Their faith gives us strength, strength enough to try, in the only ways we can, to reach them. To ask them for help. To beg for an end.
We reach into their thoughts and try to speak through the images of people they knew, souls lost in the crash, but are met with fear. We try to speak, to use the words learned from long years under observation, but they cannot understand us. We try to show them they are not alone—we give him his home, the poem held closest to his heart; we give her a flower, a reminder of the unique and fragile thing she is fighting for.
We pave a path for them in fragile petals and every step closer they take we feel stronger. They have taught us faith, and hope, and in them we have found our strength again.
And then she dies.
WE MAKE IT ONLY AS far as a shopping arcade a few blocks away. Tarver carries the scientist part of the distance, but as soon as she starts coming back to consciousness, she starts mumbling about being able to walk—she seems to accept the compromise of being half lifted along, supported between Tarver and me. Jubilee’s hand is torn up a little, where her grip slipped while climbing and her palm slid across a jagged bit of steel, but she’s on her feet, Flynn by her side. Sofia’s the one who finds the cavernous opening beyond a fallen portico fa?ade, crawling through and then gesturing for us to follow.
Normally, carrying Sanjana would be nothing—she’s not very heavy, and there’s two of us—but by the time we ease her through the gap in the fa?ade, I’m ready to drop myself. I stumble and let her go a bit too abruptly as soon as we’re inside, making Tarver sag under the sudden additional weight, and we all end up sinking to the dusty, cracked floor in a heap.
The only light’s coming from the partially blocked entryway, and Sofia—also on the floor, I didn’t even notice her drop—groans and drags her pack over to rummage for a flashlight. Nothing happens when she flicks it on. I can see her profile backlit by the sun on the street outside, see her stare blankly at the flashlight as though its failure has turned her brain off, too, and this last obstacle is too much to bear.
“EMP blast,” Tarver rasps, voice hoarse with exhaustion and catching as he chokes on the dust stirred up by our entry. “Don’t know why it hurt them, but that was that pulse out there. Flashlight won’t work. Guns either. Nothing that runs on power.”
Sofia drops the flashlight with a clatter and slumps back over on the floor, defeated. If my leg wasn’t pinned under Sanjana’s half-conscious body, I’d drag myself toward her to make sure she’s all right—but I can’t even tell if I’m all right. My muscles keep shaking, which suggests that at least all my limbs are still attached. Unless they’re phantom twitches. Isn’t that what they call it, when you lose an arm or a leg, and you still feel like it’s there? Phantom twitches—phantom exhaustion—phantom sensations from bits that aren’t there anymore…a laugh that even I recognize, dimly, distantly, as somewhat hysterical, whispers out of my lips before I turn my face against the stone floor, not even caring as the dust sticks to my sweaty brow.
There’s a crack, a whoosh, and then red light blossoms against my closed eyes—my eyes are closed? When? I force my lids open to see Jubilee’s face glowing. Then she’s moving, and my tired brain makes sense of what I’m seeing—it’s an emergency flare, something she must have had in her pack. She hands it to Flynn, sitting beside her, who tucks it in under a rock, shielding the glow so that it offers us only a little light. Hopefully, it’ll be invisible from the outside.
Most of the arcade has collapsed—though the wreck of the Daedalus is still a few kilometers away, the shock from its impact has leveled over half the buildings in the city this far out. A few storefronts are still intact, promising high-end shopping experiences that their battered, darkened interiors certainly can’t deliver. A jewelry store’s security grate has been smashed apart by a fallen column of marble; the fact that the dust and rubble on the floor have been undisturbed makes my skin prickle. Under normal circumstances, even in the upper city, this place would’ve been picked clean by looters.
The weight on my leg shifts, yanking me back to the present, and I remember Sanjana. I sit up, reaching out to ease my foot out from under her as she lets out a groan. Tarver bends over her, brushing her hair out of her face so he can scan it.
“You okay?” he asks, intent. “Sanjana?”
She groans again, as though protesting the need to reply, but then opens her eyes and struggles up onto her elbows so she can eye Tarver wearily. “You do keep saving my life, Captain.”