The Proving (12 page)

“A small contingent of Clan Sparta burned the town,” the Historian said. Despite the Historians’ typical mellow nature, Gabriel couldn’t help but notice Seamus seemed to enjoy having an audience. He leaned forward, just a bit. His eyes widened, just a bit. “The fires attracted the approaching horde of Specters. Clan Sparta, led by Captain Jonathon Holt, initiated a counterattack in the early morning hours of the first day. They fought valiantly with only a few prototype VR rifles that had been constructed the previous week. At daylight, the Specters went underground.”

“Why did they go underground?” Wei asked.

“We don’t know. Uh, they almost always go underground during the day,” Ben said, glancing at Gabriel. Gabriel was taken aback by the look: it was downright suspicious! Did the Athenian not trust him for some reason? Or was it something else?

“Let the nerd finish,” said Cleo.

The Historian cleared his throat. Sunlight streaming in through the windshield spread over his face, causing his eyes to squint. “Jonathon Holt marked one hundred and fifty-three Specter positions using chunks of brick from the buildings. At dusk, the Specters rose. One hundred and fifty-three were destroyed. The Spartans fought through the night again. The Specters were speculated to have used damaged buildings as cover, the better to hunt their prey. The Spartans engaged in guerilla tactics . . .”

“Wait. Hold on.” Cleo made a T with her hands. “You’re a freaking Historian and you sound like you’re reading from a script. This is one of the coolest History stories ever — ever! — and you’re butchering it!”

The Historian’s jaw dropped. Wei and the Persian boy giggled.

Be diplomatic, a voice in Gabriel’s head told him. For
posterity
. “It sounded fine to me.”

“It was boring. Bo-ring. Listen.” Cleo unstrapped her belt and stood up, grabbing the safety bar above the Tumbler’s side door. “OK, so it’s the second night. There are still thousands of Specters left! And we’re not talking about just those simple lizard-looking Specters, either. There’s a bunch of those insect-looking things, too. The
Manteidos
. Imagine that for a minute, kids. Ghosts! Ghosts swarming you from every direction! Not the happy little ghosts from bedtime stories, either. These are freaking
monsters
! Giant lizards and insects!”

“Um . . . is this too scary for them?” Ben asked. His little sister pinched his hand. “Ow!”

“Right, so the Spartans’ rifle batteries are running out. Some of them don’t even have first-gen proton pistols because they were still so scarce. They don’t have any shields, remember, cause that technology was so new it wasn’t even in mass production yet. The fires they set are going out by the second evening and these Specters aren’t all that interested anymore. They’re drawn to the city. All those juicy, delicious people, you know? So Jonathon Holt gets an idea.”

“Does he run?” asked Wei.

“Does he use a bomb?” asked Tahlia.

Cleo shook her head sadly. A strand of black hair fell over her eye; she pulled it behind her ear with an annoyed look. “Holt called in reinforcements. Finally! See, most Spartans are really cocky and pig-headed. But General Holt knew he’d need help and he had Clan Persia waiting. Now he called them, and with the help of the Persians, they fought back the Specters.
Again
. Daybreak never looked so beautiful!”

“There were also some Athenians,” Ben pointed out. “We provided medical service.”

A scoff came from the driver’s seat. Skye may have had her back to them but she was clearly listening.

Cleo continued: “On the third afternoon, they finally get the call: the Xenoshield generator is finished. All General Holt has to do is hold out until it can be started up. So the Persians make a strategic retreat toward the city, taking every meter of fencing wire they find along the way. They’ve got an idea. It won’t stop the Specters, but it might just slow them down. How am I doing so far, Historian?”

“Vaguely accurate,” Seamus answered, failing to hide his frustration. He wasn’t like the older Historians who wandered around the Parliament building. He was young; still in training. It was strange — the Historians sometimes didn’t seem like human beings at all. They were these
other people
with one specific task: to preserve humanity’s history. They ignored praise. They ignored criticism.

