My AI tells me that laxatha should be safe for you to eat, and its one of my favorites, she said. Here, try it.
She set it out in front of them and sat down beside them, in a way that seemed strange for a general to do. Chloe was the first to taste the dish, and the surprised delight on her face told its own story.
This is good isnt enough. Its amazing. You have to try it, Kevin.
Kevin took a tentative bite, and was surprised by just how good the mixture tasted. There was only one question on his mind, adding a slightly strange note to the meal while they ate.
General sLara, he said, why are you here serving us food?
Because youre our guests, the general said.
And thats very kind, but you could have sent someone to do all of this. Dont you have meetings and things you need to be at? Kevin had met at least some important people, and he couldnt imagine them doing this. Why you?
General sLara nodded. Ill admit that there are plenty of talks I should be having, but my AI is having at least some of them with others. Besides, here with you may be one of the most important places I could be right now.
Kevin didnt get it for a moment, but then frowned slightly as he did. Because of everything that we might know?
I wont lie to you, General sLara said. I think that you three may hold the key to this. Weve been able to beat individual members of the Hive, we can do it easily when the numbers are equal, but the numbers are never equal. They just keep coming, and worse, they just dont care. They throw creatures at us, and they dont care if theyre killed or not. How do you fight something that doesnt worry if it is going to die?
Kevin wasnt sure he had an answer to that. Hed used that against the Ilari when theyd been fighting. Hed thrown ships at them, seeing their desire to live as a weakness to be exploited.
Its the Hives greatest strength, Ro said.
The fact that you know them, and you were able to break free, might let us understand how to actually beat them. We might actually be able to win this war.
But we dont know anything, Kevin said.
You might not know what you know, the general said. For a start, what do you know about this ability of yours?
Kevin shook his head. I hardly know anything. I hear signals, and I can translate them. I see things that need translating, and my brain just does it.
And its killing him for it, Chloe put in, sounding somber. Just the words had Kevin feeling sad about the prospect of the ticking clock that had restarted in his body.
What do you mean, killing you? General sLara asked.
Kevin started to answer, standing up as he did so. The pain hit him almost immediately, and he realized that the things hed been experiencing as they landed had been a lot more than just the background symptoms that had been plaguing him since hed come out from the Hive again.
Hed gotten so used to ignoring it that hed done it even when his body had been trying to warn him that something wasnt right. Now it seemed that everything hit him at once. Dizziness overwhelmed him, spinning Kevin half around, so that he dropped to the floor in stages, putting out a hand to catch himself even while it started to twitch in the beginnings of a fit that seemed to wrack every inch of him.
Pain came with it, bursting inside his head in a supernova of agony. It felt like something broke inside him then, and he would have screamed if his mouth had still been under his own control. Hed felt himself lose control of his body before when signals had ripped through him, but this was different. This didnt hold the promise of a message or an answer; the only promise it seemed to hold was the blackness that lay beyond it, threatening to rise up and overwhelm everything.
Kevin could see Chloe, Ro, and General sLara beside him, their lips moving as they talked. Chloe looked as though she was shouting something down to him, but he couldnt hear any of it. It felt as though it was on the other side of a curtain, and slipping further away by the second.
He was dying, and there was nothing he could do about it.
CHAPTER THREE
Luna woke, blinking in the light, and even that was a surprise. When shed slept, shed expected to slide down into darkness and not wake up, consumed completely by the alien nanobots that were slowly taking over her body. Instead, she could still remember who she was, and where she was, and all the horrors that had struck the world.
It was only when her body stood without her thinking about it that she realized that something was wrong.
No! she screamed, but the scream just came out as a groan past lips that refused to move in response to her commands. They werent hers anymore, not really. Someone else was pulling the strings that controlled her.
She looked around at the compound where theyd fought against so many of the transformed and the aliens, and Luna had the sense that it wasnt just her looking around in that moment. Other things were looking through her eyes, making decisions on her behalf, issuing commands without a thought for what it might do to her.
Luna fought against those commands as hard as she could, but it made no difference, just as it had made no difference the last time she had been one of the controlled. Instead, she stood like a prisoner in her own flesh while her body started to walk over to the others, held by walls made of her own muscles. She grabbed a long shard of metal that was as sharp as any machete or knife. If it cut into her hands, she didnt notice.
Luna didnt understand that. Before, the transformed had grabbed blindly at people and tried to convert them, stupid in the absence of direct control. This, though this felt like someone was using her for something far more focused, something far more dangerous.
She stalked forward, and it was only as Luna did so that she realized exactly who she was heading toward. Ignatius, Cub, Barnaby, and Leon stood aheadall the people the resistance to the invasion needed. The aliens were going to use her as a knife thrust at the heart of it all, aimed to kill the only people who truly knew how they might stop what the aliens had done. If the aliens could kill them, then who would truly know how the cure worked?
Luna tried to shout a warning, but it didnt do any good. No sound came out, and while the change in her eyes would be obvious by now to anyone who looked, no one was looking. They were all too busy trying to recover from the aftermath of the battle, patching wounds and trying to find enough food for people who hadnt felt thirst or hunger for days or weeks.
Then Bobby the sheepdog ran up, growled, and bit her.
Luna didnt feel it, because at this stage, she couldnt feel anything. She looked down at the dog, drawing back her leg ready to kick him, and Luna knew that she would, in spite of all the effort she put into holding herself back. Bobby danced back, snarling and growling, as surely as if shed been a wolf troubling some ancient flock. Luna stepped toward him, lifting the long shard of metal now.
Bobby, what are you doing? Cub demanded, moving forward.
Luna turned toward him, slashing with the weapon that she held and managing to cut through the skin even as he danced back from the attack. She remembered this strength and this speed, but shed never had the chance to use it to strike out at anyone before. She hadnt realized just how dangerous it made her.
Luna, whats going on? Cub demanded, dodging back from another blow. Luna saw him stare at her. Oh no. No!