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  She kicked out at him, connecting with his knees, then his groin. None of it seemed to make a difference. She’d felt for herself the controlled people’s indifference to pain, and even if he hadn’t been controlled, Luna could never have fought a man the size of Bear and won. It didn’t stop her trying, though. Bobby bit at the biker, and Bear sent him flying.

  “Dad, you have to fight this,” Cub said, scrambling back into the fight. “All of you, help me to get him off her!”

  The other bikers lunged forward, grabbing at Bear and trying to pull him back. Luna got a breath of air as his grip broke for a moment, but that was only so that he could punch another of the bikers, knocking him flat. One hit him with a club hard enough to break it, but it made no difference. Bear fastened his hands onto Luna’s throat again, and the world closed in around her.

  “Dad!” Cub said. He had a machete in his hand now. Luna could see how that hand was shaking. “You have to let her go! You’re going to kill Luna!”

  The world was starting to go black, but still Bear wasn’t letting go. Cub hit him, slicing at his arm. With any normal person, it would have made them let go, and probably left them in screaming in agony too. Bear wasn’t a normal person anymore, though. Luna just felt the pressure on her throat continue, powerless to stop it.

  “I’m sorry,” Cub said. “I’m sorry, Dad.”

  Luna wanted to scream to him not to do it as he lifted the machete, but she didn’t have any breath with which to do it. She could only watch as Cub swept the blade down, hacking through his father’s neck, striking once, then again as he tried to cut through.

  Above Luna, Bear went still, tumbling down to the floor as his grip broke away from her throat. Luna coughed, rubbing at her neck and sucking in air as fast as she could. She could see Cub there, staring down at the weapon in his hands, staggering back.

  “What have I done?” he murmured. “What have I done?”

  “I would say that you saved the young lady, and possibly all of us,” Ignatius said. “With one of the controlled that size—”

  “He was my father!” Cub roared, and took a step forward, lifting the machete. “You did this! You said that you’d cured us, but you didn’t do anything for him! You’re just a mangy, drug-making cockroach!”

  Luna managed to put herself between the two, lifting a hand to Cub’s chest. “Cub, don’t. It’s not Ignatius’s fault. It’s the aliens’.”

  She could see the tears streaming from Cub’s eyes, and the only thing Luna could think to do was what he had done for her. She hugged him, holding onto him while he cried.

  “My dad… he was going to… I couldn’t let him. I knew he’d rather die than turn into a murderer. And now I’m a murderer!”

  “You’re the person who just saved me,” Luna said, “and you stopped your father from being a prisoner inside his own body. You did the only thing you could.”

  “I…” Cub began. Luna heard the machete clatter to the ground. “I need to get some air. I can’t see him like this… I can’t…”

  He pulled back from Luna and ran out. Luna wanted to run after him, but she felt as though she could barely stand right then, let alone follow him.

  “Go with him,” she said instead to a couple of the bikers. “Make sure nothing happens to him. You and you, move Bear’s body. It shouldn’t be here when Cub comes back.”

  It felt weird, giving instructions to adults like that. It felt even weirder that they obeyed, doing what she asked and looking grateful that someone was giving them instructions. Maybe it was just gratitude that someone knew what to do next. Luna wished someone would tell her.

  For now, she sat down opposite Ignatius. Bobby came to her, curling up against her, licking her hand.

  “He was going to kill me,” the man said.

  “He still might,” Luna said. “When Cub comes back in, he’s going to want answers. We’ll all want answers. Why didn’t the cure work?”

  Ignatius shook his head. “I don’t know. It was never designed for this. It worked as a vaccine, so I hoped it might work as a cure, but obviously once someone has been controlled the effects aren’t as permanent. Maybe it’s something to do with—”

  “Are you telling me that it will wear off for all of us?” Luna demanded. “How soon?”

