“But it might show us if there’s a communications center we could use to talk to Earth. Or at least how to stay hidden a while longer.” Although I know he wants to get home as badly as I do—and he knows finding a way to send a message is key to that—he does keep circling around to his old research instincts. He keeps wondering what the Undying plan to do, trying to understand them like the academic he is.
What I need him to remember is that it doesn’tmatterwhat the Undying are doing here, because even if we knew, we couldn’t do anything about it unless we could send a message home.
Jules sighs. “I’ll try to find a map.”
And then he’s gone. I leave him to it, leaning back against the wall, ignoring the now-familiar ache its angled surface brings to my shoulders. I’m wearing his wrist unit right now, and by its light I survey the objects scattered about our hideout.
To anyone else, our supplies would seem pathetically few. A shallow cup improvised from a piece of waterproof mesh cut from one of their discarded jumpsuits, stretched across a frame made from crumpled foil from the food blocks, catches water that drips from a tiny hole we’ve cut in the pipe. The rest of the uniform fabric, gathered up to serve as a blanket. My multi-tool, the only thing we have to cut, harvest, craft what we need.
Not much, when you think about the fact that these bits of junk are the only weapons we have to defend ourselves against a clearly hostile army. But each object represents a victory, some risk or gambit made to secure it. And we’ve had precious few of those.
Unless you call staying alive—and undetected—for this long a victory.
Which I do, dammit.
Our only advantage is that the Undying don’t know we’re aboard their ship. They’re not careless, but they also don’t have any guards posted in every corridor like they might if they suspected foul play. Still, the ship is getting busier by the day, with more Undying coming through the portals all the time.
The portals are a mystery to us—we know they lead from one place to another, that the Undying can choose those locations, and build them the size of a spaceship, or of a regular door … but we don’t know how they do any of it. Twice, we’ve tried to sneak into that corridor full of portals to see if there was any way to use them to get home, but both times the whole place was chaotic with activity. There’s no way to get to them unseen.
Jules’s body is warm against mine. The air on the ship is several degrees lower than comfortable room temperature, although it doesn’t seem to bother the Undying. The chill combined with the confines of the Junction keep us in close quarters. But as much as Iwish I could stretch out, spread my arms as wide as I can and take a deep breath, I’m grateful for the cramped space.
Because I’m not sure if I’d have the guts to snuggle up to Jules if there was more room.
He’s so absorbed in learning how to use the headset that I can watch him openly. He’s a mess, his clothes sweat-stained and grimy, with a noticeable scent I wish I could call “masculine” rather than “gross as hell”—but then, I’m just as bedraggled and unwashed as he is. You don’t get to shower when you’re a stowaway.
He looks tired, and that muscle ticking in his jaw means he’s holding tension there. I wonder if he’d even notice if I touched him—touched him more, I mean. He’s barely looked at me in the last few days.
Which is as it should be. We’re probably going to die—we’ve both accepted that, in our own separate ways, I think. But if there’s a chance to get a signal to Earth, we owe it to our families on Earth to try. I owe it to Evie. Even if she stays indentured to the club where she works for the rest of her life, it has to be better than what these aliens would have in store for her. Whatever the Undying are planning, the fact that they went to such enormous trouble to trick all of humanity suggests it’s not going to be a fiesta for the people we love.
With the weight of that on our shoulders, the last thing either of us should be thinking about is—
A clang makes us both jump, and my heart leaps into my throat. Voices from the wall at my back give us a source for the sound, and when another clang reverberates through the stone, I recognize it as the slam of the sliding door to the room on the other side of the vent at our feet.
Fumbling in my haste, I hide the blue glow of the wrist unit against my leg until I can turn it off, and Jules wriggles a strip of rubber from my boots down into place over the leak in the pipe. How much they can hear on their side, we don’t know, but the lastthing we need is a maintenance crew coming through here looking for a leaky pipe.
The headset clinks as Jules sets it down. I see the glitter of his eyes in the darkness as they search for mine, and I know why he’s uneasy. From the first moment they arrived, the Undying have operated with clockwork precision. Not once has anyone missed a shift or arrived late.
Today, Atlanta and Dex are early.
“AW, COME ON,PEACHES, DON’T GIVE ME HASSLE.”THAT’SDEX,as two pairs of footsteps walk into the crew quarters on the other side of the wall.
“What kind of lixo’speaches?” That’s Atlanta, sounding seriously unimpressed.
Mia and I exchange a wordless glance, then slowly ease down onto our sides, so we can watch through the vent at floor level—we’re invisible in the dark, but if we get the right angle we can see most of the neat little room, with its two bunks and tiny closet.
“Peaches are food,” Dex says, unpeeling the top half of his jumpsuit to reveal the undershirt below, giving me a glimpse of a tattoo as he knots the arms of the thing around his waist. Helooksno older than we are, and neither does Atlanta. They look like teenagers—but all I can see when I look at them is that spray of blue blood, and for all I know he could be centuries older.
I glance at Mia again, and by the furrow in her brow, I know she’s noticed the tattoo as well. It’s one thing for these aliens tohave done something to themselves—surgery, some kind of hallucinogenic projection—to look human. But for them to sporttattoosis an attention to detail that turns my blood to ice.
The Undying pair are still talking. “I searched it,” Dex protests. “You’re named for Atlanta, where they used to grow plants called peaches.Peachesis an endearment in proto-speak.”
“Did I do something to endear myself to you?” she asks pointedly, words punctuated by a thump as she throws herself down onto her bunk.
“Not this cycle,” he admits, sinking down opposite, just his shins and feet visible from our vent. “But I live in hope. Can we talk on this?”
“There’s nothing to talk on,” she snaps. The two of them squabble like siblings, exchanging barbs and little insults as often as they share affectionate jokes, but they’ve never outright fought before. Dex is easygoing and Atlanta’s more formal, but it’s clear they’ve known each other a long time. Maybe they grew up together. Wherever the hell they grew up.Ifthey even grew up—to assume they had anything like a human childhood is to fall straight back into the trap of thinking they’re like us.
They’re both tall, around my height, and built on slender lines, though they’re wiry and strong rather than delicate. They both have the same light brown skin and black hair, though hers is sleeker and smooth, his thicker and curlier. They both keep it long enough to braid it back from their faces neatly.
