Dead Moon Rising Read online

  To B. W., A. Z., A. J., and Dr. Jones

  CHAPTER 1 Sev

  THEY SAY TO FIND A hero you can’t look to the past. Heroes from stories aren’t real anyway, and that’s what the past is, right? A story told by whoever had the biggest gun. Instead, we’re supposed to find heroes around us.

  I have nowhere to look, though, because my body won’t look. It’s made of ashes and wind and dead things, nothing but an echo of a heartbeat left inside me. My life has turned into a dream, every moment I’m Asleep making it harder to remember what it was like to be awake. If there was a hero next to me I wouldn’t know, because all I can see is the dark side of my eyelids, feel the grainy sheet on the bed underneath me. The only things that change are sounds. Temperature. Right now I’m cold. I can hear the steady plink, plink, plink of fluid dripping to my IV.

  The door hinge squeaks, and cool air washes over me from the hallway like a breeze from the ocean, vast as a year and deep as the sky. If my body could tense, it would, but instead I’m curled up inside my mind, waiting for whoever it is to poke or prod me. To pick up my dead weight and throw me in a burn pile, mutter ugly things into my dead ears, or touch my dead body because I can’t stop them. Whoever it is stays quiet, lurking near my bed.

  You are alive, not dead. It’s a whisper at the back of my mind, crumpled like a wet sheet of paper. Just like the princess in our story. Asleep until someone kisses you awake.

  I wish I could grimace, because that’s not the only ending I’ve heard to the sleeping princess’s story. Also, I don’t want anyone in Dr. Yang’s base to kiss me, thank you very much.

  The person prowling in my room sits in what I think must be a chair, the legs squeaking under their weight. I hear quick, nervous breaths that are free of a gas mask’s rusty tang. The bit of me that’s still awake braces for violence or worse. No mask means SS now, and SS is a beast that I don’t have the muscles to fight anymore.

  “We’ve done everything you asked.” A muffled voice filters through the closed door. Helix, my brain supplies. The Menghu who killed June’s father. The person invading my room bolts up from the chair, footsteps padding to the far side of my bed away from the door. “There isn’t enough Mantis to last us much longer.” Helix’s voice grows louder, though it’s still attempting a respectful tone. “You promised—”

  “Don’t argue with me, Captain Lan.” That’s Dr. Yang. The door opens again, his footsteps tapping in, probably here for my weekly checkup. I think it’s weekly. Maybe it’s daily, and I’ve only been lying here for two days. I can’t tell.

  He pauses inside the room. “Aren’t you supposed to be sending orders to Dazhai?” Not speaking to me, because he knows I cannot answer.

  The intruder by my bed doesn’t move for a good thirty seconds. But then the sound of army boots on concrete rings out as they leave my side and walk out the door.

  Eight years my mother survived this. Eight years she listened, keeping her mind awake so she’d be able to pass on the possibility of curing SS. I’m like her, I guess. Dr. Yang put me to Sleep for knowing the truth too. That the note Mother left me in the device we found at Dazhai wasn’t gibberish. It was a clue telling me where to find the cure.

  “Medicine is an exact science.” The doctor is speaking again, vague amusement at my unauthorized visitor melting away to leave only clinical precision. “You’ll have to trust me, Helix. I promised you a cure, but you and your soldiers will have to be patient.”

  He can’t get the cure. Not unless I tell him where Mother hid it. The tiny living part inside me raises her head, listening to Helix’s silence. It’s heavy. A waiting silence that could end in death or destruction or maybe a cup of tea. It’s hard to tell. All I know is Helix doesn’t ask any more questions.

  CHAPTER 2 Tai-ge

  THE COT FEELS LIKE SOME kind of canvas. Rough grain, stretched tighter than I’d expect. Of course, all the missions I’ve participated in with the City up until now required specific flight plans, an eye on the clouds, and exactly zero cots. Maybe cots have been this way all along, and I had to sleep on one to know the way the fabric scratches at my skin.

  Voices outside my tent draw my spine straight. Each time I inhale, it strains through the filters of my mask, so loud I have to hold my breath to listen. Three voices, coming from the direction of the Chairman’s tent. Female. Two I don’t recognize, harsh and precise as they issue through gas mask filters. The third voice, however, is familiar as the raw-scrubbed lines of my knuckles even through the rasp of a mask.

