The Lifeline Signal Page 3

  (But it’s going to be okay. I promise…)

  Shiloh and Brianna stared in horror as the dragon wormed its way inside the barrier and hung above them, upside-down, as if rooted to the barrier’s inside surface by magnetic force. Then, slowly, it spread its black wings and kept spreading them. They were so huge Shiloh thought they might block out the sun itself. Which, for once, wouldn’t be a good thing.

  “Bri,” Shiloh whispered, shaking her arm. “Bri, it’s—it’s—”

  “HEY! HELP!” Brianna yelled, voice cracking. She looked around but the street was emptying fast. Two gate attendants ducked inside their booth and disappeared, possibly out the other side. “There’s a thing! There’s a ghost, it’s inside—”

  The dragon launched itself from the wall and dropped to the ground. Strangely, it made no noise when it landed. But the air around the ghost wasn’t silent. It started to thrum with a strange whirring like the sound of a swarm of locusts, combined with a low, rumbling droning and rapid clicking. Shiloh realized with a chill that the sound didn’t just come from the dragon, but, like the voice, from inside xir mind. Some people, those who’d never seen the Tartarus Zone and its creatures in person, said waste ghosts like this one were just urban legends. Ghosts being telepathic met with even more skepticism. But Shiloh felt the hums and scratching sounds inside xir brain more than heard them with xir ears, and they were starting to almost sound like whispers too.

  (Whatever you do, sweeties, stay out of the light.) The dragon moved closer, stepping delicately and slowly like a stalking cat. People ran, the crowd quickly scattering, though some lingered to record the scene with their phones. But the eerie dragon wasn’t looking at them at all. It wasn’t looking at anyone but Shiloh. Thick smoke swirled around its head and neck but, oddly, it didn’t seem to permeate the rest of the air, staying close to the dragon’s head almost as if it were an extension of its body. (Just try not to fall into the fire, okay?)

  “This is Meridian Research and Resupply Beacon requesting immediate support! A ghost has breached the barrier!” a voice cut into Shiloh’s reverie. Brianna had run up to the now-vacant gate post and grabbed a dangling walkie-talkie. “This is a Radiance research and resupply facility, I repeat, there’s a ghost here, and—”

  (If you ever thought the law was on your side, let this open your eyes.)

  “Anyone in range, this is Meridian!” Brianna shouted. “We need immediate aid!”

  The dragon paid no attention to Brianna’s pleas. Its eyes were fixed on Shiloh as if xie were the only person in the world. But Brianna’s cries shook Shiloh out of xir mesmerized haze and xie ran over to her and started trying to pull her away from the gate.

  “No! You run!” Brianna yelled, shaking Shiloh’s arm off, not putting the walkie down or moving.

  “Not without you!” Shiloh was starting to panic, knew it, but xie couldn’t help it. Not with those eyes still fixed directly on xir. The dragon’s unblinking gaze paralyzed Shiloh mid-step as xie and Brianna struggled to run, move, or do anything but stand there helplessly. Neither of them could breathe as it moved closer. That thick smoke started to rise from its nostrils. Slowly, never taking its eyes off the shaking teenagers, it opened its mouth.

  Something whizzed by Shiloh’s shoulder, smacking the ground near the dragon’s talon—and its oblong head whipped down to look at the stone that had almost hit it. At the same time, Shiloh and Brianna whirled around to see where the thrown rock had come from.

  A young man shakily stood his ground, dark eyes wide and russet-brown skin washed out with fear, holding a handful of rocks. Shiloh gasped, immediately forgetting everything behind xir. No dragon, no terrified crowd, no gate, no barrier, no Parole. Nothing mattered except the young man getting ready to throw another rock.

  He might as well be lit up in a spotlight. Not because xie wanted to draw him but because xie already had—and like Brianna said, he rocked the cerulean scarf and skinny jeans. Shiloh’s head and heart buzzed with the electric feeling of Déjà vu. Of importance. Pay attention, everything in the world seemed to whisper. Don’t miss this chance. Chance, the word—the name—reverberated in Shiloh's head like an echo.

