Luca Read online

“OK,” Jedd says. “Let’s assume you're right. What could it be looking for?”

  Qaara turns and leans back into Jedd, her gaze going up. “I’m not sure. What do you think?”

  “Maybe it’s lonely, looking for friends. Or a new, exotic life form. One it can communicate with. One that will listen to it."

  “If I were an intelligent life form, with a lifespan that stretched into billions of years, traveling the galaxy, checking back on planets that I’d seeded with life, I think I’d be looking for something very specific.” Qaara stares into the fuzzy ash on her palm. “I’d be like a farmer, planting seeds and then watching my creations, seeing if they're growing into the ideal I had in mind.”

  “And wiping out entire planets, ending billions of lives, raining down destruction, all because it like what it sees?” Ricky shakes his head. “I can't believe the Cloud is intelligent. And if it is, it’s incredibly evil.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Qaara blows the ash and watches it float away. “What looks evil from our limited perspective might be something entirely different from the Cloud's galactic viewpoint.”

  “What do you mean?” Jedd says.

  Qaara leans forward. “Is it evil to destroy an ant hill to build a hospital?”

  Before he can answer, the sound of feet pulls Jedd’s gaze to the side. “Speaking of evil, look who’s—"

  Moses approaches from behind a tank, walking briskly, ten meters away. He stops and stares into Qaara’s eyes. “The people say you’re a great prophet." He points up. “Predicting the colors in the sky. Predicting the airships would fall.”

  Qaara shakes her head. “I’m not a prophet. It’s simple science. The ships rely on complex electronics to fly. When Earth entered the Cloud, micro-meteors began bombarding the atmosphere. That’s what’s causing the red color and disrupting their navigation systems. It was nothing you or I did. Simple science.”

  “But it is a gift.”

  “If you choose to see it that way.”

  “I do.” Moses raises his arms in a circle. “And the same thing is happening all around the world?”

  “Yes,” Qaara says.

  Moses takes a couple of steps and looks east. “What effect will this have on the City?”

  “Based on what we’ve seen here,” Qaara scans the battlefield, “I'd say there’s a good chance the City will have no real defenses. It might have come to a complete standstill. Its technology depends on the free flow of electrons, so anything that disrupts that flow will create chaos. Riots. You and your army might have the only functioning weapons within hundreds of miles."

  “A jewel ripe for the taking.”

  “Yes,” Qaara says. “Perhaps. But only if you hurry.” She gazes at the sky. “It will only last for a day or two.”

  “And what happens after that?” Moses says. “Back to the way it was before?”

  Jedd stares at the ground.

  “After that,” Qaara says, “the world will be much changed. There will be no going back. For you or the City or anyone else."

  Moses stares at her and brings his handheld radio up to his mouth. “We make for the City with all haste. Prepare to be there in two hours.”

  49

  CONTACT

  The Voice from the sky knocks Luca off her feet.

  Hands go over her ears, to no effect. The other girls in the group, even those who haven’t heard voices for years, collapse to the ground.

  Their faces take on the appearance of demons as the night sky lights up with a red glow.

  Fine ash floats down like glitter.

  The noise in Luca’s head cuts into her mind and moves through her memories. She is conscious of a sifting action, as if some force were dividing her thoughts into ever-smaller pieces and considering each in turn. Images of the past jump and quiver.

  She sees her father lying on the futon in the family room, sweat on his brow, moaning for water, just before he died. Her mother in the backyard digging for potatoes in the garden.

  In a blur, the Voice goes through her life from start to finish.

  The last image is the death of Rika.

  And then it’s over. The Voice lingers as if performing a calculation, and then it pulls away, like the sudden withdrawal of a blade from a wound, leaving behind a chaos of sensation. Deep ocean blue. The slimy wet scales of a koi pulled fresh from a pond. The aroma of gyoza and garlic. The blow of a rubber club across the back of her head. The salty taste of miso. A single, deep chord of music from an old song on the radio.

  “My head hurts!” one of the girls says.

