“We have found you, Chance Rain,” a digitized masculine voice said. The mask flickered with the words, a blue fizzle for each consonant, like amplitude waves. “We finally found you.”
My brain whirred into overdrive, but unlike whatever program ran in his mask, it was offering no analysis. I was stunned, my body awash in adrenaline.
The figure spoke again. “Do not cry out,” he said. “You will give away our position.”
Beneath his armored glove, my mouth remained open in terror, the scream sealed in my throat. I managed to clamp my jaw shut. Then I gave a nod.
The hand released me.
He came clearer now in the bluish light. I blinked a few times, my night vision kicking in, helping the picture resolve.
He looked a lot like a Drone, but a closer examination revealed some differences. His space suit was charcoal rather than black, matte instead of shiny, and it looked scuffed and battle-worn. His powerful appearance may have been enhanced by the flexible armor that formed his suit. His position, slouched against the inside of the tree, one hand pressed to his gut, indicated that he was hurt. And he sounded hurt, too, light bars flickering with each labored breath, altering the volume of some of his words.
My breathing couldn’t have sounded much better, my chest still lurching from the scare. It took a moment for me to find my voice. “Who are you?”
“My name will make no sense to you,” he said.
As I watched the amplitude bars flicker, I understood the helmet to be translating.
“Where are you from?” I asked.
He raised a sheathed arm and pointed through the hole in the tree toward the dagger of blue sky. “Same as the Harvesters. But we oppose them.”
I shook my head, half expecting him to disappear as if he were a hallucination. “So you’re, like … rebels?”
“You can call us that.”
“How … how did you get here?”
“We travel by asteroid. Like them. And, like them, we have to prepare the way.” The glow from his mask flickered. “We are not as good at this nor willing to be as ruthless.”
“How do you know who I am?”
“We are capable of mapping and identifying—”
“No, I mean how do you know my name?”
Outside, the screeching started up again, scaring birds from the treetops.
“There is no time for that right now,” he said. “Listen to me carefully.” The glowing contour lines in his mask fuzzed, then regained their clarity. “You and your brother are the key to everything. Is he alive?”
“Wait,” I said. “What?”
The words came through the helmet, more intense than before. “Is your brother alive?”
“Yes.” Even as I answered, I wondered how much longer that would be true.
The head tilted back, a gesture that conveyed great relief. “It was all I could do to try to reach the nearest Hatch site to look for you two amongst the cages. I scanned them and searched the Husks as well.”
Husks. The kids floating on slabs, their bodies stretched beyond recognition.
But I was still stuck back on the prior revelation. “What do you mean, Patrick and I are the key to everything?”
“For the planet. For survival.”
“We’re the key? Us and who else?”
“Only you two.”
My head buzzed. “What are we supposed to do?”
“A mission. That only you or your brother can carry out.”
“A mission?”
“You have accomplished something extraordinary. You killed a Queen and shut down a Hatch site. That’s never been done before—”
“Wait—before where?”
“—but that is only the beginning. The next stage is about to commence. After the Hatch nothing will be the same. And it will all come down to you.”
I coughed out a laugh. “What are you saying? It’s up to us or everyone’ll die or something?”
“Not ‘or something.’” He leaned forward, his grip tightening around my arm. “If you fail in your mission, everyone on the planet will die.”
I had no idea what to do with that information. Not right now. There was too much to consider. So many ramifications.
He continued, “You cannot fall into the hands of the Harvesters.”
“Or what?”
“You cannot imagine what they will do to you.”
After what I’d seen already, that sent a chill up my spine.
“Be careful whom you trust with this information,” he said. “Anyone who knows about you will be tortured if captured. Now that the Harvesters have landed, they will be looking for you and your brother everywhere, to stop you before you can carry out the plan. By now they will have used your adult male population to map your entire planet. They know every inch of your terrain. They had to inspect it to see if it would work.”
“If what would work?”
“The Hatch.” The Rebel’s breathing grew more labored. The glow guttered, then glitched. It seemed he was shorting out. “They had to know that they could habitate here.”
“Why?” I asked. “Their planet is dying?”
The mask stared at me blankly for a moment. “No,” he said. “They just want more.”
I was shocked into silence.