“Come on,” Trish said. “Let’s find the others.”

  They moved like old people at first, but soon enough their blood started to flow and their muscles relaxed. The door to their room had bent and twisted enough to break free from its hinges. Trish gave it a hard shove and they entered the hallway. Smoke filled the air, with halos flaring constantly as sparks buzzed all over the place.

  Isaac coughed, the smoke too thick to breathe. “How do we find anyone in this mess?”

  Someone grabbed his arm from behind.

  With an embarrassing yelp he spun around to see the guard with the orange hair. She was battered, bloodied, her suit ripped in a couple of places. It seemed as if she’d been thrown down a mountain and dragged through a river of rocks.

  “Skinny screwed up,” she said. “He screwed up bad.”

  “What happened?” Sadina asked.

  Orange shook her head. “No time—we gotta get out of this trash heap. We’re all gonna die from the fumes if the thing doesn’t blow up and kill us a lot faster.”

  “What about the others?” Trish asked. “Our friends?”

  She shook her head again. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I’m not sure they made it. Come on!” She yanked Isaac so hard that he almost fell down. He righted himself, nodding his head to let her know he was coming.

  “My mom!” Sadina yelled from behind. “What about my mom!”

  Orange stopped and screamed back at her. “Just shut up! A lot of them were on the other Berg so I don’t know. Maybe they’re okay. But we have to get off this stupid ship or it won’t matter, will it?”

  Sadina, shaken and pale, muttered assent.

  They followed Orange through the wreckage.

  Roxy. Where was Roxy? He had to find Roxy.

  He looked through the gashed wound in the hull. He was shocked to see that one of the other Bergs had crashed as well, only two hundred meters or so away, the trees between them completely flattened and splintered. Skinny, now a mangled corpse, had been on that ship, but now lay enmeshed against the wall behind him, like a grisly decoration.

  What could possibly have happened to cause both ships to fail? Minho knew the answer before he completed the thought. Ugh. His idiot friend had completely botched the use of his artillery suit, probably underestimating its power and the subtlety of the guidance mechanisms. Minho tried to picture it in his head—Skinny’s body exploding like a missile, catapulting through the hulls of two separate Bergs, causing them to fail. The suit must’ve ejected other explosives during that short and fatal trip to cause so much damage, or maybe the ships had collided in mid-air.

  “Minho!”

  He turned around, saw Jackie standing in the doorway to which he’d been clinging for his life mere minutes earlier. She looked distraught, breathing heavily, several of her friends standing behind her.

  “When I told you to hold on,” he said, “this is not what I meant. We’re lucky to be alive, any of us.”

  “Not everyone made it,” she whispered, almost talking to herself.

  He nodded, feeling a little ashamed that he’d only thought of Roxy. “I know. How many of your friends made it? Any signs from the other ship?”

  Jackie stepped into the room, followed by an ancient man with dark skin and white hair, a middle-aged woman, and then two younger people. He knew their names from the interview he’d had with Jackie—Frypan, Ms. Cowan, Miyoko, and Dominic. Roxy was on the other Berg and he was trying so hard not to think about it yet. He wilted, terrified to find out if she’d survived.

  “Are you hurt?” Jackie asked, running to his side.

  “No, no. I’m okay. But we need to get to the other Berg—we both have friends over there and I can see the ship. It looks like it’s in worse shape than ours, but hopefully they have survivors, too. Come on.”

  They picked their way down a couple of hallways and then found a much larger gash in the Berg that allowed them to crawl out, where the shattered plain of flattened trees greeted them. The smell of smoke and burnt fuel hung heavy in the air. Minho had barely stepped from the wreckage when he saw a man buried beneath a large chunk of the Berg that had fallen off. It was a Grief Bearer, a mask covering his face. Maybe it was Barrus. The chest didn’t move at all, and there was blood in all kinds of bad places. Dead, then. Minho felt no pity.

  Then, for the second time since the crash, someone yelled his name.