  The others sit up, nodding in agreement.

  Even though the Voice has withdrawn, Luca senses it near, all around her, everywhere.

  Opening her hand, she captures a whisper of ash in her palm and brings it close to her eye. The delicate crystalline structure is like a snowflake but not flat. Three-dimensional, like a complicated cube. The sides are blurry, moving.

  Like it’s alive.

  More of the tiny crystals fall into a light fuzz that coats the ground and the trees.

  The scarlet glow of the sky draws her eyes up. She searches from horizon to horizon for the sun and moon, but both are gone. Stars have disappeared.

  You’re finally here, she thinks.

  Luca sits on the ground, hands folded on her lap. Closing her eyes, she opens her mind, little by little, to the Voice, bracing herself for another blow.

  But it never comes.

  Instead, she is a speck of dust floating inside a massive white sphere alive with motion and words. Conversations without number move within the sphere, above her, below her, in all directions. So much to listen to. Voices come together in choruses of woven sound. At first, the words are unintelligible, like a foreign language, but when she concentrates hard enough, Luca discovers she can pick out random strands of thought.

  Where?

  Here.

  The second time.

  Have they changed?

  The voices move away. Luca is exhausted from the attempt to understand them and pulls away from the Voice.

  And then she remembers the other voices from before. Human voices, not far away. It’s difficult to search for them. The Voice in the sky fills her mind whenever she tries to listen.

  But the other voices are there, their owners staring up from inside massive domes at the same red sky, more agitated than ever. Confused and scared. Their minds all agree on one thing.

  Stay inside. Away from the falling ash.

  Luca stands. “I think it’s this way. Follow me.” She starts down the road, heading north.

  “Where are we going?” one of the girls says.

  “There are people over there.” Luca points ahead. “Thousands of them. They have food and water. We have to go.”

  The oldest girl of the group, Suri, who arrived at the Institution just before Luca, stares at the crimson sky. “Did you hear it? Did you feel it?”

  “It hurt my head,” Luca says. “Inside and out.”

  Like Luca, Suri never stopped listening in spite of the beatings. She rubs her temples. “Mine, too. What is it?”

  Luca watches the red sea above her. “I don’t know. It’s been coming closer for days. So big. So full of . . . words.”

  “You looked inside?” Suri walks closer, her hand brushing Luca’s. “Did you make a connection? Did it hear you?”

  “It came into my head or took me into its mind. I’m not sure.” Luca bends close to a single white flower protruding from the grass. Crystals of ash cling to its delicate petals. "I could feel it going through my memories. It’s looking. Searching for something. And this.” She lifts a palm to catch the falling ash.

  “What is it?” Suri says.

  “It’s alive.” Luca gets back to her feet and faces all the girls, still spread out on the ground. “We have to go.”

  “Where?” Suri says.

  “To the domes.”

  50

  BACTERIA

  So this is how
it all begins.

  Mercer enjoys the darkness bathing his eyes. “Are you sure?”

  “No question about it.” The woman’s voice comes from behind. “It worked like a worldwide EMP. Knocked out electronics, which is to say, everything.”

  “Except for my cruiser.” Mercer can’t suppress a smile. “And our building. The Mesh should still be functional on the inside.”

  “It seems that extensive upgrades were made to the Genesis Corporation facilities for precisely this sort of event.” She walks around the chair and stands at Mercer’s side. "You knew, didn’t you?”

  “The green chip explained how it would play out. A massive electronic storm. Loss of communications and data.” Mercer carefully licks his lips. “Any idea what happened to the squadron sent to destroy that ragtag army in the Zone? The image cut out just as they were about to engage laser cannons.”

  A smirk takes over the women’s face. “That sad excuse of an army should have been annihilated in seconds. I’d guess there's nothing left but a graveyard of burning hulks.”

  Mercer nods. “But did the squadron ever come back?”

  The woman consults her slate. “There’s no confirmation of their return. After the storm hit, the ships might have fallen from the sky.” The woman stares up. "I suggest we leave the City. Immediately.”