  “I don’t know,” Ignatius said. “I’m just—”

  “Right now you have a choice,” Luna said. “You can try to run and hope that Cub doesn’t get hold of you, or you can give us all some answers. So how long?”

  Ignatius went quiet, pursing his lips. He started to do some calculations on his fingers. “Assuming a steady rate of decay, and if I’m able to dose you all again at regular intervals, which means grabbing more of the formula from my truck…”

  “How long?” Luna repeated.

  “A week,” Ignatius said. “A week at the very most. Obviously, that’s a very rough calculation though. Some people would turn sooner.”

  A week. Luna sat there in silence, staring at the man she thought had saved them all. A week wasn’t enough time. A week was barely enough to do anything, and certainly not long enough to be the rest of her life as something human.

  “How do we extend that?” she asked, when she was able to form the words. “How do we make this into a real cure?”

  “We don’t,” Ignatius said.

  “That’s not a good enough answer,” Luna replied. “You found this, and you obviously have some skills, so what do we do?”

  “I don’t know,” Ignatius insisted. “Maybe we could find some way to extend things, but I’m out of my depth. I would need to talk to other scientists, and try to find out why this has been only a temporary cure, but I don’t even know where there are other people, let alone ones with the skills to help.”

  Luna found herself thinking about the Survivors then. She and the others had left them behind in LA. They’d been able to help with finding the virus to attack the aliens. Maybe they could help with this, especially when they’d been some of the first to mention rumors of a cure.

  It felt like a long shot. It felt like the kind of thing that could never work, even if the Survivors were still okay. Yet what was the alternative? Luna looked across to where two of the bikers were still dragging out Bear’s body, managing to move it only a little at a time across the concrete floor. That was the alternative. In maybe a week, that would be her. That would be all of them.

  “In the morning we’re going to LA,” Luna said. “I think you’d better hope that we find what we need there.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Kevin followed Purest Xan as the alien led him through the spire once more. Curiously, he still found himself thinking about Chloe. Mostly, he found himself wondering how he had ever felt anything about her. Feeling things for someone felt like such a weakness, such an aberration, that it was hard to believe he had ever been like this.

  “The longer you are with the Hive, the harder such foolishness will be to believe,” Purest Xan said as they moved through the spire’s levels. “Residue of a former life is common for those who are brought into the Hive, but it will fade.”

  “That’s good to hear,” Kevin said. For a moment he’d been worried that these memories of feelings would be with him forever. He was pretty sure that memories of someone who was soon to be reshaped for the good of the Hive would become annoying after a while.

  He frowned slightly at that thought.

  “Purest Xan,” he asked, “do you ever worry that in not feeling things, we might be missing out on something?”

  Purest Xan stopped. “You must be wary of saying such things, Kevin. In the Hive, any yearning for the times before we scoured ourselves of emotion is reckoned a kind of rebellion, a crime of the highest order.”

  “Why, Purest Xan?” Kevin asked. “Doesn’t being cut off from emotions stop us from feeling happy, or from loving each other?”

  “Such things are traps,” Purest Xan said. “Our emotions were a part of what caused us to destroy our
world’s surface, so long ago. A creature will do foolish things to feel happy; things that are not for the good of the Hive. To yearn for such things is to yearn for separation from the whole.”

  “But—”

  “That is enough, Kevin,” Purest Xan said. “The thing you are talking about is not something that is discussed. Ever.”

  “I’m sorry,” Kevin said. “I didn’t know.”

  “That is why I have answered your questions before we arrive,” Purest Xan said.

  That caught Kevin’s curiosity. “Arrive where?”

  “In the Hall of Communion. Come.”

  The alien continued to lead the way, stepping into a kind of egg-shaped capsule. Kevin stepped in alongside the alien, waiting as the door sealed closed, seeming to grow over the gap. He stood still beside Purest Xan, waiting.

  There was a brief sensation of movement, and although the walls of the capsule seemed to insulate them from it in a way that the floating platform before would not have, Kevin had the feeling that it moved far faster, shooting across to some distant point of the world ship before coming to a halt.

