Page 70 of The Brightness Between Us

From Earth!

I give a little prayer to the beacon.I hope you can help us.

After the device nearly blinds us again by strobing red, I put it in my pocket. I start toward the settlement, assuming Father will follow.

“Are you okay to head back already?” he calls after me.

I nod without breaking my stride. I’m not going to further delay getting to Dad and Yarrow.

“Owl, wait,” Father says.

I whirl on him. “I’m fine. Really!”

Then I see: he’s pointing at my pocket.

It’s glowing. I realize I’m also hearing muffled voices. Coming from mypocket.

Cautiously, I pull the beacon out. Its proximity to my body must have triggered something. The moment it’s out into the air, the projection stops being blocked by my tunic and instead produces life-sized figures beside us, continuing along mid-speech.

They’re Dad and Father.

Part Six

EARTH

MARCH 5, 2473

KODIAK CELIUS

Chapter 1

I leap out of the rowboat and begin my swim to the far side of the lake, feet pushing against a submerged log so I can course underwater as long as possible. All of it out of sight of Ambrose.

My thoughts clarify. I decide I’ll leave forever, strike out and make my way as far as the ruins of Inverness, let Cusk or Fédération do the work of apprehending (destroying?) my trespasser without me having to witness the carnage.

By the time I emerge from my long swim to the far shore, though, Sheep high-stepping over the slippery mossy rocks to be as close as possible to me, I find myself leaning against a trunk and looking for Ambrose as I catch my breath. To keep up my situational awareness.

He’s still in the boat, motionless. Stunned. I’m sure I surprised him; I surprised me, too. But I knew somewhere in the back of my brain that I’d be losing my home the moment he arrived at my door, that my solitude was over as soon as my location was known. That is my fault as much as his, for letting down my guard. I’m not about to continue to stick my neck out for this intruder from a warringnation, even if he’s uniquely tied to my own fate, thousands of years from now and across the galaxy.

As I watch him, I also realize that I don’twantAmbrose to be murdered by a warbot. That I liked having him here.

What a stupid, stupid organ, the heart.

Maybe I don’t want to be alone. Maybe a sheep isn’t enough company. Those damn fish flashing deep under the ice, scales catching the light only when they turn.

Crouching in brackish muck, water dripping from my soaked shirt, I watch Ambrose take up the oars and row himself away from me—and to my hut, where he disappears inside. No doubt helping himself to my carefully foraged supplies, my weapons and food.

He ruined my life, and now he’s taking over my home.

He’s got my cottage to live in, while I’m up to my shoulders in the slimy reeds.

I might not have thought this through very well.

I guess I’d assumed the warbot would be on us immediately. But it could be days or weeks until one arrives. Or maybe it never will. I’m not sure what to do next. Suddenly—frustratingly—lightheaded, I clomp out of the reeds and sit on the wet pine needles of the forest floor.

Only a few dozen warbots exist in the world, so the Dimokratía cosmology academy couldn’t spare a functioning one for us to practice with. We conducted training exercises around warbot tech, though, since you can’tunderstand modern world history without becoming intimately familiar with them. They determined the outcomes of each of Dimokratía and Fédération’s three major wars, and maintaining access to warbots is the primary reason that each country has to include the Cusk Corporation in its political decisions. Warbot political clout, and accumulated wealth through decades of military dominance, were essential to Cusk pulling off theCoordinated Endeavormission in the first place. A warbot can fire two rounds a second and process visual and auditory information with near instantaneous speed, which means their target has no time to run or even strategize once it’s been spotted. Warbots don’t need to think before they leap. Even trapping one won’t work, since they detonate if they’re restrained. Adding in the fact that it can print itself new ammunition from elements easily found in soil, one warbot can reasonably take on an army of humans (not that either country is putting organic bodies on the front lines anymore). It’s hard to imagine how Ambrose can possibly prevail if he stays here. More than impossible to imagine. Impossible, full stop. Our only option is to flee.

Maybe he is intentionally waiting here for the warbot to kill him?

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