the one.

“Get going. I’m not taking any passengers.” His tone was less strained than before. He was used to being stared at.

“Just a couple hours. I need to get to—”

“Saint John. Yeah. You’re the first to ask.” The sarcasm brought the edge back to his voice. He turned to the rope.

“You can just drop me off and keep going wherever you’re going.”

“Fine idea. I don’t plan on getting shot, even if it’s all the same now. I’m going out to the middle of the ocean to meet the Pinball head on.”

“They’re guarding the harbor there?”

He sighed and made a show of stopping his work to face me. “They’re guarding everything. Can you blame them?” His forehead relaxed slightly as he took another drag. I watched, fascinated, as the tip of the cigarette glowed bright orange, then white, as he sucked in. “Your best bet is to turn back and find a group to join. Make some friends.” He stumbled back a little, and I saw that he had been drinking.

“I don’t need friends. I need a ride to Saint John.”

He grunted. “Wouldn’t do you any good anyway. You gotta have a starpass to set foot in town, much less get to the gate. Only cops left on earth are the ones guarding the transport cities.”

“I have a starpass.”

“And I got a rocket right here in my pocket.” It was a line from the movie about the astronauts. I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes, and he slung the rope into the boat, swaying more than the action required.

“I’m serious. Look.” I dug into my shirt and pried the pass from my skin. I held it up and walked toward him, yanking Band-Aids off its corners and flicking them into the water along the way.

“Let me see that.”

I pulled my arm back. “Let me on the boat.”

He threw me a look I couldn’t read, then suddenly shrugged. “Worth a shot. All aboard.”

My satchel and food bag were on the floor of the boat in the next second, and I followed not a moment later. “Thank you. Thank you so much,” I said, straightening. “You have no idea—”

“Alright, alright.” Trin clambered into the front of the boat as I took my seat next to the inboard motor. “Let’s see the pass.”

“Here.” I held it toward his face.

He made a grab for it, but he was good and drunk, and I jerked it back with room to spare. “I’ll hang on to it.”

“Fine, fine,” he muttered into the dashboard. The engine sputtered to life, and I realized the boat ran on gasoline. This was old school. We went fast, much faster than I expected. The harbor shrank into the distance, and the light from the boat showed grass on both sides of the waterway. I was glad I’d brought the shapeless coat from the back seat of Meghan’s car. I slid it over my shoulders, careful to maintain an iron grip on the starpass. I wished I hadn’t tossed away the Band-Aids. Hands were not the most reliable way to keep up with stuff.

When the boat skimmed past the last mounds of earth and into the open water, I allowed myself to smile. As I expected, Trin swerved us to the left, and we swept north up the coast of Maine.

My moment of relief came crashing down an instant later when the engine died. I squinted at the actor, who was barely visible in the light from the dashboard. I couldn’t see his left hand, but his right slipped something small and metal into the pocket of his shorts. The boat key.

When he turned around, I imagined the gun in his hand before I saw it.

“Woah. Sit back down,” he said. “That’s right. Now just hand over that pass.”

“You have got to be kidding me. There’s no way they’ll let you on the transport. They’re gonna know you’re over forty.”

“We’ll see about that,” he said, in a tone that implied that he usually got what he wanted. “Give it here. Your bags, too.” Up close, his hands were enormous. His fingers were thicker than the barrel of the gun. They stretched toward my face like wooden stumps.

I drew a ragged breath and pretended to fumble for the pass. “Please don’t do this.” My breath came a little harder, and shorter.

He was unmoved. “Now.”

“Okay. Okay, I’m just—here.” I let my voice shake and held the pass toward him. His red-rimmed eyes were totally focused on that shiny blue card. When those wooden fingers were inches away, I dropped the pass and yanked them, using his weight to swing myself up to a standing position.

He fell forward, and I shoved my body against the side of the boat. The gun went off, and my heart squeezed. Did the bullet hit the motor behind me?

His right elbow slammed into my face with unexpected force, and my field of vision swung upward, toward the stars. It occurred to me, too late, that he’d probably had combat training for half the movies he’d starred in. I found myself leaning backward over the side of the boat, jerking my head away from the choppy surface of the water.

I grabbed the back of his neck just as he cocked the gun a second time, a fact I barely registered before my mouth connected to his skin. I bit down, suppressing the urge to gag. He crumpled, but only for an instant.

It was all I needed. I hit him in the side of the head as hard as I could, then reached for his pistol arm. Using every ounce of strength I possessed, I flung him into the side of the boat.

He tottered for a sickening moment, and I ducked and reached for his ankles. Above me, the gun went off a second time. I pulled his legs up while simultaneously shoving my head into his sternum, and Trin Lector went over the side of the boat.

With the boat key still in his pocket.

I figured I had less than a minute before he got back on board, gun in hand. Although his boat was old school, the gun was a more recent design. It would fire despite being wet.

Luckily for me, I didn’t need that much time. I yanked the cover off the keyswitch and grappled for the wires in the darkness. I threw the switch for the dash lights and studied the wad of wires in my hand. Then I reached for a razor blade.