  “And I suggest you’re out of your mind.” Mercer gropes in the dark for another lemon. “I wouldn’t miss the show for anything.”

  “The show?”

  Mercer takes a deep bite. “The fall of civilization. The end of one world. The beginning of another. What better place to witness it than here, in the City?” He stands and walks across the room to a small window, footsteps clicking on the floor in the dark. With his free hand, he throws back a small curtain. Red light floods into the room. “Behold.”

  Mercer leans forward, pressing his nose against the glass.

  From horizon to horizon, the sky is a sea of red. The buildings of the city rise like tombstones in the light. But there are no shadows. People crowd the street below, small and distant. Mercer can’t see them, but he knows they are staring up.

  “All public security operations are suspended,” the woman whispers. “The City is completely unprotected. No police. Nothing to hold back the Fringe. There will be chaos. Blood in the streets.”

  “It is to be expected.”

  “With most electronics fried, pulse rifles no longer function. Your own security personnel might be unable to protect you should the mob overpower them and gain entry to the building.”

  “I’ve prepared for that outcome.”

  “The Fringe will swallow the City.”

  “Like a bacteria. I know.” Mercer smiles. “I’ll hang around for a while, as long as I can. And then—” He points a thumb to the roof of the building.

  “I’ll see to it that your cruiser is ready.” She walks to the door. “Don’t stick around too long.”

  “Are you kidding?” Mercer grins. “Nothing can hurt me now.”

  51

  BARRICADE

  Jedd stares out the window of the truck. “What do you make of the ash falling from the sky?”

  “It’s not ash,” Qaara says.

  Ricky shifts his weight in the back seat. “What is it?”

  “A vector.”

  “For what?” Jedd studies a tiny crystalline structure stuck on the outside of the window. “How do you think it works?”

  “Just a guess, but I’d say the Cloud material, whatever it is, forms into a fuzzy crystal when heated by the upper atmosphere. The crystal, with its DNA, is absorbed into whatever it touches. Plants. Rocks. Metal. It doesn’t matter.”

  “And then what happens?”

  “Again, just guessing, but the crystal breaks down the molecular structure of the material it’s attached to and reforms the material based on the DNA carried by the crystal. It begins manufacturing the killer molecule. And then——”

  “And then what?”

  “Evolution starts again with a clean slate. Another chance.”

  “At what?” Jedd says.

  “That is the mystery.” Qaara shakes her head as if to clear away invisible mist. “And it’s exactly what Mercer wants to happen. To everyone but him and a few thousand hand-picked sycophants.” Her hand gropes for Jedd’s. "We have to stop him. We can’t let him get away with his plan.”

  “Do you think he’s still in the City?” Ricky says.

  “Last I heard, he planned to leave for Japan a few days ago.” Qaara places one hand on the truck dashboard, bracing herself against a big rut in the road. “But he might still be there. I can imagine him being thrilled to stick around and watch the fall of civilization.” As if she’s had a sudden stroke of enlightenment, her eyebrows lift. “That's what we have to do. Find Mercer, if he’s still there. How much farther to the City?”

  “A hundred klicks. We’ll be there by dawn. We’d better get some sleep first.” Jedd looks over at the driver, a woman with long black hair under her green-gray helmet. “You OK staying up?”

  “Don’t worry. Someone will trade me. Get some sleep. You’ll need it when we get there.”

  Qaara snuggles closer to Jedd, laying her head on his shoulder. Once he closes his eyes, the rhythmic grinding of the truck’s engine puts him to sleep in seconds.

  His dreams are patchy.

  First, he’s a kid with Moses and the Family, lashed to a wooden post, getting a whipping for stealing food. And then he’s wading through a pool of liquid. He stumbles, only to see that his feet are dissolving. Reaching out his arms, he yells to Ricky for help.

  Someone punches him in the shoulder.

  “Wake up,” Ricky says. “You better take a look at this.”