  “Welcome to our Hall of Communion,” Purest Xan said, as the door dissolved. “You should be honored. It is rare for one who is not of the Purest to be allowed here.”

  “I am honored,” Kevin said. He knew that his place in the Hive was not quite that of the Purest. He had seen it in the moment of connection to it. “But… why have you brought me here?”

  “You will see, Kevin,” Purest Xan said.

  They stepped out of the capsule and for a moment, all Kevin could do was stand and marvel. They stood on a platform that floated at the very center of a sphere of the same golden metal that the spires were constructed from. Other members of the Purest stood there, reflected in the shine of the golden metal, so that it was briefly difficult to tell how many there were. Counting, Kevin realized that there couldn’t have been more than a hundred or so.

  “Is this… the Purest’s government or something?” Kevin asked.

  “This is all of us, Kevin,” Purest Xan said. “All of our station who travel on this world ship.”

  It took Kevin a second to really understand what the alien meant.

  “These are all of the Purest?”

  “There are others on other ships, and on the home world, but yes,” Purest Xan said.

  Kevin found it hard to imagine. There were so many aliens aboard the world ship, and the ship itself was so vast, that it seemed impossible that there should be only these few of their leaders. It seemed impossible that there should be world after world plundered for the benefit of just a tiny number of creatures.

  He thought of the golden spires throughout the world ship. Judging by the number of the Purest here, there couldn’t be more than a handful in each spire. Each was like a mansion, sticking out from the rest of the world ship, supporting two or three of the creatures at a time.

  “Step forward, Kevin,” one of the others said. A glance into the shared mind of the Hive told Kevin that its name was Purest Lux.

  Kevin moved forward to the center of the platform, the aliens walking around him as if examining him. He wondered what they might be looking for that they hadn’t already seen when they had gone through his mind. He tried to make out Purest Xan, but in the whirl of them it was difficult to pick out the alien.

  “You are wondering what you are doing here, Kevin,” Purest Lux said.

  “Yes,” Kevin admitted. He looked around him. “With all of this, and all the things I’ve seen, I don’t understand what use I can be to the Hive.”

  The aliens could do things he’d only dreamed of, had managed to conquer his entire planet with ease, and had been clever enough to manipulate him into doing everything they wanted. How could he possibly be useful to things like that?

  “You underestimate yourself,” Purest Lux said. “We believe that you can be very useful to the Hive. When we sent our signals to your planet, there were those who tried to warn you. We plan to use you to locate them. After that, you will help us to move on to new planets, making it easier to gather resources for our home world.”

  Both of those sounded like worthy goals to Kevin, goals that would let him be of great use to the Hive. Truthfully, that was all he wanted now. Even so, it was hard to believe that he would really be able to do all that the Purest hoped.

  “How am I going to do it?” he asked. “I mean… why me, I guess.”

  “Your brain can do all that we require of it,” Purest Lux said. “It can connect to those we seek, and we will follow that signal. It can decipher their attempts to hide. It can unlock whatever protections they have in place. Beyond that, worlds might trust an unknown child-thing where they might not trust us. You are our emissary, Kevin. You will find the path for us and pave the way for conquest.”

  “Yes, Purest Lux,” Kevin said.

  Dimly, he was aware that there had been a time when he would have recoiled from everything the alien had just said. Just a short time ago, he would have refused to be a part of something like this, and would have seen anyone opposing the Hive as good creatures, to be protected. Even days ago, he would have said that he would rather die than be involved in something like this.

  It all seemed so foolish now. Why wouldn’t he help the Hive? Its well-being was the only measure of what was good in the universe. To try to stand against it was the very definition of evil. Kevin could hardly believe all the strange ways that he’d thought until they’d made him a part of that wonderful, interconnected web of light.

  “What do I need to do?” Kevin asked.

  “For now, stand where you are,” Purest Lux said.