  When the voices draw close, the two unfamiliar ones pass by, leaving a shadow waiting outside the tent flap. I stand, waiting to see if she’ll finally come in. Wanting her to. But not wanting to face her.

  An arm pushes aside the untied tent flap, General Hong’s polished boots all I allow myself to look at once she steps inside. The air between us seems to be filled with nothing but disappointment.

  “I have an assignment for you, Son.”

  I chance raising my eyes past her knees, almost to her belt buckle, the City seal a proud falcon and beaker etched into the metal. Silence is respect. I wait.

  “It’s a chance to alleviate some of the difficulty in which we find ourselves.” She sighs, bending until her face comes into view, forcing me to break the boundary between our stations and look her in the eyes. “I’m proud of what you did, Tai-ge.” My chest lifts, some space finally opening inside it, only to turn back to stone when she continues. “It just wasn’t enough.”

  Failure. I got into Kamar when it was supposed to be impossible for a Second. I got the device Sev’s mother left behind. And then I let Menghu take it away from me.

  “Do we know where they took the cure yet?” I ask, knowing better than to voice the other question that’s been burning inside me since Dr. Yang’s Menghu flew me from Kamar to Dazhai camp, leaving me on the dead airfield and taking everything of value with them.

  It’s been two weeks. Two weeks of measuring the gap between my tent and the next. Of eating exactly what I’m rationed and hanging my uniform coat so the wrinkles left from being stuffed under my mother’s bed will smooth. Two weeks of disappointed silence.

  “No,” Mother finally responds. “We don’t know where the Menghu took the device you found in Kamar. Dr. Yang has been quite communicative about progress, though.” She sighs, her tone a familiar frustrated cadence. “After Jiang Sev killed her mother with anti–Suspended Sleep serum, apparently the setbacks seemed insurmountable. But, now that he has this new data, Dr. Yang is optimistic we have what we need to cure SS.”

  “Sevvy—Jiang Sev—didn’t hurt her mother on purpose. Dr. Yang told her—”

  Mother frowns over my slip using Jiang Sev’s nickname, but mercifully doesn’t comment. “There are other patients in a similar state, and he’s had success waking them when using the serum correctly, Tai-ge. That girl never was much for listening. There’s a proper procedure. A dosing schedule. You can’t give it to a patient all at once. If it wasn’t on purpose, then it was incompetency.”

  I lick my lips, letting her finish. She’s right about Sevvy. Rules seemed an annoying itch to my friend as we got older.

  “Apparently, Jiang Sev can read the data contained on the device, but she won’t cooperate.” Mother’s eyes narrow. “I have no doubt the obstacles will be worn down soon, though.”

  Worn down. I keep my eyes focused on Mother, refusing to blink. It doesn’t stop the terrible images that crop up in my head, the tingles of pain that streak down my arms and back that make me wish I hadn’t been a part of putting Sevvy in a cell. But I push that thought aside. Sevvy should know better than to hold back now. We need the cure. The whole world does. We can’t be picky about who is in charge if there’s nothing lef
t to be in charge of, but still it sits wrong in my stomach that I’m here in this tent and she’s being… worn down.

  “Is Dr. Yang allowing First and Second involvement?”

  “There are Firsts from the Circle, who are being asked to help, but the Chairman won’t relay any details. It is my belief that Dr. Yang isn’t allowing him to do so. The information you brought me before going to Port North regarding Dr. Yang’s true loyalties and Chairman’s actions… You were correct. He has been compromised somehow by Dr. Yang. We have to forge forward ourselves.”

  “If Dr. Yang manages to develop a working cure…” I pause, not sure how to phrase what we must both be thinking. “How long do we have before he stops pretending to be a loyal City comrade? He’ll use the cure to compel Seconds and Thirds to support his Menghu forces.”

  Mother walks over to my cot and sits down, the frame squeaking. She gestures for me to sit next to her, a smile touching her lips at my automatic hunch. My head higher than hers makes me uncomfortable. “Dr. Yang says he wants to unify us, but I am afraid you are right. He means only to take what we have. I have great admiration for what you were able to accomplish, as I said before. But without the device we need a way to fight. Which brings us to your new assignment.”