  Jedd’s eyes flip open. He stares out the window into the dark night at the central black market of the Fringe. On a typical evening, no matter the hour, it would be filled with makeshift stalls selling exotic drugs fabricated in back alley labs and dank basements and crawling with dealers, counterfeiters and people from the Tribe.

  But it’s empty. Bathed in eerie red light. Devoid of shadows. Deserted. A thick coat of gray ash blankets everything.

  “Where is everybody?”

  “No idea,” Ricky says. “But I haven’t seen a single soul since we got here.”

  And then it hits Jedd. “Is your jax working? Mesh access? Can you get anything digital?”

  Ricky and Qaara both try, but it’s useless.

  “OK, this is bad,” Jedd says. “If the Mesh is down, then everything tied to it has stopped working. Police, security, protection services, none of it's functional. Which means the City has been left naked, unprotected. That’s where everybody is.”

  “Why would they go to the City?” Qaara says.

  It’s something Qaara can’t be expected to understand. She was born and bred in a world of wealth and privilege. She’s worked hard, in her own way, but she's never been thrown out of a store or restaurant because she was filth from the Fringe.

  “You want to know?” Jedd looks at Ricky, as if to ask for permission to tell the truth.

  Ricky nods. “Tell her.”

  “Revenge.” Jedd cranes his neck in the direction of the clusters of glass towers that make up the City in the distance. The characteristic glow of the buildings is gone. “Look around. Imagine you were born in this place. No education. No rules. Survival of the fittest. A jungle. For most of their lives, the people here have stood in the shadow of the City, watched it with longing, seen how the rich can have anything they want and live by a different set of rules. That sort of life is all but impossible if you’re born in the Fringe. In their hearts, the people here hate it. They know it’s not fair. And now the City and all the wealth and privilege it symbolizes is defenseless. The time for justice has finally arrived. They’re going to tear it all down. Watch it burn.”

  “Is that what you want?” Qaara says.

  “What I want?” Jedd pauses, not sure how to put it into wo
rds. “I don’t care about the City, if that’s what you’re asking. This is the world I grew up in. And it’s very different from yours."

  “You don’t care about the destruction of civilization?” Qaara’s eyes open wide.

  Jedd glances at Ricky.

  Ricky nods again, eyes soft, the hint of a smile. “Tell her, Jedd. Tell her what you care about. Be honest.”

  Jedd swallows. “OK. Here goes. I care about you, Qaara. Since all this started, all I’ve ever wanted is to protect you. To be there for you. To help you . . . do whatever it is you do. To help you be whatever you want to be. The truth is that you've been protecting me. From my own stupidity. But I still want to be there for you. To be part of your life. Your beautiful, incredible life.”

  Jedd’s face turns red. He slowly shakes his head and stares at the floor.

  Qaara stares back at him, holding her breath. She moistens her lips with the delicate touch of her tongue. Her voice drops to a whisper. “Thank you.”

  The convoy of trucks and tanks races on through the red night-day at high speed, crossing the empty space between the Fringe and the City. As they approach, the scarlet glow of the eastern sky lightens to a shade of pink.

  “Sunrise soon,” Qaara says. “I wonder what we’ll find when we get there.”

  The question is quickly answered.

  Entering the extreme north end of a long boulevard, the first thing Jedd notices is the black smoke. The burnt-out hulks of parked vehicles, overturned and smoldering, litter the streets like logs after a passing firestorm. In places, cars pile three or four deep.

  Nothing remains on the surface. Stubs of broken lampposts crisscross the sidewalks like discarded sticks. Outdoor cafes are obliterated. Fire hydrants from a century earlier, now only ornamental, lie broken and strewn at random.

  A swarm of locusts has swept through, destroying anything above ground.

  “I don’t see any people from the Fringe,” Qaara says.

  “Inside.” Jedd points at the shattered lower windows of a tower. Smoke billows from open spaces high above the street. “Scavenging for anything of value." He shudders at the thought of the crimes taking place at that very moment.