Chapter 10 Zoey

I didn’t know how long I stayed there in Harb’k’s embrace, crying for the people I’d loved and lost. But by the time the tears ran their course, my eyes were puffy, and I was all cried out.

His chest was purring softly against my ear, and all I could think about was how cats sometimes purred to self-soothe when in pain. I wondered if this was the same frequency that had healing or at least calming properties because I wanted to stay in his arms and let him protect me forever.

But that wasn’t an option. We both had a job to do. Though, right now, I wasn’t so sure about my plan anymore. Did I really want to join Sanctuary after I disassembled all the charging sites? I knew I had to go there to meet up with Riley. She was everything I had left. But did I want to stay there?

What about New Franklin? The idea that they’d conquered their nest and taken back the town was so inspiring. And now I knew it wasn’t just a rumor. God. Connor would’ve been so happy. And Tomas! Tomas had been just a kid when the bugs arrived, still had been before this shit with Corey. Did New Franklin have teenagers his age?

And Riley. She was so excited when we’d said we’d go check it out.

Suddenly, my plans were changing right before my eyes, solidifying, and I knew what I had to do. I’d go to Sanctuary, pick Riley up, and then we’d go to New Franklin together.

Maybe I’d even run into Harb’k again after he was done scouring the land for anomalies. I wasn’t ready to end our temporary partnership just yet. Maybe we could extend it longer.

I wiped the tears that had fallen on his chest with my palm. “Sorry, I’m crying all over you.”

“You can cry on me anytime. I have lost many to the scourge. Each loss gets harder, not easier. But we must grieve so we can keep fighting. If we do not, the anguish will consume us from the inside.”

I gazed into his warm, golden eyes. And despite their alienness, I saw the very human scars of loss.

He released me and pushed open the door to the stairs. “We will go see this shop of hobbies.” He stepped out and when he sensed no danger, started up the stairs.

He took small, careful steps, and I realized the treads were too short for his feet. With the claws tipping his toes, he could just barely get the balls of his feet on the steps. No wonder he’d leaped down the half flight of stairs to the landing with the bowling alley door when we first got in.

I followed behind him. I could see right up his leather loincloth, and I followed the lighter patches of purple up the back of his muscular thighs.

“When we first landed on Earth, there were three hunters in my group,” Harb’k said as he picked his way up the stairs. “Because there were no major human cities in the area, our mothership had erroneously estimated that the nests would be small. It hadn’t taken into account the millions of heads of cattle raised here. It only sent us down, and we quickly realized that it was too much for our group to handle.

“During one of the first swarms, we lost Gra’k. We hadn’t been ready for such a large swarm. But still, the mothership refused to send more help. We were lucky Lok’n joined us after.”

I listened to his story, glad that I was learning more about him so it wasn’t so one-sided.

“I was close to Gra’k. Losing him was hard on me, but I never let myself grieve. Instead, I threw myself into hunting the scourge. I became reckless that cold season, taking on more scourge than I knew I could handle. I got trapped by a group of scuttlers and spitters.”

I shuddered at the mention of the bugs that spit acid. Seeing someone dissolved alive wasn’t something one ever really bounced back from.

His hand went absentmindedly to one of the lighter patches, the movement so slight, I wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t been staring so intently at him. And I realized that what I had mistaken for his natural pattern were scars.

I reached up to touch the scar on his arm. “Spitters?”

He grunted in a way that I now understood as a yes. “Yes, spitters. Acid and fire. Xarc’n warriors have exceptional healing abilities. We’re able to come back from just about anything as long as we’re still alive, but the results aren’t always aesthetically pleasing. The engineers who made us only cared that we could continue fighting.”

I couldn’t imagine surviving that, but I guess the Xarc’n warriors were made of tougher stuff. He was built to fight the scourge, and he had the scars to prove it.

The door to the hobby shop was locked, and no one had smashed their way in yet since the store didn’t contain any food or essentials. But the lock was no match for Harb’k.