  Fight? I hold the word inside. There was a time when I could say some of what I thought to my mother. When I could tease her and deviate from what she wanted without repercussions. That was when we had beds, pillows, wooden floors beneath our feet. Walls that isolated our family enough to allow us to be mother and son when no one could hear. Now she’s stepped into Father’s shoes and we live in an open field where every moment we are made from gas masks and metal stars. The fate of the City has slipped from the Chairman’s shoulders to settle on Mother’s.

  The Chairman. Anger churns inside me, my teeth clamping so tight my jaw begins to ache. I’ve seen him here in the camp, waving, encouraging. Serving the Seconds and Firsts with a stalwart firmness, a determination that’s meant to be inspiring. As if rationing isn’t a direct result of him handing our supplies to Dr. Yang. Without Chairman Sun, the Menghu would never have invaded the City. We never would have ended up in this cold-water camp, biting our tongues as he opens the gate and lets gores in one by one.

  He and Dr. Yang together have much to answer for. But Mother and I are the only ones who know.

  “We need to have another way to fight SS until we can take the cure for our own, Tai-ge.” Mother pats the cot next to her again, and this time it’s an order, so my knees bend. “Masks break every day, and we have no way to fix them or build new ones. The Mantis stockpiles are growing thin, disappearing into Menghu camps. The moment Dr. Yang has a working cure, it will be loyalty against an empty stomach and compulsions. Our soldiers and workers will become his slaves.” She touches my shoulder, pushing my hunched shoulders straight. “You remember the medic we sent with you to Kamar who was so easily swayed into betraying you? I doubt we can expect better from most of our ranks. They are frightened.”

  My chest clenches over the memory. Xuan tried to kill me. He told Sevvy… I don’t know what he told Sevvy, exactly. Something that made her set him free and turn me out for the gores…

  I mean, I do know what he must have said. That I was working with Mother to get the cure. That I meant to take it back to her, to people who could analyze it, reproduce it, and actually use it to save us all from SS. But the way he said it must have cast me as a villain because he didn’t care about saving anyone. All Xuan wanted was to escape from his duty. His expertise was supposed to get us into Kamar’s main city, onto their island, so I could disable the weapons they used to shoot our helis out of the sky. Instead, he left. Landed us all in Kamari jail cells.

  Xuan is the reason I failed Mother. Failed my people. Failed Sevvy.

  I blink the thought away before it can take over. I don’t owe Sevvy anything. She’s the one who wouldn’t listen to reason. And excuses are for the weak. For those who refuse to take ownership of themselves and their actions. My failures are mine, no matter who else contributed. It was my failing to place trust in Xuan.

  Mother leans forward, fingering her mask before letting her hand fall. For a moment I think she means to put a hand on my knee. A comfort. Instead, she stands. “We must be able to protect our people, to give them an alternative to capitulation.” She touches my shoulder, her hand perfectly positioned as if she thought out all the angles and pressure before moving. “So I’m sending you back to the City.”

  I push myself up from the cot. Back to the City? We abandoned the City, its labs, and its factories to SS, the disease spreading too quickly to do anything but run.

  Lagging a respectful two steps behind my mother, I square my shoulders and follow her out of the tent. The light seems bright outside, cheery after the two weeks of gloomy waiting for judgment inside my tent. I may have listened to Sevvy during the invasion, dirtied my boots with the spoiled world Outside, then failed at the task Mother set me after I tried to make amends. But now I can make up for it.

  All the muscles tensed along my shoulders loosen because I’m back where I belong: two steps behind the General. Whatever it is Mother has for me to do, whether it’s in the City, in the camp here, or at the center of the Earth, I will do it if it means she trusts me again.

  * * *

  After the the official meeting with what’s left of the First Circle, my fingers drum against my hip as I walk toward the heli-field. My assignment feels like an anchor in my head, holding me steady. Mother’s at my side, I have something worthwhile to contribute to City objectives, and in just a few minutes I’ll be back in the air where I belong.

  The craft set aside for me is a smaller model than the one I flew with Sevvy. Room only for a pilot and a few passengers crammed in behind. To one side there are piles of boxes laced into the harness that will hang beneath the aircraft as we fly. Supplies.