But they
were
still human. And Gabriel felt just a little sorry for this one, who had to watch an energetic clan member usurp his purpose.

“He’s being cranky,” Cleo assured the young ones. “I’m doing great. Where was I? OK! So Holt and his people had to make one last stand. They’d already worked through the day, so some of them are crazy tired. Dudes and dudettes are dropping like flies, passing out with exhaustion, hunted down by Specters closing in on their positions.”

“What’s a dudette?” Tahlia asked, politely raising her hand.

“A neat chick. OK? OK. So the sun sets again. The Specters emerge from the ground, hungry for humans.”

“They were
eating
people?” Wei asked, grabbing Gabriel’s hand.

“Oh! No, no,” Ben said. “Their ethereal form passes through you and initiates a chain reaction at the cellular level — what I mean is they just sort of shut you down. They’re a complex combination of electrons and ecto-energy that —”

“They’re ghosts,” Cleo interrupted. “And our VR guns kill them. That’s all you need to know. So Holt and the brainiacs in Clan Persia had an idea: why not use the same technology in the proton weapons and spread it out? It was the only idea they had left. It
had
to work. And so at midnight, they began retreating, losing warriors left and right as the Specters started overwhelming the Spartan flanks. Clan Athens doesn’t think the Specters are intelligent but I bet they knew exactly what they were doing, you know? Hiding behind buildings is smart, my friends. And that’s
exactly
what the Specters did.”

“We don’t know their mental capabilities,” Ben said, “because we’re restricted from studying them inside the city limits. But given their structure, they probably have similar cognitive functions as the jellyfish.”

“OK, well, that doesn’t matter,” Cleo said, “because by one in the morning, things are dire. The last of the Spartans had retreated southeast of Jericho. VR rifles were firing nonstop! Pow! Pow! Pow-pow! Specters were sizzling to dust! But there were too many. It was time to power up their last resort.”

“Were they scared?” Wei asked, eyes wide. Gabriel smiled. Seeing her so excited made him happy. Maybe she was cut out for a destiny a little more adventurous than a Parliamentary forum.

“No,” the Spartan girl answered from the driver’s seat.

“Maybe a little,” Cleo said. She thought about it for a moment, glancing up at the ceiling. “Come to think of it, they were
definitely
scared. They thought they were all gonna die! But they had their secret plan: the wire fence, stretched right across a cornfield, with one end connected to the salvaged VR cannon batteries. This was it. No more energy cells. No more weapons. Just one last stand against an alien threat on the verge of overwhelming our great city. The warriors waited in the cornfield, surrounded by some of the only food the city had left for synthetic processing. Boy-oh-boy, you can only imagine what was going through their minds.”

“Wow . . .” Reza whispered. The Persian boy had abandoned his video game and swiveled his seat to watch his sister.

“Suddenly, there came a call!” All of the Young Adults flinched when Cleo raised her voice. “It was time. The Specters had reached the fence. With one shaky hand, General Holt switched on the makeshift electric current. Whoooosh! The wires began to burn a bright blue. Specters touched it . . . and were instantly vaporized! Hundreds of them attacked the fence, vaporizing one by one, draining the batteries a little bit each time. The humans had to retreat, and do it as quick as possible. They ran back toward Neo Berlin, pursued by the last thousand or so Specters . . .

“Suddenly, General Holt’s comm started ringing. He answered it. It was someone from the city — they were powering up the Xenoshield! General Holt ordered everyone to run faster. All they had to do was get to the western edge of the city limits and they would be safe! Maybe.
Hopefully
.”

“Were they out of breath?” Wei asked. “They’ve been running so long . . .”

“They were fine,” the Spartan girl answered briskly.