  The curving walls around Kevin shifted now, making it seem that he was standing in the middle of space, in a spot that was nowhere even close to the Earth. He could make out a double star burning brightly above him, larger than the sun, while planets spun in orbit around them. There was a gap in those orbits, marked by a field of debris, and somehow Kevin knew this was the spot where the aliens’ planet had been. They’d burned it to try to save themselves, and it still hadn’t been enough to stop the Hive from ripping their planet apart for everything it held.

  One of the Purest came forward, attaching a series of shell-like buds to Kevin’s head. Now, each time he turned his head, the room seemed to turn with him. He was a part of the world ship, and its systems were linked to everything he saw.

  “Reach out, Kevin,” Purest Lux said. “Immerse yourself in the Hive, and at the same time reach out for the feeling that you had when you received messages from the ones who fled the fall of their world.”

  Kevin did his best. Delving into the Hive was the easy part; that was waiting for him the moment he wanted it, in an all-consuming connection that seemed to fill every corner of his being.

  The connection to the aliens that had contacted him was harder. He had never sought them out before, never managed to connect without a signal coming to him. It had never even felt like it might be something in his control. Instead, it had always come on their terms and their schedule. Only the thought that he was doing this for the good of the Hive made Kevin keep going.

  He thought about what it had been like the first time a vision had come to him, the numbers burning across his brain. He thought about what it had been like when the signal had come through to try to warn him about the Hive, about how it had felt, about the way the connection had poured into his brain…

  He felt the moment when his mind made the link, tasting the scent of the aliens’ signals like a bloodhound picking out a familiar smell.

  “There!” he said, pointing, but he didn’t need to point because the world ship was already moving. Kevin saw space bending around the vessel, and more than that, he felt it. He felt the ripples and eddies in space that the world ship’s drives caused, felt the way it bent space around itself to cross vast distances. To Kevin, it seemed like surfing on a tide composed of the galaxy’s great forces: the heat of stars and the pull of gravity,
the spin of atoms and the radiating waves of light.

  He shouldn’t have known how to guide a world ship across all of that, but, linked into the Hive, he did. He followed the scent of the aliens who had fled from the devastation of their world, tracking it in ways that were all about instinct. He clung to it, refusing to let go, letting his mind lead the world ship through the blackness of space.

  It didn’t hurt. Ordinarily, it was hard, even painful, to cling onto this kind of connection. Just translating signals made his brain ache normally, and threatened to send Kevin blacking out into a seizure. Now, he was doing something that should have been a hundred times harder, and he felt nothing.

  It was just one of the ways that the Hive had made him stronger.

  He blinked, and now the stars around the world ship were stationary once again. One lay closer than the others, pale and small; a tiny, worn out thing that seemed to barely declare its presence against the dark. A solitary planet circled it, looking blue and life filled in spite of its star’s small size. Kevin stared out at it, seeing the oceans and the continents there, the small moons circling it and the satellites that lay in orbit.

  “There,” he said. “The aliens who contacted me are there.”

  He could feel their presence if he tried, picking out their signals on the edge of his consciousness. Kevin’s connection to the Hive let him turn listening devices toward the planet, feeding in those signals so that his brain could translate them.

  “They know we’re here,” he said. “They know we’ve found them.”

  “Let them know,” Purest Lux said. “It changes nothing.”

  Kevin listened to the signals, hearing the panic and the fear. There were signals from military figures trying to find a way to defend the world and signals from families trying to think of a way to flee it. Once, he had thought that these aliens sounded so much warmer compared to the Hive. Now, they just sounded weak to him.

  “They are getting ready to fight or run,” Kevin told the others. He looked down at the planet, seeing its swirling clouds and the faint dots of cities down on the surface. He’d seen the world ship’s factories and forges, ready to take apart anything brought to them. How much would they find down there? How much would they be able to take from this fresh world that Kevin had been able to find for them?