it’s like sealing a pact.
“What’s this?”
“It’s a …” She pauses, to spare me the boffin term, I think. “It’s like a countdown. You put it on your wrist, like your watch.” She draws up her sleeve to show me hers, close to the skin, and all you can see are marks there like a tattoo. Except the marks are pulsing.
“I’ve synched yours up to show the same thing as mine and Peyto’s.”
I slip the cuff over my hand and it comes to life – coils of ink on the underside of my wrist, itching a bit near the veins.
“A countdown to what?” I go.
“A countdown to … well, until it’s too late.”
The coils straighten into six bands, each one made up of dots no bigger than freckles. The top band is slightly shorter than the others. As I gaze at it, one of the freckles vanishes. I feel it prick me slightly. And then I get it – each freckle is an hour and I’ve just lost one. Twenty-four hours in each band. Six bands for six days …
There ain’t much to say about the journey back. We’re all wrecked, ’specially Peyto, who did his first-ever scav shift on top of everything else. We stash the suits back in the hollow, strap into the shuttle, and silently launch off from the
Aeolus
. A few minutes later, Erin tells us to brace ourselves for “reentry,” which is thunderous, like we’re being shook to pieces. But then the roar drops away, and the screens show us skimming into the Thames upriver toward the Jubilee tunnel.
My weight comes back, and it’s good to feel my bones settling into place, to be
solid
again. I take a deep breath ofchilly London air as the shuttle roof parts for us – just the smallest of openings.
“Won’t the Vlads spot us?” I go.
“Get up there,” answers Erin. “Tell me what you can see.”
Peyto helps me stand on one of the chairs so I’m practically level with the river surface, just peeking over a furrow of water so smooth that it’s like a fold of black velvet. No bubbles, no foam. The junk of the river, plastic bags and old buoys, bobs past my face, but the wake of the shuttle is so slight, it might as well be a knife drawing through the currents.
Some way ahead, I spot the wide stone arches of London Bridge, but they’re dark, no signs of movement. Behind me, though, the crumbled stumps of Tower Bridge are clustered with searchlights trained on the water.
I duck down. “It’s clear ahead. But there’s a load of action on the last bridge.”
“They must have seen us come down into the river,” mutters Erin. “No way round that.”
I take up my lookout position again, but the way ahead is quiet, past the broken humps of Southwark, the twisted wreckage of the Millennium Bridge. Even the two standing bridges, Blackfriars and Waterloo, are empty, so I start to breathe easier. Maybe the Vlads are all so caught up with where we came down that they left these bridges unmanned. And it’s a shock to be so
glued
to a proper placeagain, to hear the lap of water, to see the city. Now as I look at the night sky, I know it’s the same, but somehow the endless darkness of space ain’t such a threat from down here.
Erin goes, “I’ve got control to steer now that it’s not an emergency. Which bank? North or south?”
“Best to land the same side as the dinghy,” I go. “Then we can take it back to where Wilbur is …”
Peyto just nods. His tears are over, but he looks proper haunted – all the stuffing battered out of him, like going to the ship has brung it all home to roost just how bad things are.
Erin glances at me, then she strokes the right-hand wall of the shuttle, and we veer toward the north bank. We all clamber out into the shallows, near the ruins of Westminster Bridge, then the shuttle closes up and disappears into the river. All’s quiet as we scramble up the bank, then down to the tunnel floor, where the water’s still low and the dinghy’s still tied up, thank God. I try not to get too chewed up about Wilbur. It’s only
“What’s this?”
“It’s a …” She pauses, to spare me the boffin term, I think. “It’s like a countdown. You put it on your wrist, like your watch.” She draws up her sleeve to show me hers, close to the skin, and all you can see are marks there like a tattoo. Except the marks are pulsing.
“I’ve synched yours up to show the same thing as mine and Peyto’s.”
I slip the cuff over my hand and it comes to life – coils of ink on the underside of my wrist, itching a bit near the veins.
“A countdown to what?” I go.
“A countdown to … well, until it’s too late.”
The coils straighten into six bands, each one made up of dots no bigger than freckles. The top band is slightly shorter than the others. As I gaze at it, one of the freckles vanishes. I feel it prick me slightly. And then I get it – each freckle is an hour and I’ve just lost one. Twenty-four hours in each band. Six bands for six days …
There ain’t much to say about the journey back. We’re all wrecked, ’specially Peyto, who did his first-ever scav shift on top of everything else. We stash the suits back in the hollow, strap into the shuttle, and silently launch off from the
Aeolus
. A few minutes later, Erin tells us to brace ourselves for “reentry,” which is thunderous, like we’re being shook to pieces. But then the roar drops away, and the screens show us skimming into the Thames upriver toward the Jubilee tunnel.
My weight comes back, and it’s good to feel my bones settling into place, to be
solid
again. I take a deep breath ofchilly London air as the shuttle roof parts for us – just the smallest of openings.
“Won’t the Vlads spot us?” I go.
“Get up there,” answers Erin. “Tell me what you can see.”
Peyto helps me stand on one of the chairs so I’m practically level with the river surface, just peeking over a furrow of water so smooth that it’s like a fold of black velvet. No bubbles, no foam. The junk of the river, plastic bags and old buoys, bobs past my face, but the wake of the shuttle is so slight, it might as well be a knife drawing through the currents.
Some way ahead, I spot the wide stone arches of London Bridge, but they’re dark, no signs of movement. Behind me, though, the crumbled stumps of Tower Bridge are clustered with searchlights trained on the water.
I duck down. “It’s clear ahead. But there’s a load of action on the last bridge.”
“They must have seen us come down into the river,” mutters Erin. “No way round that.”
I take up my lookout position again, but the way ahead is quiet, past the broken humps of Southwark, the twisted wreckage of the Millennium Bridge. Even the two standing bridges, Blackfriars and Waterloo, are empty, so I start to breathe easier. Maybe the Vlads are all so caught up with where we came down that they left these bridges unmanned. And it’s a shock to be so
glued
to a proper placeagain, to hear the lap of water, to see the city. Now as I look at the night sky, I know it’s the same, but somehow the endless darkness of space ain’t such a threat from down here.
Erin goes, “I’ve got control to steer now that it’s not an emergency. Which bank? North or south?”
“Best to land the same side as the dinghy,” I go. “Then we can take it back to where Wilbur is …”
Peyto just nods. His tears are over, but he looks proper haunted – all the stuffing battered out of him, like going to the ship has brung it all home to roost just how bad things are.
Erin glances at me, then she strokes the right-hand wall of the shuttle, and we veer toward the north bank. We all clamber out into the shallows, near the ruins of Westminster Bridge, then the shuttle closes up and disappears into the river. All’s quiet as we scramble up the bank, then down to the tunnel floor, where the water’s still low and the dinghy’s still tied up, thank God. I try not to get too chewed up about Wilbur. It’s only
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