“Heck yes they were out of breath!” Cleo answered. “And totally not ready to die, either! They got to the edge of the city limits, passing through the invisible shield . . . and waited. The Specters approached. Lizard-like Sebecus and insect-like Manteidos, picking out which humans to kill next. General Holt stood like a silent sentry, breathing heavily and watching with some serious butterflies in his stomach. The shield was invisible . . . was it even on at all? No one knew! But they were about to find out.”

She stopped, looking around the compartment, eyes wide. She took a deep breath, smiling wryly. The Young Adults were one hundred percent enraptured by this girl’s story, Gabriel realized. So was he. And she knew it.

“So what happened?!” Wei asked, exasperated.

“Yeah, finish the story, sis!” Reza whined.

Cleo took a deep, solemn breath. “The Specters reached the shield. And stopped. Just inches from General Holt’s face, one of the lizard ghosts stood, just sorta floating an inch above the ground. It turned its head so it could get its gelatinous eye as close as possible, so close that the General could see two pairs of lids blinking. General Holt breathed a sigh of relief. The Specters were finally beaten.”

“Is that really what happened?” asked the little Parliamentarian girl.

There was a moment of silence. Finally, the Historian answered, “More or less.”

General Holt stood like a silent sentry . . . not bad, Persian.

Skye grunted to herself, moving the Tumbler toward the center of the road with the right-hand joystick grip. They were passing the last of the farms that surrounded the old ruins of Jericho — once they were beyond the crops, the road would get worse and she would have to slow down. For now, though, she relished the speed of the vehicle, the gentle hum of the electric engine underneath her feet.

And the view. Earth as it once was. Land most people would never see in their lifetimes. A decayed monument to humanity’s greatest triumph, hidden away in enemy territory.

“Say, Sparty,” Cleo said, hanging over the seat. “Wasn’t General Holt in your lineage?”

Skye frowned. She could smell the Persian’s peppermint gum. “Yes.”

“Boy-oh-boy, that’s weird.” She sat down on the edge of the manual console to Skye’s left. It wasn’t dangerous — not unless both the digital console and Cassidy’s co-piloting systems were both damaged — but it unnerved her nonetheless. “That must be pretty cool, having famous parents from so long ago. Can you imagine being so famous that they freeze your eggs to keep your genes going
forever
?”

“It is what it is,” she answered. In truth, she could very easily imagine it. To earn enough glory to be considered for genetic reproduction . . . Skye had imagined it more often than she could count.

On the windshield, the Tumbler’s computer indicated the most damaged parts of the road with little red circles. A blue line led her to their destination far ahead, provided by Cassy who sat to her left and was doing his best to identify any additional dangers on or near the road. The computer’s hazard-mapping skills were spotty at best, in Skye’s opinion. They were still hitting some bumps, but Cassidy was doing an admirable job paying attention to the old road and giving her a manageable path. She would tell him so, once the Historian was out of earshot.

“My lineage makes family affairs . . . uncomfortable,” Skye finally added.

“You should count yourself lucky,” Cleo said. “My parents actually
had
me. Like, they got together the old-fashioned way and made me like our ancestors did thousands and thousands of years ago.”

Skye flashed a temporary look of surprise, then suppressed it. “I didn’t know you were freeborn.”

“Oh yeah. My parents used to be bigshot programmers. Then they got addicted to Mother Earth—you know, that Earth simulation videogame. Then they just fell apart. Like, they gave up on the real world. And guess what? I’m stuck with their genes.”

“Genetics only gets you so far,” Ben pointed out from behind them. “Nurture plays a significant role in development. I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to overhear. It’s just that everyone else is asleep.”

Skye smiled. The Athenian was a big softy. Smart, though. And disciplined enough to know to stay in his seat.

“You should yell at them for sleeping,” Cleo told her. “You’re the toughest one here.”

“I’m not the leader,” Skye answered.

“So what? Remember when we were thirteen going through our first Proving? That guy from Clan Sparta was bossing everyone around.”

“And they failed,” Skye reminded her. “We were nearly killed.”

“Yeah, but
you
saved all our lives when you shot that Specter.”