Kim nods. “Some. There’s a landline direct in and out of here, deep underground, and all the way to a base station on the other side of the mountains. We think the Nahx disrupt most of the data with some kind of microwave jammer that knocks out the point-to-point system between that base station and the coast. But the Nahx jamming signal itself gets jammed at least once a day, usually around midday. We don’t know how yet.” She shrugs. “It’s a last-resort comm system built years ago for exactly these circumstances. Disaster. War. It’s working the way it’s supposed to, but the quality of data is still poor because of all the interference. And it’s . . . we’re not sure whether to trust what we’re getting. There are no security codes. It’s not military. We untangle what we can. There are people still fighting all over the world, it seems. Millions, maybe billions, survived. This isn’t over.”
“Why did the coastal areas pull through?” I ask. “Why didn’t the Nahx take them out? They firebombed the cities around here, didn’t they?”
“We think Calgary and Edmonton were bombed,” Kim says. “But possibly not destroyed, though we haven’t been able to confirm that. We try to send data back via the landline, but we can’t know if anyone gets it. They might not know we’re here. And it’s risky using radio or wireless, because we’re pretty sure the Nahx are tracking that. And all the satellites have been taken out.”
I look down and see Topher’s hand gripping the back of a chair so tightly that his knuckles practically glow. And I know what he’s thinking. All this time we assumed everyone we knew back home was dead. But they could all be alive. Somehow. Somewhere. And the coast . . . God. If my parents left early enough that morning, they might have made it.
Kim continues, oblivious. “We don’t know why the coast was spared. Vancouver seems to be functioning as a refugee camp.”
“Can’t we go there?” I ask. “Surely that’s safer than here.”
“We’ve already lost two choppers trying that,” Kim says. “The Nahx have a kind of web of attack drones west of here. They hit any aircraft with some kind of scrambler, like an electromagnetic pulse or something. Knocks them right out of the sky.”
“What about over land?”
“The main roads are heavily watched. And we don’t have enough vehicles. There are over two hundred people here. And anyway, most land vehicles lose power too. And then Nahx move in and dart you. We watched exactly that happen with one of our drones.”
“Walk, then,” I say, and even I can hear the desperation in my voice. “You’d be much less visible from the air. Hike along the Fraser River and then . . .”
My geography fails me as Kim gives me a withering look. “All the way to Vancouver? In this weather? We’ve got children. Elderly. We’d never make it.”
“So we’re just . . . sitting here?”
“Raven . . . ,” Topher says.
Kim continues, her tone becoming impatient. “We’re not sitting here. We’re fighting back. We’re gathering intel. We’re looking for weaknesses. Anything we find out will be useful. You’ll see.”
“But—”
“What have you found out so far?” Topher asks her, glaring at me.
With a wave of her hand, Kim invites us to sit at a long conference table. There are maps and schematics spread out like fallen leaves, along with black and white chess pieces strategically placed in various locations. Kim grabs a white chess piece from a spot by a curve in the river and repositions it off to the side with a pile of others.
“That was you,” she says with a wry smile. “Rescued.”
“We’re very grateful,” Topher says. He said these exact words a lifetime ago when the judge explained we’d be working off our sentence instead of going to juvie. I suppose I should be grateful too. That judge might be the reason I’m alive. Also the reason Tucker is dead though, so maybe gratitude isn’t quite right.
“We put together a briefing package,” Kim says. “Summarizing what we know. The brief is updated weekly. I’ll get you a copy and you can add to it, if you’ve learned anything new. In the meantime, anything specific you want to know?”
Before I have time to think, Topher speaks. “How do you kill them?”
“With difficulty. Their armor is very tough. And no one seems to have been able to capture one, or even bring one in dead to study. The ships have wicked countermeasures against missiles.” She shakes her head.
“Arrows,” Topher says. “One video said arrows could disable them.”
“Yes, I saw that one. I heard you had a pretty close encounter yesterday. Did any of you get a good look at them?”
Topher glances at me, but I just shake my head.
As Kim opens her mouth to continue, there’s a knock on the door. Liam pokes his head in. “Commander? The tech staff need to see you.”
Kim nods, with a grim look. “I’d better check this out. You can go. I’ll get copies of the briefing for you, and we’ll talk more later.”
Topher disappears with Liam soon after Kim dismisses us. After exploring for a while, and having a meal, I follow directions to the quarters I’ve been assigned and am almost happy to discover I don’t have to share with Emily, who snores like a tiny consumptive hamster. It’s Mandy who has to suffer my company, but she doesn’t seem to be around to either tolerate me or complain. The room is like a prison cell, about six feet wide and ten feet long, with a set of bunks and a tiny table and chair. No bars though, just a regular door, so that’s worth celebrating. I note that Mandy has claimed the top bunk, which suits me. I like to be able to put my feet straight onto the ground when the shit starts flying.
When, not if.
There’s a window, a nice surprise, although I would have to have been dead for a month to fit through it. It’s a wide, low rectangle, and looking out I realize the room is mostly belowground, like a basement room. The window looks out into the quarry.
By the light, I estimate it to be late afternoon, maybe close to sunset. The snow has stopped blowing and now falls softly in fat flakes like turkey feathers. It looks like the aftermath of the kind of pillow fight that we all once believed would happen naturally at sleepovers, after we stripped down to our lacy underwear and painted each other’s toenails. I was never much for sleepovers. I pretended to be disdainful of them, but the real reason was . . . I shake that thought away—the thought of my mom, of how much I once needed her. It seems wrong that I have lived this long not knowing whether she’s dead or alive, as though it’s a discredit to her and all the things she did for me that I probably didn’t deserve.
The falling snow does something medicinal to my head, and I find I can’t look away. I almost feel like laughing, putting on snow pants and running outside to make angels. Or I could just lie down in the snow, maybe, and never get up. Either way, watching it makes me smile, with nostalgia bubbling inside me, painful and potent as white liquor. Snow pants, snowmen, me and Jack making snow angels in the front yard of our house. Stuff from before my life went off the rails.
I don’t know how long I’ve been standing there when I feel someone come up behind me.
“This is where you’ve been hiding?”
Topher, sounding so much like Tucker again I clench the windowsill with my fingers to keep from spinning around. He puts his hands on my shoulders, resting them there before gently massaging my neck, like we used to have to after the cooldown stretches at the dojo.
“It’s hardly hiding, since this is my room,” I say. “Where have you been?”
“Watching videos.” He leans forward, resting his chin on my shoulder, and looks out at the falling snow, now barely visible in the dark canyon. “We should go back to Calgary. I want to look for my parents. I need to tell them about . . .” He turns his head to the side and sighs forlornly. I smell the alcohol on his breath.