  As he—Chance, yes, Shiloh had never been more sure of anything—tossed one of the rocks up in the air in preparation for another throw, Shiloh had the wild thought that it really should have been a coin. But just before he let the rock fly the young man seemed to lose his nerve. He stood frozen for a moment. Then he dropped the rest of his stones and sprinted away.

  “Theres-a-freaking-dragon-why-aren’t-you-running?!” he shouted at them as he flew past, nape-length black hair flying behind him. That shook Shiloh and Brianna out of their paralysis and they turned to follow the only person showing any sense. The rock hadn’t even hit the dragon but it at least distracted it for a few microseconds—and that was all they needed to get a head start.

  Somewhere behind them a motorcycle roared to life.

  They ran chaotically, in a clump of three, sticking close together out of instinct with no direction except away. Behind them came a rushing sound like rising wind and Shiloh knew if xie looked back it would be into a pair of black, shineless eyes. Everyone kept running, rounding the next corner—

  And almost tripping over one another as they scrambled to a stop.

  The dragon stood directly in front of them in the middle of the street, huge wings almost stretching from sidewalk to sidewalk.

  “No,” Shiloh said, lightheaded with fear and shock. This had to be a dream. A bad one. “How did it…”

  (Icarus,) said the dragon-ghost, staring impassively down. (The word.)

  “What?” The words cut through Shiloh’s fear and xie was able to grasp them enough to be confused. The voice was different; it didn’t sound like the girl from the radio anymore.

  (Icarus. Exchange.) Definitely not the same voice as before. Or the same words.

  “What does that mean?” Shiloh called, taking a tiny step forward, hands coming up.

  “What are you doing?” Chance said in a loud whisper. “You can’t talk to these things!”

  “We can’t run from it either,” Shiloh said slowly. “And this one’s talking.” Xie couldn’t decide which voice was stranger, the dragon’s new one, or Chance’s voice, which xie knew, despite hearing it for the first time in—

  “It’s just repeating!” he protested. “This is from the radio! It must have heard it too, that’s all it’s—hey! Where are you going?”

  Shiloh stepped forward, hands raised not in a surrender, but extended in front, palms facing out. Slowly, xie moved past Chance, past Brianna, toward the dragon.

  Chance was right. Ghosts didn’t actually talk, everybody knew that. They made all kinds of eerie, click-whisper noises that weren’t really sounds; you heard them in your head, not your ears. But this one was using words. And it didn’t seem about to stop trying to get its point across, whatever that was. Shiloh kept eye contact as xie came to a stop right in front of it. The day’s electric charge seemed to sweep across xir skin and Shiloh didn’t blink or move an inch. “What did you just say?”

  The dragon held perfectly still. So did Shiloh. Xie’d started the day feeling like a princess in a tower. Maybe the first step toward freedom was facing a dragon.

  (I know it’s scary, but I’ll be right here with you, just listen to my voice,) it said, tilting its head in what almost looked like confusion. (I’m your Radio Angel, and—)

  “Don’t just repeat old words,” Shiloh interrupted, probably surprising xirself more than the dragon. “Talk to me. I know you can.”

  (Icarus,) the dragon-ghost said, in the voice from before, the one that sounded nothing like the one it had been using.

  “You said that before. What does that mean?” Shiloh’s hands almost dropped, but from surprise more than fatigue. That word was familiar too. But it wasn’t from a girl on the radio. Shiloh had heard it from a boy in a tree.

  (The word?) Now it sounded almost uncertain.
It tilted its head the other way, seeming expectant and waiting, like Shiloh was supposed to know what came next. The fact that xie had no idea what it wanted or what response wouldn’t get them all eaten was almost as terrifying as the dragon itself. (The word you need?)

  “I don’t know what that means,” Shiloh said, not sure if admitting this was the right thing to do at all. “What does ‘Icarus—’”

  The thundering roar of a motorcycle filled the air, startling Shiloh into silence. Gravel flew as a pair of huge wheels came to a skidding halt beside the small group and a booted foot slammed down against the pavement. The girl before them rode the biggest motorcycle any of them had ever seen, wore a black helmet with a dark visor, and bounced her leg impatiently on the ground. She quickly swept a hand over the glass in front of her face and the lens went transparent, revealing the upper half of her face.