  “Minho!”

  He looked up, and coming toward him, carefully stepping over a stack of logs, was Roxy, somehow smiling despite ripped clothes, several cuts, and dirt covering her every inch. The sickening weight in his gut vanished. He had never known the love of a mother, but he felt it then so powerfully that he fell to his knees and, for the first time in his life, wept like a child.

  Through his tears, he saw the others.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The Cranks of Change

  “Wait.”

  Isaac stopped at Orange’s command. They stood a few feet from a large crack in the Berg, light spilling into the ship, casting its interior with a gloomy malaise. Orange was peeking around the edge, looking outside, her right hand held up to stop them from coming any closer. She finally turned back to them and pressed against the wall, her eyes wide with concern.

  “What’s wrong?” Sadina asked.

  “There’s . . .” For the first time, the guard in the intimidating artillery suit looked like a scared little girl. “Cranks. Cranks are out there. Right behind that lady named Roxy. They’re all slowly making their way over the broken trees to the other Berg.” Although she gave them the details patiently, her words had a shaky, shrill ring to them. “This ship must’ve been carrying them. No one told me that. No one told me that! I didn’t even know we had those things!”

  She was losing it, definitely losing it.

  Trish grabbed her by the shoulders. “Calm down. You know better what to do than any of us.”

  Sadina walked past them and took a look for herself. Isaac felt like his feet had been stapled to the warped floor of the hallway.

  Sadina stepped back and faced them, her poor black eye even puffier than before. “They’re all chained together—just like at the bridge. Probably fifty or sixty of them! Half are walking, climbing, stumbling, the other half are being dragged along.”

  “And Roxy’s out there?” Isaac asked.

  “Yeah, but she’s got a good lead on them. I don’t even know if she’s noticed them yet but she’s going as fast as she can.”

  Isaac turned his attention to Orange, who had her eyes closed, taking deep breaths.

  “Okay, guys, I’m sorry,” she said. “I just had myself a little panic attack is all. We can do this. We have to hope people survived over there, and we need to get to them. They might be hurt or there might be Cranks in their ship, too. Although it has a Grief Walker so I don’t think it had room.”

  “Alright,” Sadina said. “Let’s do it. My mom’s over there, right?” Somehow she managed to keep her own voice under control, despite the terrifying possibility that her mom was dead. Or . . . worse.

  “We obviously have the advantage,” Isaac added. “If they’re all chained together and stumbling over each other, then let’s run around them.” He had a hard time believing he was standing there, speaking those words, living in this world. It was like he floated above them, watching strangers.

  “Then let’s go.” Orange patted some of the stuffed pockets of her suit. “They better not mess with us.”

  She darted out of the ship, and once again, Isaac and his friends followed.

  “They’re back,” Old Man Frypan said. “Those bastards are back, straight out of my younger days.”

  Jackie was standing with him, arm in arm, supporting his weight—the crash, not to mention the last few weeks of his life, had taken a heavy toll on the man. The scene before them, as they stood right on the threshold of the ripped opening of the Berg, was a nightmare in the making. Roxy—Minho’s mom, grandma, whoever she was—had almost made it across the gap between ships, and Minho had run to greet her, half-carrying her as they stumbled their way across the remaining clatter of fallen trees.

  But behind them. Behind them was the nightmare.

  Cranks, the same ones at the bridge by the looks of it. Chained together like slaves of ancient Rome, walking, straggling, dragging their way closer. Cranks. How often had she been told stories late at night about these mythical monsters of old? The only thing stalling her fear was how slowly they approached, hampered by the chains, having to move as one entity.

  Minho and Roxy made it back. Ms. Cowan was on the woman immediately, asking about her daughter as Miyoko and Dominic stood right behind her, demanding answers. Where was Sadina? Where was Trish? Where was Isaac?