  The pilot, copilot, and three of Mother’s entourage stand at attention just outside the door, waiting for Mother and me to climb in. A girl my age is situated closest to the ladder and sneaks a look at me as I ascend, not the least bit embarrassed when I catch her. She’s got two stars on her collar, but the state of her uniform tells me she’s from the outer circles of the camp where supplies are stretched thin. She has dimples and no gas mask.

  The lack of mask is jarring at first glance, but then a pleasant change. Even if it does mean she’s a drag on our Mantis supply, it’s been two weeks since I’ve seen someone’s face. Two weeks since someone has smiled at me. She looks nice.

  That’s what Mother always wanted: to find a nice Second to add to our family, someone we could train, groom to stand next to me when I took over Father’s place as General. I always smiled back when they appeared across the dinner table, knowing no matter how hard I looked at Sevvy, her traitor scar would never go away.

  Only, this girl’s smile brings Sevvy to mind. The way she grinned when she got me to laugh. Or her hidden smile that appeared when the laugh was going to be a surprise. Or at my expense.

  The way she screamed at me not to touch her. To get away. The butt of a Menghu gun connecting with her head, and the way she crumpled to the ground.

  Not all my failures are irreversible. I want Sevvy to see that I was right, that the City isn’t broken. Since she’s most likely wherever the cure is, that isn’t going to happen until I’ve done what Mother has asked in the City. Once we have a way to fight Dr. Yang’s SS bombs, we’ll be able to launch a mission to take the cure. I will be a part of that mission, and I’ll save Sevvy.

  It’s the only logical path forward.

  Mother and I sit down next to each other in the heli. As I reach for a headset to protect my hearing from the sound of the heli’s propellers, the girl with the dimples pushes by, knocking my hand aside. She doesn’t apologize, just settles in the seat directly behind me. Mother’s eyes narrow, but she doesn’t say anything, pulling my headset from its tether and handing it to me. After we lift off, I can
’t keep my eyes from the pilot’s hands. Watching every button she pushes, every correction she makes. Clouds whip by my window at one hundred knots, the air pressure gauge dancing back and forth, and I find my hands clenching in my lap. It’s hard to watch someone else’s hands be responsible for keeping us in the sky.

  By the time Mother touches the crook of my arm, we’ve been flying for quite some time. Her fingers press a button to isolate the connection between our headsets. “There are a few things we couldn’t speak about at Dazhai.” Her voice crackles over the connection between us. “The Chairman’s cronies were listening, so we couched this as a mission to bring food and order to those still trapped inside City walls. To attempt to salvage resources… You know. You were in the meeting.”

  I nod, staring straight forward as I listen, my chest hollowing as the pilot adjusts the rotors. Why is she even using them? This craft isn’t optimal for gliding, but the weather outside would have made it a perfect solution to the fuel gauge ticking closer and closer to “empty.” Using the main propellers makes us faster, I suppose, but it seems a waste of fuel.

  “I could only persuade the Chairman to send a small unit to scout ahead. They landed three days ago and are clearing a safe place for you to set up a command center. You will need more Seconds to accomplish our true purposes, of which there are three. First, clear and secure a path to the main gates. Once you’ve done that, there are two Red platoons close enough to the City you could request their help without using the broader radio relay system. That way the Chairman won’t know you’re moving them, and he won’t be able to report it to Dr. Yang. Bring in as many as you can.”

  Though Mother looks perfectly at ease, I can almost feel the tension—the fear—causing her to fidget. “Second, you’ll need to secure the mask factory. I’m afraid all the Thirds who evacuated were stationed in the upper quarters, so we don’t have any workers who will know how to restart production. I’ll be looking for Seconds who were stationed down there. Keep me posted on your progress, and I’ll send everyone I can find. Once the factory is secure, your last objective will be to clear out one of the Mantis manufacturing labs. I’m afraid that will be the most difficult task, as our information says the First Quarter is where the highest concentration of infected are. We’ll have to use Second medics who trained in the First labs to get things up and running.” She turns toward me, pulling on my arm until I look at her. “Seconds are the backbone of the City. We were everywhere, saw everything.”