“The scan hasn’t finished yet,” Liam says. “I’ll download any new ones from the mainframe later.”
My brain does the equivalent of shoving piles of crap into the closet and under the bed and calling it a cleaned room. I can’t deal with the thought of Emily right now, so I just push it aside, biting my lip, wondering if everyone knew but me. I realize I’ve been sitting perfectly still with one hand resting on Xander’s hair and the other twisted in Liam’s bedcovers. Next to me, Topher leans forward, elbows on his knees, his eyes on the laptop screen.
Liam starts a video. “Here’s a more recent one. This one is a high-caliber assault rifle, military issue, armor-piercing bullets. Check it out.”
This one is a better quality video, high-powered zoom, digital focus, and sound. Two Nahx cross a clearing to a transport. There’s a deafening crack, and one of the Nahx falls. I’m not sure whether I blinked, but it looked like . . .
“Did you see that?” Liam says. Topher and Xander are shaking their heads in admiration.
“Its head just disintegrated. Direct head shot with high-caliber armor-piercing rounds. They don’t get up from that, either. Look, I’ll play it again.”
I force myself to watch, so I know I saw what I saw. The Nahx’s head literally disappears in a cloud of blood and shrapnel before its body crumples to the ground.
“Awesome,” Emily says.
I feel a bit nauseous.
Xander produces a bag of chocolate chips now and passes them around. I take a handful and close my fingers around them. They start to melt on my palm as Liam lines up another video. I have to force myself to look at the screen and not at the back of Emily’s head with her long blond ponytail.
“This one came yesterday,” Liam says. “But it was encrypted. The tech dude just unwound it this morning. I haven’t even seen it.”
Chocolate melts and melts in my hand.
The video starts up with a page of text:
On September 9, armed human militia came upon a group of Nahx in the mountains north of Vancouver, Canada. Reports vary on how it was achieved, but the result was that one Nahx was taken and held prisoner for a period of approximately four hours. The militia attempted to interrogate the prisoner, but it either couldn’t or wouldn’t communicate. The prisoner was executed when attempts to restrain it failed. Under attack from approaching Nahx, the captors were forced to flee. Because of the danger of returning through occupied territory, the body has not been recovered.
“Jeez,” Xander says, chewing, as the video starts.
A Nahx kneels, hands on head, in the center of a circle of armed and masked men. Each of them has a nasty-looking rifle pointed at the prisoner’s head. All I can think is, where did they get guns like that in Vancouver and why are they wearing masks? The sound is muffled, scratchy. You can hear someone yelling things, and occasionally one of the gunmen prods it . . . her? There’s something subtle about the shape of the armor. Maybe if I hadn’t had such a close look at the Nahx in the trailer park, I might not have spotted it, but this one is noticeably more slender, and smaller, the shoulders narrower, the neck thinner. It . . . she still seems very tall, even though she’s kneeling.
One of the gunmen approaches closer. He has an automatic handgun in one hand and something in the other. It’s hard to see.
“Is that a sword?” Mandy says.
“Machete,” Emily answers. “A big one.” She mouths a handful of chocolate chips. “I have a feeling this doesn’t end well for our Nahx mate here.”
I’m dimly conscious of the small pool of melted chocolate in my clenched fist. I want to turn away from the screen. I feel like I’d rather look at almost anything than what is about to happen, but I can’t look away.
The machete-wielding gunman yells something at the Nahx. The sound is too distorted to hear it clearly. But when the Nahx turns her head to him, we all clearly hear her response. She growls. Like a cat or a wolf. The machete man recoils. Another gunman steps up behind the Nahx and kicks her hard in the back. She tumbles forward, stopping her fall with her hands so she’s on her hands and knees. She lifts her head up, turning it slightly to look at the man with the machete. It’s not an aggressive position. More like . . . supplication.
“God, no . . . ,” I hear myself whisper. Machete man makes a split-second decision. He throws his gun to the side, raises the machete with both hands, and brings it down on the back of the Nahx’s neck.
Separating her head from her body as neatly as clipping a bud from a rosebush.
There’s a collective gasp. I slap my hands over my mouth, stifling a whimper, then furiously wipe the chocolate from my face with my sleeve.
The decapitated Nahx lingers on her hands and knees as her head rolls away and black sludge pours out her neck. Machete man gives the body a swift kick, and it tumbles in a dead pile. There’s a shout from one of the men, and they scatter, leaving the dead female where she lies.
The camera jolts into motion as the video ends.
Finally, I’m able to tear my eyes from the screen. Liam is grinning madly, his eyes bright. “That was awesome!”
“Didn’t really look like they tried to restrain it,” Topher says, popping a chocolate chip into his mouth. “Play it again.”
I leap to my feet, feeling like I might scream. I need to get to a toilet, or a sink, or outside fast. Eyes streaming with effort to keep my breakfast down, I push out of the room, tripping over Mandy’s chair.
“What your problem?” Liam snaps as I leave.
Faintly, I hear someone calling after me, but I barrel down the hallway, barely able to see where I’m going. If this men’s quarters is anything like the women’s at the opposite end of the residential wing, there should be a bathroom . . .
I throw a door open, finding myself instead in a kind of garage, with two thick blast doors open to a long passageway to the outside. The door blows shut behind me. The cold and fresh air allow me to take some control over my stomach, and I gaspingly manage to suppress the urge to vomit.
Two guards outside the blast door notice me. “Are you all right?” one of them calls out. I wave him away, resting my hands on my knees, hanging my head. I hear the door open behind me.
Expecting Topher, I’m surprised it’s Xander who has come after me. Well, am I surprised? Not really. For some guys there’s nothing more interesting than a girl who is about to completely lose her shit.
He puts his arm around me, leading me out into the snow-dusted passageway. “Come get some air,” he says.
Just inside the door there are reflective coats hanging on hooks. Xander helps me into one before donning one himself.
The guards nod at him as we exit. They’re smoking, despite not being quite outside. “Light?” Xander says as we trudge over to them. When one of them produces a lighter, Xander pulls a neat little joint from his pocket.
“This won’t be a problem?” he asks lightly.