  “I don’t know, I’m sorry,” Roxy answered. “They were on my ship but I didn’t see them after the crash. I’m so sorry. I had to run from . . .” She looked back over her shoulder, trembling even as Minho still held her in his clutches. “From them.”

  “We have to get over there, now!” Ms. Cowan yelled, her composure cracked.

  “Wait a second,” Jackie said. An idea had come to her from nowhere, but she acted on it. After making sure Frypan was okay, she scanned the crashed Berg and saw a path to the top. With more speed and agility than she would’ve guessed she possessed, she scrambled up the side of the vessel, finding plenty of hand- and footholds to help along the way. When she got to the top, twenty or thirty meters above the wrecked forest floor, she steadied herself and examined the view.

  “I see them!” she yelled down to the others. “Four of them!”

  The group of Cranks stretched out in a haggard line, maybe fifty meters long, the chains slowing them considerably. Much quicker were the four people leaping between tree trunks, skipping over them like rocks on a pond, skirting the long line of Cranks.

  Isaac. Sadina. Trish. Someone with orange hair.

  “They’re okay!” Jackie yelled. “Going around!” She pointed at the creepy mob, barely resembling humans.

  But then she caught another sight. Seven or eight people were approaching the line of Cranks from the opposite side of where Isaac and the others had appeared. They’d come out of an open hatch in the other Berg. Jackie had never seen the new arrivals before, and they looked incredibly strange, despite the distance. Her eyesight had always been good, and now it gave her a very ill feeling.

  They were strong, tall, dressed in the similar, worn, haphazard clothing of the Cranks in the field of trees, except for a major difference. No tatters, no rips, no grime, no blood. They walked steadily and soberly, almost mechanical in their carefully laid steps. Heads shaved, faces devoid of expression, their gazes set on the struggling line of Cranks, the strangers each held something in their hands, although it was impossible to discern, from where Jackie stood, exactly what.

  She was at a little bit of a loss for words, mesmerized by these new arrivals.

  “What’s going on?” Ms. Cowan yelled from below.

  Jackie swung her attention to the left, where Sadina, Isaac, Trish, and the fourth person were making excellent progress. They’d already cleared a wide berth around the outermost edge of the Cranks.

  She pointed. “There! See them?”

  Ms. Cowan did. Others, too. Several ran in that direction to help, to hug, to reunite.

  Jackie took a breath, was relieved and surprised to feel how cleanly and fully the air filled her lungs. Her heart had slowed. The pressure on her chest had eased. They could outrun these Cranks and the more stable newcomers. They had a chance, now, especially bright compared to what she’d felt when first captured by that awful machine—the machine that now lay curled up and silent within the ship she stood upon. She was about to climb down when she noticed a shift in movement and purpose by the newcomers from the other Berg.

  Their actions became more deliberate and less rote. There were eight of them—she could see that clearly, now—and they split up, walking to different sections of the Crank line, deftly leaping over broken tree trunks and branches. The first of these strange people came to the far-right end of the line as the others made their way toward the left, spacing apart. Jackie crouched down, throwing all her effort into focusing on what that first strange person was doing.

  It reached the chaotic tussle of Cranks without showing any fear. They stilled at its presence, deferentially kneeling or bowing. In unison they raised their shackled hands as if offering some kind of religious sacrament, these ragged, barely human animals who’d seconds earlier seemed completely without sense or reason in their movements. The stranger reached toward the first of them, making use of whatever he, she, or it had been carrying.

  Keys, apparently.

  The encouragement Jackie had felt vanished, and the air she’d so easily breathed seemed suddenly toxic. She stood up and shouted at anyone who would listen.

  “They’re unlocking the chains! They’re unlocking the Cranks’ chains!”

  Without the slightest caution, she started climbing down the side of the broken Berg.

  It had seemed an impossible thing, to shift so quickly from one emotion to another. Seeing Roxy had filled him with a relief and joy like he’d never experienced, not once in his life, and it was as if his body had filled with sunlight and sugar and music, almost unbearable. And then he’d seen the Cranks, right behind her.