  Like the dragon, her intense eyes were fixed directly on Shiloh. But unlike the dragon, xie recognized her at once, feeling a surge of excitement instead of terror.

  Anh Minh Le. Annie. Like ‘Chance,’ Shiloh knew her name as surely as xir own. But even more absolutely, xie knew her face. Over and over xie’d drawn the seeking expression in her eyes, their unwavering focus. The angle of her sharp jaw. But this was not paper, she was finally here.

  “Didn’t you hear me?” She asked—again, apparently, since Shiloh hadn’t heard her the first time—glancing at the dragon-ghost which still waited passively in the street, then back to Shiloh. There was something new about her, xie realized, something xie hadn’t drawn. She wore a large, sharp-pointed shark’s tooth on a chain around her neck. “What did it say?”

  “The dragon?”

  “Yes, the dragon!” She turned back to face it. There was something on the back of her leather jacket in metal studs xie couldn’t read, but her urgency was much clearer.

  “It said ‘Icarus,’” Shiloh said, scrambling to get over xir shock at her sudden appearance, and the fact that the dragon was still staring at them.

  (Icarus,) the ghost repeated. (The word you need.)

  “What do you mean by that?” Annie demanded before Shiloh could, staring straight at the ghost without hesitation. “How do you know that word?”

  “Hold it right there.”

  It wasn’t the dragon’s voice. Shiloh and the rest of the small terrified group turned to see two men standing in the middle of the street.

  “Oh no,” Brianna whispered, as if realizing her call for help had been answered in the worst possible way. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean…”

  The Eye in the Sky enforcers carried long-barreled assault rifles, footsteps heavy from steel-toed combat boots weighed down with black body armor. They wore helmets that obscured their entire faces, black visors, and gas mask breathing apparatuses shaped vaguely like skulls. They scared Shiloh more than dragons, ghosts, or Tartarus itself. “Don’t move.”

  That wouldn’t be hard. Shiloh was frozen to the spot. The men in the black masks had never been here to help before. But this time they weren’t looking at Shiloh or any of the other young people huddled near one another. Their guns were pointed at the dragon.

  “Take it alive if we can,” one said, voice muffled by the helmet but audible. “The Major will want—” he cut off, holding perfectly still, paralyzed by the cold, alien eyes.

  There was a moment of complete silence—then gunfire erupted in the street as the first soldier opened fire. Terrified, Shiloh clapped xir hands over xir ears and stumbled backwards, running into someone else as they all scrambled to get away. The only one that didn’t move an inch was the dragon. Every single bullet sailed directly through its ghostly body and kept going, as if it were made of light and shadow instead of flesh and bone.

  But people weren’t made of light and shadow. Some had remained at the edges of the street to stare at the dragon but most of them scattered, running at the first gunshot. Not all of them made it. Bullets were faster, and now they passed through the ghost’s insubstantial form and into the terrified and much-more-solid human beings around and behind it.

  When the clamor of gunfire and the metallic jangling of shells against sidewalk quieted, the street was almost empty. But the dragon was still there. It stood exactly where it had before, staring at its assailants. Slowly it opened its jaws.

  “Shit,” one soldier whispered, before he was hit with the first blast.

  Out of the dragon’s maw, frighteningly fast, poured a torrent of—something, that looked like smoke but much more solid, almost a liquid, and it caught the men full in the chest. They flew backwards, slamming into the concrete wall and crumpling to the ground. Over the next few seconds, their armor and the bodies within withered like burned paper, dissolving into moist ash, thick smoke curling into the air.

  The dragon’s head whipped around to face the four frightened teenagers who’d taken refuge behind Annie’s motorcycle, which was barely scratched despite deflecting several bullets. Now its teeth were bared and dark plumes of smoke poured from gaps between its fangs in irregular bursts as if it were panting from exhaustion or panic.

