2

Kai Zhou

June 29, 2029 (nine months earlier). Washington, D.C.

Kai knew better than to look up at the old man behind the counter to see if he was watching. That was a dead giveaway. Instead, Kai tracked him through the reflection in the refrigerated display case, which was no longer cold, because it was illegal to waste energy to keep drinks chilled. Not that anyone had the energy to spare on such a luxury anyway.

The old guy had an underbite that made him look vaguely apish; what gray hair he had was combed straight back in thin lines. He was watching Kai, frowning, suspicious. Kai knew he looked like a hungry kid who had no one taking care of him, but he couldn’t help it; he couldn’t find it in him to relax the scowl, to smile. This was also one time Kai’s size was probably a liability. Mom used to say he looked sixteen, not thirteen.

A wave of pain washed over him at the thought of his mom. Right now he didn’t even feel thirteen—he felt more like eight. He wanted his mommy, wanted her to rock him while he pressed his face against her long, soft hair. That’s all most kids wanted since the invasion began. There were no tough kids left, only scared kids. And desperate kids, like him.

The door to the convenience store creaked open; a chubby woman with a tattoo on her shoulder stepped in and went to the counter. Kai seized the opportunity, snaring three fat pieces of jerky and stuffing them under his jacket, pinning them under his left arm.

He rose, spent a moment looking at the drinks in the nearly empty case, most of them homemade, the corporate logos printed on the bottles partially covered with white handwritten labels. Hurrying was another dead giveaway.

He paused again on his way to the door, watched a news feed playing on the TV above the front counter for a moment.

It was war footage of half a dozen Luyten storming a power plant. You almost never saw so many in one place, in the open. They were guerrilla fighters; they lost some of their advantage when they clustered, so when they attacked in force it usually meant they’d identified a poorly defended target.

Kai was repulsed by the sight of them—giant starfish, faceless, silent. Two were flying in their weird formfitting six- and seven-pointed craft, while the rest were on the ground, galloping on three or four of their limbs, staying behind vehicles and trees for cover, their free arms firing lightning bursts from the skintight battle gear that looked like ornate brass embroidery. A couple of human soldiers were peppering them with machine gun fire, but the Luyten always had a second’s warning, always knew which way the soldiers were going to point the weapons. If the soldiers had larger weapons—flamethrowers or tanks—they’d have a chance. Then again, if they had larger weapons the Luyten would have known, and wouldn’t have attacked in the first place.

When he couldn’t stand to watch anymore, Kai headed toward the door.

The old guy moved from behind the counter with surprising speed, beating Kai to the door, brandishing a stun gun.

“I didn’t see it, but I know you’ve got something.” He waved the gun. “Open your jacket.”

Kai wanted to tell the man he had no right to search him just because he looked filthy and tired, but it was pointless to argue. He reached into his coat and pulled out the jerky.

The chubby woman with the rose tattoo tsked, shook her head. She’d moved over to watch.

“I’m a good kid. It’s just, my parents were killed when Richmond got overrun, and I don’t have anywhere to go.” In a shrill, childish whine he added, “I’m so hungry.”

The old guy plucked the jerky from Kai’s outstretched hand. “I don’t doubt what you’re saying. Times are hard.” He gestured toward the road with his chin. “Check with Refugee Services, see if they can give you some food.”

“Refugee Services is closed. It’s been closed since I got here. Please, let me have one?”

The man shook his head brusquely. “I can’t hand out food to everyone who’s hungry. I got almost nothing to sell as it is.” He gestured toward the door.

Kai looked out into the dark, frigid, rainy night. The rain ticked against the storefront window. It was turning to sleet. He turned back. “Can I at least stay in here to keep warm? I won’t take anything, I promise.”

The man looked pained. “I’m trying to run a store. It ain’t easy, you know. I let you stay, what about the next kid who wants to stay? Pretty soon I’ll have to close for good like the rest of them.”

Reluctantly, Kai pushed the door open, tucked his chin against the cold. Empty hands buried in his jacket pockets, he hurried down the street, weaving to find a path through the piles of trash, much of it electronics that didn’t work or took too much energy to operate. In the street vehicles whooshed silently past, but only occasionally, nothing like traffic had been before the invasion began.

He wasn’t sure where to go. He turned left at the end of the block to get off the main artery, passed mostly dark apartment buildings, eyeing the occasional warm yellow lights inside windows covered with security mesh. Kai longed to be in one of those apartments, in a warm bed, but none sported the green sash that indicated refugees were welcome. They were all full, or, more likely, the families inside were ignoring President Wood’s plea to open their homes to people fleeing the Luyten.

