The Hunt - Megan Shepherd Page 0,48
future. If I beat the Gauntlet, no one could stop us from leaving this station and going home.”
“Sweetheart, if you’ll recall, I never thought Earth was gone.”
“But the Kindred’s algorithm predicted it.”
He shrugged. “I’ve never trusted nerds. I go with my gut, which always said Earth was there.”
She crawled behind him, thoughts spinning. “Well, if it’s true, we’ll need a ship to take us there after the Gauntlet is over. Bonebreak must be have one, right?”
Leon snorted. “Don’t get your hopes up. I’ve been asking around. Next ship won’t come for another forty years. I got him drunk one night, and he told me all about the last time they helped humans. Years ago, when the supply ships used to come more frequently, the Mosca made a deal with a group of humans to go back to Earth. That was back when the Kindred took mostly adults, and I guess they wanted the smartest ones. They ended up abducting savants, you know? The kinds who can multiply insane numbers in seconds, kind of like Rolf?”
He wiggled his fingers in the air like he was working out numbers. “Well, the Kindred didn’t realize half those people are even smarter than them when it comes to numbers. The savants figured out how to override the system, got out of their enclosures, and faked their deaths. They found Bonebreak. He was just an underling at the time. His captain took the humans back to Earth in exchange for them screwing around with the Kindred’s food replicator. One hell of an expensive practical joke.”
He paused to wipe chalk dust out of his eyes. “It’s crazy, but I actually remember my sister talking about it. She’s into crime books, you know? Said in the eighteen fifties there was this group of people who just appeared in South Africa—they were all crazy, said they’d been abducted by aliens.”
“Eighteen fifties? How old is Bonebreak?”
“Really old, I think. I’m scared to see behind that mask.”
“And you trust him?”
Leon snorted. “Our relationship is a mutually beneficial arrangement. I have something he needs—the ability to crawl through tunnels. He has something I need—protection from the Kindred guards, not to mention a bunch of vodka. So do I trust him? Sure, until he finds a different way to get what he needs.” He grinned. “But I’m not useless yet.”
He pointed ahead to a chalk mark of a dollhouse. “See? Told you I’d find it again. Nok and Rolf are up here.” Eventually the tunnel smoothed out and turned to metal, and then ended.
Leon shouldered the gate open into a wide room, like a dark theater. When they crawled out, Cora saw a small house at one end—except one entire wall was missing. Leon led her close, a finger pressed to his lips. In the upstairs bedroom, Nok was getting dressed, and Rolf was toying with an old radio.
“Hey!” Cora started toward them, but Leon threw a hand over her mouth.
“Christ, sweetheart, shut up.” He jerked his chin toward a row of dark seating. At least ten Kindred were there, watching Rolf and Nok. She waited a heart-pounding moment, but none of them turned in her direction. They hadn’t heard her.
“How are we supposed to get to them?” she whispered.
“We wait. Rolf said they have artificial nighttimes when most go home. Serassi sticks around, but not all the time.”
“I can’t wait. I have to be back in my cell in the morning.”
“Well, what do you want me to do about it?”
Cora squinted at the house, trying to figure it out. Rolf was still fiddling with the radio. A guy like him probably knew Morse code, and she knew it too from those long classes in Bay Pines, where she and Queenie had sent each other silent messages with flashlights from across the room while the others watched rehab videos. She focused on the radio light. Turn off, she willed. Her mind probed around the circuitry. There was no amplifier, which meant she had to concentrate harder. Turn OFF. And for a second the light flickered, just like the lightlock of her cell, and then it turned off completely. Rolf frowned, but she quickly turned it back on.
She did the same, but faster. Three times.
S-O-S
Rolf’s eyebrows knit together in hesitation. He looked like he was going to call down to Nok, but froze. He glanced at the watching Kindred, and then carefully turned the radio away from their eyes.
Cora made it blink again.
I-T-S-C-O-R-A
Slowly, Rolf looked over his right shoulder, and then his left.