Морин Макхью - Wastelands - The New Apocalypse

Will he cry out for his mother? He never met her. Or his father. He doesn’t even know what they looked like. He has only a vague sense of their existence, shadowy memories that refuse to crystalize.

Because they aren’t his parents. Not really. They are the parents of his progenitor, a person that travelled for a thousand years to reach this place. Vanev is a copy of that person; Vanev is a receptacle . He was never meant to live at all.

But none of it matters now—Em has abandoned them.

“We need to move,” Marija says. “The Wasps will be hunting for us.”

Marija’s mud-covered face makes her eyes seem shockingly white. She holds one of the strange Wasp rifles in her arms; it looks far too large for her teenage body. Before the battle began, she covered herself in mud and ash—both on the exposed skin of her face and hands, and all over her black coveralls—then wrapped herself in the blue vines, camouflage that let her fade into the jungle. The mud and ash mostly covers the circle-star symbol embedded in her forehead. That symbol signifies she was bred for war, engineered for bloodshed.

Vanev has a different mark on his forehead: a plain circle. Y. Pajari and B. Bureau have the same symbol. They are all Empties— engineered to work , not fight —yet Em gave the Empties weapons, sent them into the streets and the jungle to battle the invaders.

Because everyone had to fight.

Is Em on one of the shuttles streaking for orbit? Probably.

She gave the order, the order that Vanev and the others followed, yet she is undoubtedly alive.

Alive, because she ran.

“They left us,” Bureau says, his voice cracking, maybe from the smoke, from the pain, or from puberty. “It’s all over. We’re dead.”

Bureau gets it. Will Marija and Pajari? Or will Vanev have to explain it to them?

The enemy is overwhelming. They have more weapons, more soldiers and more technology.

Em knew this was a battle that could not be won. The only way for the Birthday Children to survive was to flee Omeyocan, abandon the very planet they had been created to live upon.

The shuttles in the city center hadn’t been ready for evacuation. Vanev and the others—everyone, really, who wasn’t involved in prepping the shuttles—had marched into the jungle to fight the aliens.

Em had called it a “delaying tactic.” The goal of the battle wasn’t to win; it was to slow the enemy long enough for the shuttles to fuel up, to load supplies and people, then leave Omeyocan behind forever.

The shuttles were the only way off the planet.

Now they were gone .

Bureau was right; it was over. Only one question remained—how long would Vanev and the others survive? On a planet overrun by alien soldiers, in a jungle ablaze, he knew the answer: not long.

“Em will come back for us,” Pajari says, her voice so weak Vanev can barely make out her words over the flames and the rockets and his own coughing.

Pajari is on the ground, one hand clutching her bloody stomach. An hour ago, maybe more, maybe less, a Wasp artillery round had hit a tree, sending out an explosive hail of wood shards that killed two people. One shard had punched into Pajari’s belly. She was still alive… but for how much longer?

“Em will come back,” Pajari says again, staring up at the tiny lights steadily vanishing into the night sky. “She promised.”

Em promised no such thing. Her orders had been simple: fight hard, slow the Wasps down, and when the retreat signal sounded, get back to Uchmal as fast as possible.

Vanev and the others had heard the signal. They’d retreated as ordered, but had been slowed by Pajari. She had to be carried, each step causing her to cry out in pain. Then they’d run into several Wasp stragglers. The brief firefight had caused another delay. When the four Birthday Children finally killed the stragglers, they’d rushed for the city—only to find a massive blaze blocking their way. A spreading wall of flame too thick to go through , instead they’d desperately tried to go around .

One delay too many.

“Wasps control this area,” Marija says. “We have to move away from the city, hide deeper in the jungle.”

Somewhere in the shimmering flames, the crack of a falling branch, the whoosh of a burning weight hitting the ground. The air grows hotter by the second. Vanev is sweating. Soon this small clearing will be surrounded by fire.

He coughs again. It hurts. Something wrong in his lungs. He’s breathed in too much smoke.

“No,” Pajari says. “We have to stay near Uchmal. They’ll come back for us.”

Marija looks to the clearing’s edges, searching the flames for any sign of the enemy. She’s coughing, too; not as bad as Vanev is, but the smoke is getting to her.

“Ammo check,” she says. “Sound off.”

Pajari doesn’t have a gun. Neither does Bureau—his only weapon is the hatchet.

Vanev looks at his rifle, still leaning against the tree. How many rounds did he fire? He closes his eyes, trying to remember the firefight with the Wasp stragglers. He knows he hit two. One died instantly. The other had taken a round in the chest. Too weak to fight back, it had made strange noises as Vanev hammered its head with the rifle butt, hitting it over and over again, continuing to smash the broken pulp until Bureau had grabbed him, yanked him away. If not for Bureau, Vanev might still be back there, screaming, smashing, turning the strange alien flesh into yellowish paste.

“Vanev!”

He lurches, startled back into the moment. Marija is staring at him.

“Ammo count,” she says again.

He remembers firing eight times. “Two rounds left. No reloads.”

Marija looks to the others.

“Pajari? Bureau? Any rounds on you? I know you dropped your weapons.” Marija says dropped your weapons as if it is the greatest sin that could ever be.

Pajari says nothing. Bureau shakes his head.

“Then we need to search for Wasp weapons,” Marija says.

Bureau laughs, a sound of desperation and dark humor.

“And the Wasps that are holding them? Give it up, Marija… we’re dead.”

“Then lay down and die for all I care,” she says. “I’m going to live.” She’s trying to sound angry, but she sounds scared, just like everyone else.

Bureau gestures to the jungle that burns around them. The light of the flames plays off tears on his face, tears that cut lines through the dirt and grime clinging to his skin.

“And go where ?” He snarls, frustration welling up, overtaking him. “Em abandoned us! We’re going to die here. The Wasps are going to kill us!”

Marija slings her Wasp rifle. Two short steps take her to Bureau. He’s taller than she is, but she’s thicker, stronger. She grabs the shoulders of his black coveralls, clutches the fabric, gives the boy a solid shake.

“Shut up,” she says. “Just shut up .”

Bureau doesn’t try to push her away; instead he puts his arms around her. The move surprises Marija—Bureau holds her tight, his body shaking with sobs.

Vanev doesn’t know what Marija will do. The girl has killed so many Wasps in the last few hours that he’s lost count. She killed some with her rifle, some with the folding scythe she carries in a hip holster. One she killed with her bare hands, strangling the alien’s thin neck until it stopped kicking, stopped struggling, stopped moving.

Without Marija, Vanev and the others wouldn’t have survived this long.

“Em didn’t wait for us,” Pajari says, as if the horrible truth is finally hitting home. She has barely enough strength to form words. “She… she left us.”