The problem was, there were a lot more refugees now. Before Richmond fell, refugees had poured into the city as the starfish seized more and more of the outlying areas, and Kai and his family had done what they could to help them, like they were supposed to. Kai had shared his clothes with the refugees who were his age, brought them along to hang out with him and his friends. He could still remember how proud his mom was, how she smiled whenever he did something nice for one of the scared, shrunken kids who came down the road pulling a suitcase. Now that Kai was a refugee, there were too many for that sort of kindness. Washington was packed with refugees.

It was so hard, getting used to each thing that was taken away. First, communication, when the Luyten took their satellites out. No way to speak to Grandma, or to Pauly, who’d been his best friend until last year. Then, as the Luyten choked off the routes between cities, no toothpaste, no food that arrived at the table ready to eat. Then the Luyten gained control of most of the solar and wind farms, the coal and nuclear plants, and there wasn’t enough power to heat the house, or the water, or to run his handheld.

Now he had no warm bed, no food to eat at all.

He was heading away from the makeshift shanty camp where he’d stayed the past three nights. The camp was too far to reach in the cold and dark; he’d walked too far, trying to find food.

His toes were already numb, his shoes soaked from puddles he couldn’t see.

He wished he had someone with him. Anyone. If he could pick one person who was still alive, it wouldn’t be one of the cool friends he’d started hanging out with in the past year; it would be Pauly, who he’d known forever. Scrawny, goofy Pauly, whom Kai had pretty much dropped, for no good reason. Mom had been disappointed in Kai when he ditched Pauly. She’d told him you don’t throw away friends.

What he wouldn’t give to have Pauly beside him. Kai wondered where Pauly was, what he was doing.

There was an old brick and concrete building ahead, three separate dark, open bays of what must have once been an auto body shop, or a fire station. The building must have been fifty years old. It had been a long time since things were built out of red brick.

The first bay was nothing but a concrete floor, providing shelter from the rain but little relief from the cold, gusty wind. There was a door sitting slightly ajar, up three concrete steps along the wall. Even if it was a tiny toilet room, it would be warmer, at least.

The door squealed when Kai nudged it open. The room stank of cigarettes. A woman was curled up in one corner of what had once been an office. She was partially covered by a corner of the wall-to-wall carpet, which she’d peeled up from the floor. In the faint light, Kai took in her swollen face, matted hair, her bulging, empty eyes, wide open and unblinking. He swung the door closed with a cry of disgust.

Skin prickling, he scurried down the steps and out of the bay, back into the biting rain.

There were two more bays. Kai didn’t like the thought of being so close to a dead body, but he was shivering uncontrollably from the cold. He couldn’t keep going. What were the odds he’d find another abandoned building?

There was a door in the second bay, but it led to a bathroom, not an office. The third and final bay had no inner doors at all, so Kai returned to the second, gathered up what scraps of paper he could find, along with a small cardboard box, and returned to the bathroom.

The room smelled dank, with an undertone of dried urine. Still shivering, Kai pulled a half-used roll of toilet paper off the dispenser and used it to dab his wet clothes. It wasn’t much help.

The room was too small for Kai to stretch out, so he curled his legs in, used a wadded-up juice carton as a pillow, and piled the trash over his legs as best he could. It felt strange, not to have Kabuki say good night. He missed Kabuki almost as much as he missed Pauly, though not nearly as much as he missed his mom. He knew Kabuki wasn’t real, was nothing but a bunch of chips in his handheld designed to say pleasant things and follow directions, but he’d been a part of Kai’s life for as long as he could remember.

Kai was freezing. He couldn’t stop shaking; his hissing breath echoed off the half-tiled walls.

An image flashed, of the woman in the next bay. She must have frozen to death, maybe last night. And she had a carpet.

There was a draft whistling through the space where Kai had left the door open a crack. It would be warmer if he closed it, but he would lose the sliver of gray light. He didn’t want to be in the pitch dark.

It had all happened so fast. It didn’t seem long ago that he’d watched the first newscast of Luyten dropping from the sky. He remembered he’d been surprised when the schools were closed the next day. Only a week ago he’d been in his warm bed in Richmond. His mother had tucked him in, told him not to worry about Dad, who was with his brigade less than forty miles away between Richmond and the Luyten surge. A day later he was on a bus roaring down Interstate 95 packed with kids and old people.

There was no point in crying, but he couldn’t help it.

The sound of his own crying made him feel worse. What was he going to do? Why wouldn’t anyone tell him what to do, where to go?

Did you smell?

Kai cried out, jolted upright. He hadn’t thought the words, they’d just come, raking through his head in a voice like steel fingernails on glass, the pronunciations all off in a strange and unsettling way.

She’s smoke. Lighter.

Kai clamped his palms over his ears. His soaked pants were suddenly warm; he was vaguely aware he’d wet himself.

Build fire.

It felt like there was something crawling around in his head. Kai sat frozen, trembling, praying it wouldn’t happen again.