“If Siobhan and her hunter Zec’k never found me, I would’ve died that day. And perhaps, I’d wanted to then.”

“And now?” I asked.

“Now, I am glad I lived. I have made many friends and found a home here on Earth. I will continue to fight for my new home until it is free of the scourge.”

“You consider this your home?”

“Yes. I plan to stay even after the scourge is gone. But that is far in the future. We still have a long fight ahead.”

We stepped into the hobby shop. It was much brighter here since it was above ground and had windows. I immediately looked for a way to cover them, not wanting the flyers outside to see us. There was a display of foam boards just in front of me. We covered the windows with them, leaving cracks for the light to get in so we could still see without the use of his lantern.

Harb’k was immediately drawn to the display of model planes and other vehicles. He looked like a kid on Christmas morning as he approached it.

“Look at these; they are so detailed. And colored. The kits I had didn’t include paint, but some of the beginner ones Ryan and the other youngsters in New Franklin had did.” He took out his phone and his communicator and started snapping images of the labels and signs on the shelf. I wondered what he was doing until his communicator started saying words in his language.

“What are you looking for? I can read them for you.”

“I wish to color the ones I already have.”

I directed him one shelf over to where all the paints were lined up.

“There are so many choices. I don’t know which ones to take.”

“Why don’t you take them all? Your shuttle is big enough. And it’s not like you have to choose between fun and food.”

That had been one reason why we’d had to leave so many of the things we found behind. As nomads, we had to focus on things that fetched a good price when we traded with others. There were so many times I just wanted to swoop in and take it all.

“You’re right. And the youngsters will enjoy them.”

I located a few bags under the cash, and we loaded them up. By the time we were done, it was already midafternoon, and we really needed to get moving if we wanted to stay ahead of Corey. And let’s not forget, we were supposed to be searching this area for strange bugs and strange bug behaviors.

We made our way back out to his shuttle with our hobby haul in hand. And soon, we were in the air, hovering over the small town. We were just plotting the next course when Harb’k’s shuttle spoke in the growly Xarc’n language, and the translator at his belt repeated it in English.

“Hunter, I am low on water. Artificial reservoir detected nearby to the east.”

The way the ship referred to itself as “I” had me wondering if this shuttle was smart like the one Corey’s group had captured. But I was afraid to ask, lest Harb’k think I was going to steal it or something, but he must have seen the question on my face.

“My shuttle is not a PIP model. But all our shuttles have rudimentary AI to help us fight the scourge.”

PIP models must be what they call the really smart ones.

“Shuttle, this is Zoey.”

“Greetings, Zoey. I am model”—the ship said something I didn’t understand—“the third most used artificial intelligence in the Xarc’n fleet.”

“Nice to meet you, shuttle.” I didn’t try to replicate the sound it had made. I looked at the screen which now showed a map with an area highlighted. “I thought that reservoir was contaminated. We’d been avoiding it.” It wasn’t just the bugs we had to worry about, but the fungus that worked hand in hand with them. Eating or drinking anything contaminated with it was a death sentence.

First, you get these sores all over your body that smell horrendous, and then you either turn into a slow, brain-dead zombie or a fast, angry one, attacking everyone around you and spreading the disease. Then, when you were ripe for the picking and oozing the fungus from every pore, the stench called in the bugs to finish the job.

“It is,” Harb’k said. “You are smart to avoid it. But my shuttle has the ability to disinfect and decontaminate any water in its tanks. It is a necessity. Sometimes the infestation is so bad on a planet that no other water is available.”

“Well, it’s right there, so why don’t we do that first before heading to the last safe house?”

Okay, so I wouldn’t admit it, but I was trying to find an excuse to spend more time together. I was disappointed I couldn’t accept his offer to go to the market together. It sounded fun.

“Destination plotted,” his shuttle said before Harb’k could even agree. “Prepare for liftoff.”