The Remnant

“Hey, you think you’ve got enough guards?” I asked, not quietly.

Isaiah chuckled. “My jail must not be so bad, since you’re still telling jokes. They’re doing their job. This area is not under control, at the moment,” he said grimly. “Not yet, anyway.”

“Don’t you have a ceasefire?”

“It’s more than just that. There are lockies, some of which are ours, and another group we’ve tried to monitor,” he said.

“What other group?”

“We don’t know. Some kind of soldier-types. They come out at night. Probably just part of Central Command, but we can never prove it.”

We fell into step, and I remembered the way it felt to hold his hand back on Earth, when everything was dying all around us. I gave his arm a little squeeze, and he leaned in to me and spoke quietly. “You shouldn’t give Marcela a hard time.”

“I know, I know. She’s just doing her job.”

“Well,” said Isaiah, “Sure. But she’s not so bad, if you get to know her.”

“Pass.”

“All right, then. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

I was still trying to figure out exactly what he had warned me about when we came to the end of the cargo hold. But instead of the dark space that led to the Remnant, we were someplace I’d never been.

The Ark was shaped like a huge, flat wheel, with the cargo stored in the large outer rim. The wheel was divided into sectors, like slices of a pie, and it spun as it traveled through space, which gave the effect of gravity. Unfortunately, the passengers who were farthest out experienced far more gravity than those toward the center of the Ark, the “sweet spot.” Every last member of the Remnant was an illegal passenger—a stowaway—and they inhabited the outer rim of Sector Seven. During the battle, Isaiah and Adam had cut the air to the rest of the Ark using a life-support program I’d helped steal: the Noah Board. If they hadn’t done that, the Remnant wouldn’t have stood a chance against Central Command.

The corridor was well-lit and industrial in nature, save for the patterned weave on the carpet beneath us. We were still on the thick outer rim of the Ark, where Central Command considered the gravity too heavy for living quarters. I guessed it had belonged to them, but like I said, the Remnant had secured it—and their continued existence—during the battle. Two of his guards rushed ahead with key cards, and a series of doors slid apart before us. Isaiah barely broke his stride before reaching the door of his choice.

We entered a small room with a thin metal platform, which Isaiah led me to.

“We’re gonna need a better grip,” he said, and pulled me toward him. His fingers found the wire around my waist, and he gave me a silent look through his dark glasses.

Four guards joined us on the platform, Marcela among them, and Isaiah reached past her to hold a thick cable at one corner.

“Ready, sir?” called a guard from the doorway.

“Let ’er rip,” said Isaiah.

I realized, too late, that we were standing on a sort of elevator, and it shot down into the black shaft beneath us before I was ready. I lost my footing, but Isaiah’s arm was solid around me.

I shrugged it off in a sudden surge of inexplicable anger. I hardly needed his help to stand up. When we passed the next floor, there was an instant flash of visibility from the light on its door, and I noticed Marcela’s arm hovering around my other side, carefully not touching me. I upgraded my opinion of her by a tenth of a point, then remembered her kick to my arm during our little scuffle several weeks ago and slid it right back down again.

“I really wish I could see the look on your face right now,” said Isaiah.

“I’ve been on an elevator before, you know.” I loosened my grip on his arm with considerable effort. “I just didn’t realize there was a floor beneath ours.”

“Not the elevator,” he said as the reason for the extra bracing became apparent. The platform jerked to an unsteady stop just below the bottom floor, throwing my knees forward and my center off-balance. Isaiah’s grip solidified around me at the same time, and I didn’t fall. “This.”

I inhaled involuntarily. We stood at the edge of an enormous room. It was brightly lit, and pale blue, except for a series of shiny white stripes down each wall. The stripes led to heavy black ports, each equipped with a tangle of code-based locks.

The floor was a series of black catwalks suspended over the outer hull of the ship. The main drag branched off at certain intervals, giving access to each port in the room, and of course the entrance. The platform had landed between levels, so that I was nearly at eye level with the floor. I made to climb up onto the walk, but Isaiah placed a warm hand on my shoulder, stopping me.

“Not that we’re going in that way,” whispered Isaiah. “But I hear it’s quite a view.”

“Oh no?” I asked.

“The platform stopped halfway for a reason,” he answered, pulling me down until we were nearly lying flat. A complicated series of shafts and wires spread before me, in sharp contrast to the bright, open room on the floor above.

They lay against the platform, barely able to squeeze into the space beneath the floor. I followed, my tongue thickening in my mouth, and stumbled again, harder this time.

“Careful,” Isaiah warned. “Tons of gravity down here, and we gotta crawl. Try to keep your neck relaxed, or you’ll tweak it. We need you in fighting shape.”

We went a few steps before I could manage anything resembling a normal crawl. Isaiah continued to talk, leading us toward a particular port on the wall. “Shoulda seen me, my first time down here. It’s terrifying.”

I had to agree, albeit silently. There was something about the crawl space beneath the floor that was even more off-putting than it should have been.

“Just over here,” he called back. “Few more yards. I think you’ll appreciate where we’re going.”

“Is that—” I bit my lip, nearly afraid to ask. “Is that an airlock?”

“Why, yes it is! She can be taught. It’s the side of one, anyway. But that’s not the important part.”

“The airlock isn’t important?”

“We’re in a hangar, little bird.” He slid delicate fingers across the panel before us, then jerked it suddenly. It came off in his hands, and he placed it quietly to the side. It was bigger than me. “Or underneath one, anyway.”

I swallowed, with difficulty. “And?”

“And maybe it’s time you flew.”

Seven (#ulink_ae649efd-af78-53d5-b82e-bbd6c9ba7ec8)

I stared into the space the panel had revealed. It was dark, but I could make out some wires, and beyond that, a control panel of some kind. “You got them to give you an Arkhopper?”

Isaiah gave me a withering glance through the shadows.

I blinked at the airlock, which I figured had to be part of a hatch. “You stole one?”

He looked at me patiently. “Not exactly. But you’re getting warmer.”

“You’re about to steal one?”

“Warmer.”

I looked from Isaiah to the hatch, avoiding Marcela’s openly amused expression. “I’m about to steal one.”

“Bingo.”

I sighed.