Or you die.

Kai howled in terror. He didn’t understand what was happening to him.

Happening to you. Kai. Freezing.

His teeth were chattering; his whole body was shaking from the cold, from fear. The voice went on, about the cold, about Kai dying, about fire. There was enough trash around to burn, but he had nothing to start a fire with.

She’s smoker. Lighter.

A lighter was what he needed.

You dead this morning. Do you Kai?

The voice had asked him something. Kai was afraid that if he didn’t answer, the voice might get angry, might do something to him. Drive him crazy, pull him down into whatever dark, awful place it came from. Something about the voice was so terribly wrong, so profoundly off. It was as if the words were jagged, scraping the inside of his head.

You do?

“No, I don’t want to be dead,” Kai said aloud, the volume of his own voice in the tight space making him flinch.

She smoked. Lighter.

Maybe he was already crazy. This was just what it was like, wasn’t it? Voices in your head?

Lighter. Her pocket.

Kai jolted. Her pocket. Suddenly he understood what the voice was saying. She smoked. The dead woman smoked. He’d smelled stale smoke in there, hadn’t he? The voice was telling him there was a lighter in her pocket.

Yes.

He didn’t want to go back in that room. She was dead; her eyes were bulging—

Or you die. Go.

Kai shoved the door open, peered into the bay, half expecting to see something crouching there, waiting for him, but there was nothing but concrete, shadows, the howling wind.

Bent against the wind, Kai marched into the next bay, his heart in his throat. He climbed the steps, put his hand on the knob, twisted it partway.

Maybe the voice lived in the bathroom. Maybe if he didn’t go back it couldn’t get him, couldn’t talk to him—

Wrong. Go on.

Kai gripped the handle tighter. It was ice cold. He twisted it, pushed the door open a foot.

There she was. He pushed the door open farther, took a step into the room. She was old, maybe sixty, Hispanic or maybe Indian. The tip of her tongue was jutting from between her blue lips.

He didn’t want to do this; he’d rather freeze to death than stick his fingers in her pocket and feel her body. Would it be squishy or stiff?

The voice was silent, but he knew that if he waited it would speak to him again, would tell him to get the lighter. It might even yell at him. That would be awful. He had to do it. Quickly—as quick as he could. Kai’s breath was coming in quick, rattling gasps. He took a deep breath and held it, stood paralyzed for a moment.

Do it.

The voice was like a shove at his back. Kai scurried to the body, squatted.

Other one, the voice said before Kai even had time to lift his left hand. He reached with his right, slipped two fingers into her pocket.

Her hip felt stiff through the denim of her jeans. It didn’t feel as bad as he’d feared, but it was still bad. He felt the pointed tip of the lighter, but couldn’t reach it.

Pull her flat.

That would mean touching her, really touching her. Kai so desperately didn’t want to do that.

Whimpering, he scooted back, grasped her feet by her tattered shoes, squeezed his eyes closed. As soon as he pulled, the shoes slipped off. His belly roiling with disgust, he half flung, half dropped them, then grasped her spongy, swollen ankles and pulled.

The body slid forward inch by inch, then suddenly her head lolled to the left and she dropped, hard, to the floor. Not thinking, just wanting to get it over with, Kai shoved his hand into her pocket, closed his fingers around the long, thin lighter.

A moment later he was in the bay, running.

Trash for fire.

The voice was right—this bay had much more trash than the others. Kai ran around picking up as much as he could carry before returning to the second bay.

Moments later, he had a small fire burning. The heat felt marvelous on his fingers, his cheeks, his nose. The orange light pushed back the shadows and the darkness, made a place that was his in a way he couldn’t put into words.

Better. Yes. Collect more trash.

Kai did as he was told, checking the last bay and returning with another armful of trash, which he set in a pile near the fire.

Now sleep. I’ll watch you for danger.

The voice was horrible, but the words were reassuring, and they were growing clearer, less grating. Kai lay down, closed his eyes. He was so tired.

It would watch over him. How would it watch? Where were its eyes, Kai wondered?

He was drifting off, his front side warm, his back and feet still stiff with damp cold. The voice would watch over him.

Kai jolted upright, suddenly knowing whose voice it was.

I won’t hurt you.

They knew what you were thinking. But Kai had never heard of one speaking to someone. Never. Not on the news, not from anyone.

We can if we want.

It heard everything he thought. There was no way for Kai to stop thinking, no shelter from it. It was in his head. They could read your mind until you were a few miles away. Kai pressed one hand to the cold ground. He had to—

If you run, I will hurt you.

Kai froze, a trickle of dread running through him.

“Where are you?” he whispered.

Close.

Kai sat utterly frozen, afraid to move, afraid to breathe.

Sleep.