  “It’s okay,” Shiloh said, climbing shakily to xir feet from behind the familiar vehicle and wracking xir brain for the right words. Out of the corner of xir eye, xie saw still forms lying in the street. The soldiers? It had to be them, Shiloh’s brain refused any alternative. “They’re gone now. We’re not gonna—”

  The dragon’s head plunged forward like a striking snake’s, almost faster than xie could register. But not faster than defensive instinct. Shiloh’s hands shot up; hands that now pulsed with a brilliant amber light.

  Something surged inside, like a gust of warm air or sunlight, starting from xir solar plexus and radiating out, shining from xir eyes behind dark glasses. Shiloh couldn’t see, couldn’t hear anything except for the sudden pounding of blood in xir ears, couldn’t feel anything except intense, scorching heat and power. Xie was blinded by blue-violet afterimages. The light was disorienting, but not harmful to xir sensitive eyes. It didn’t hurt. When the light faded, the ghost was gone. All that remained was scorch marks on the pavement, as if it had been burned in white-hot flame.

  Shiloh stared. Brianna and Chance stared from where they still crouched behind the motorcycle. Everything was still, except the thick smoke rising from Shiloh’s hands.

  “Get on already!” Annie yelled, jumping back onto her bike and, waving one arm. She wore a metal brace on it, shining and strong as armor.

  She didn’t have to tell Chance twice; he scrambled up to sit behind her immediately. “It’s about time!” he yelled, grinning.

  When Shiloh and Brianna didn’t move, Annie revved her throttle and the engine roared. “Come on! We have to go!”

  “That’s right.” Brianna said quietly, still staring at the scorch marks where the dragon had once been. But when she turned, her eyes were clear. “You know those two, don’t you? They’re the friends you were gonna meet?”

  “Yeah,” Shiloh said at last. The only words that existed would never do reality justice. How did you cram a lifetime’s worth of memories and loss and heartache and yearning into words they were quickly running out of time to speak? Force them to make any kind of sense? Tell any kind of truth? They're pretty important.”

  “Your friends are from Parole, aren’t they?” Brianna looked past Shiloh to where Annie and Chance waited on the huge motorcycle. Her eyes were glassy, and Shiloh couldn’t tell if she was going to cry, or just in shock. “Is that where you’re going?”

  Silence stretched between them like the sky beyond the barrier. Somewhere out there was a city that never stopped burning. Toxic storms screamed across a wasteland stretching thousands of miles across the American Midwest. Radios answered when Shiloh asked questions, even if their signals were never meant to leave Parole. The smell of smoke never faded away. Somewhere, flames were buried in dreams, and shut behind walls. Barriers, with monsters inside and out. Beams of light that could burn—or protect. Slay dragons.
Light up the night with crackling energy that sung in xir veins.

  “Yes.” Shiloh heard the whispered answer, only then realizing it came from xirself. “Listen…I know that thing just kind of ruined the words—but everything’s gonna be okay.”

  “No. It’s not,” Brianna said, and the certainty in her voice was jarring. “But maybe it still can be. Go, more soldiers will be here soon, and someone needs to head them off. I’ll catch up to you when I can. Go!”

  Shiloh stumbled away from her and toward the motorcycle, climbing up to sit behind Chance. The thing was big enough that three people could comfortably fit even without using the sidecars, and the dashboard was so covered in buttons and displays it looked like it belonged in the cockpit of a spaceship.

  “Ready?” Annie asked, voice tight with what might have been excitement, fear, or the mix Shiloh felt. In her voice, xie heard the sound of running feet, a pounding heart, and the crackling of flames.

  “Feels good to wake up,” Chance said, smiling in a way that was loose and shaky and brave all at once. Somewhere in Shiloh’s memory a coin arced through the air. When the wind swept through his hair, it sounded like rustling of leaves in high branches and shuffling cards. “Doesn’t it?”

  Annie twisted the throttle in reply. “Hang on.”

  Meridian had the right name, Shiloh thought as the engine roared and the bike shot forward, tearing through the streets. The edge of one place and the next. Three dreamers started out in a tree, and now they were all standing together on a high precipice, knowing they were about to fly, not fall. Shiloh didn’t look back as the motorcycle peeled away, and didn’t even think about being afraid. Now, xie was finally close enough to read the back of Annie’s jacket.

  HERE WE GO AGAIN.