He climbed up, and went inside. I followed, crawling in with him and sat cross-legged as I pulled the door shut. The overhead flickered back on.
“Please,” he said. “Stop what you’re—”
“Nix, no.”
“Please.”
I pressed my palms to my eyelids, wanting to scream. “We’re not attacking you, Nix. We’re not coming at you with guns or bombs. I just want people to see what’s really going on. Don’t we deserve that much?”
“They will see it as an attack.”
“Why, Nix? If you guys have nothing to hide, then why is this such a big deal? What if the power went out because of an accident? Would they retaliate then?”
“This won’t be an accident, and they will know that.”
“You’re just afraid people will see what you don’t want them to see.”
“No,” he said. “It will bring down the force field, as well. If the foreign forces see the opportunity, they will attack.”
“And why would they do that, Nix? What is it they see that would make them do something like that?”
“Please, trust me.”
My free hand had curled into a fist. The signal pouring off Nix felt like fear, or dread, and I felt for him but what he was asking wasn’t fair.
“It’s just the truth, Nix,” I said. “People have a right to make their decisions based on the truth, not a lie.”
He blew air from his feeding vents, ending in a low rattle.
“How many of them are out there?” I asked him. “How many people have changed?”
“I don’t know.”
“Bullshit you don’t know. You can see them. How many?”
He looked down at the mattress between us, not speaking for a long time. He tried to keep how conflicted he felt from bleeding through, but he couldn’t. Not from me.
“The truth,” he said finally. “Here is the truth—the foreigners observing from the outside have noticed the… fallout from Sillith’s final act. That much I know. They don’t understand, and are frightened. If they see an opening, a chance to attack, they will take it but I am more worried about the reaction here in Hangfei. If the people of this city are allowed to see the truth, they will assume that we have broken our agreement and they will destroy the ship, even if the foreigners don’t.”
“What agreement?”
He didn’t answer that. “Such an attempt will put humans and haan in direct conflict.”
“And what does that mean?”
His two brains quivered underneath the dome of his skull, the smaller one retreating beneath the larger one like it did whenever he got really upset.
“You believed in us, once.”
I sighed, and took his hand. I laced my fingers through his, on the mattress between us.
“I still believe in you, Nix.”
“Is that true?”
“I don’t think the haan are all bad,” I said. “I don’t think you’re all evil, and believe it or not I do think you mean to come through on your promises, but it can’t all be just on your own terms.”
“We will help you,” he said. “We will help you all but believe me Sam, you should be concerned about this. The ship, Shiliuyuán, is a research center and contains technologies you can’t yet imagine—”
“I don’t care, Nix.”
“You should care.”
“Well, I don’t,” I clipped. “You guys have lied about everything from the start, and our government is helping you do it. This has gone on for over fifty years. No more secrets.”
“There is more to this than you realize…. What Sillith did should not have happened. Give us time to make things right again—”
The hum of an aircar made the tube rattle as it passed overhead, and I waved at Nix to be quiet.
“Shh!”
“What is it?”
The aircar began to descend, heading toward the clear patch of blacktop near the entryway. I’d heard the sound a hundred times growing up. No one who could afford an aircar stayed in Baishan Park. The only time aircars ever showed up was when someone called security.
I slid the little plastic panel away from the hatch’s tiny window and peeked out. Sure enough, two marked vehicles had begun making their way toward the park’s only good landing spot.
“Damn it,” I hissed, sliding the window shut.
Outside the tube, a siren chirped. Someone shouted something, and then I heard the unmistakable sound of aircar doors popping open.
“Nix, we have to run. Are you up to it?”
“Yes.”
“Then we’ve got to hustle. Come on.”
I pushed open the tube door and jumped as a figure appeared on the other side. The afternoon sun shone bright on her white sundress, the ghost bloodstain still visible on the right breast as she crouched on the tube rail, her skirt flapping in the breeze that came in off the shore.
I pushed back, away from her, and went for my pistol but never reached it. Something cold slithered around my wrist, and stopped me cold. It smashed my hand back against the wall behind me and pinned me. Behind her, I saw a group of three security officers marching down the row of tubes toward us.
“Qian, wait….”
She climbed into the tube with us, and I felt something grab my other wrist. I fell back as she pinned it to the wall, too, stretching my arms taut as she leaned in close.
“I’m sorry, Sam,” she said.
The security guards were closing in fast. One spoke into his radio as the other two drew stun batons. I decided to try a different tact.
“Qian, security’s coming, they’ll—”
“They will be too late.” Her tone had shifted. All at once, the promise of violence began to bleed through the mite cluster. “I’m sorry. I did warn you.”
Something slithered across my ankle; then all at once her unseen tentacles began to coil around my legs, my arms, even my neck.
Nix lunged, then, grabbing her. Her eyes widened, and though I saw her lean back and grip her throat, my wrists stayed pinned by some part of her I couldn’t see. I heard a crunch and she gasped; then the coils around me loosened.
Qian turned her attention to Nix, and my arms fell free by my sides as she grabbed his arm with one hand while clamping down on his shoulder with the other. I felt a sharp bolt of pain through the cluster.
“Wait!” I shouted.
Qian pulled, twisting the arm until the bones splintered and it popped from its socket. Pain flooded through his signal as the limb tore away completely.
I stared in shock as warmth spritzed my face. Blood dripped from her hands as she cast the arm away behind her, and I saw it split into two distinct limbs before falling away. Two bangs followed as each one gated back to the ship. It struck me that she had felt nothing at all while she’d done this. The signal I’d felt from her as she tore the arm free felt as detached as if she’d been crumpling and discarding an unwanted wrapper.
“You…” I gasped. Nothing else would come out. I pulled the palm pistol from inside the Escher field and shot her three times, but she just put her hand on my chest and hurled me back into the tube. My head struck the shelf, and I bounced off onto the mattress.
Nix lunged, and I saw his missing arm had returned. His hand clamped down on her face in the second before she was torn away from the tube rail. The impact sent her flying through the air, across the row to crash into the stack of tubes opposite ours. She hit so hard that the plastic door cracked down its center and one half broke free to spin away and crash down onto the pavement. The stack rocked, like it might actually tip over, but righted itself as Qian’s body tumbled down onto the ground in a heap.
“Run,” Nix said to me. He started to leave the tube, when I grabbed his arm.
“Wait.”
I pulled the tube door shut again, latching it and triggering the lock.
“That will not keep them out long,” Nix said.