  All those emotions, all that feeling, had vanished, like the life of a crushed beetle.

  And in its place, flooding in like the greatest of waterfalls, came the training of his existence.

  He was the Orphan. The Orphan named Minho.

  The world around him a noisy blur, he had sprinted across the field of crushed logs, his feet barely tapping them before leaping into the air again. He’d reached Roxy, saw the supernatural way she was able to smile despite a horde of infected lunatics at her back, and that smile completed the circuit of his purpose. He would not, could not rest until she was safe.

  Not wasting time on words, he leaned a shoulder into her stomach, wrapped his arms around her, then lifted her as easily as a sandbag—a task he’d performed often in training, and so recently with the boy named Kit. She made a sound that was awfully close to a giggle, a thing he might’ve expected her to do in the face of so much chaos and destruction and madness. He spared a glance for the line of Cranks, half of them strewn about the logs, dragged by the others. What a pitiful sight it was—these bloodied and half-naked, raving things who’d once been sane. Minho wanted to kiss those greasy chains that slowed the group to a splinter-filled crawl.

  He headed back toward the Berg and away from the writhing monsters that represented the very worst of what the Remnant Nation fought against. The Flare, someday to be eradicated by the godlike Cure, blessed be Her name, he thought with a heavy roll of his eyes. As he leaped from one huge chunk of wood to another, he allowed himself for once to see the good in his nation’s intentions. Who wouldn’t want to rid the world of those things crawling and hobbling along behind him? But which was the enemy—the virus or those trying to destroy the world to be rid of it?

  Did it even matter? He’d chosen his path and there was no going back.

  “Here, let me help.” The one known as Frypan helped him gently lower Roxy to the ground once he’d made it back to the Berg. She seemed well enough, and gave Minho the biggest hug ever known to humankind. He returned it, but quickly pulled away.

  “We need to get inside,” he said to Roxy and the old man. “We can barricade ourselves in the Grief Walker for now. It probably doesn’t work well, if at all, but I know it’s intact.”

  Frypan nodded, leaning on Roxy for support. “Best plan I’ve heard all day. Those Cranks are gettin’ too close for my liking and I’m done running. My legs feel like rotten carrots.”

  Minho noticed Jackie, climbing down the side of the Berg—she jumped the last several feet, stumbled, then ran straight to him.

  “They’re unlocking them,” she panted. “There’s people out there, unlocking the Cranks!”

  Before he had time to process this, several other survivors suddenly appeared all at once, as if they’d just returned from a picnic. He didn’t know them all by name, but Jackie had told him enough details to see these were her friends, a few of them from the other crashed Berg. And then he saw Orange, looking battered but whole. She gave him a sad smile and a stiff nod, showing that she already knew about Skinny—the boy never had a chance of surviving whatever malfunction or miscalculation that had catapulted him through the walls of two different Bergs.

  “We need to go,” Jackie said, breaking up the brief moment of reflection. “Half the Cranks have already been let loose. They’re coming.” The calmness of her voice was something Minho knew he’d never forget.

  Eleven people stood there, each with a strange expression that somehow mixed relief with sheer terror. And they were all staring at him.

  Frypan, exuding the natural wisdom and presence of his grand old age, put a hand on Minho’s shoulder and turned to the others.

  “This young fella has a plan.”

  “We can trust him,” Ms. Cowan whispered to Sadina and the others standing next to her. “Jackie does, and he gave us a warning before the ship crashed.”

  Orange must’ve overheard this because she stepped up and agreed. “I’d trust that handsome sack of muscle with my life. Do what he says.”

  Isaac didn’t know the first or last thing about this Minho guy, but he hoped he lived up to the legend of his name. He was about the same age as Isaac, maybe a little older, and definitely bigger and stronger. Adding credence to what Orange had said, he wore the same bulky suit of weaponry as she. They were obviously friends, and on their side in all this, as much as Isaac could discern the sides.