I’m nodding again, but this time I do follow her, and that path ends in a very dark place. I squat down beside her and look her dead in the eye. “I don’t know what this guy’s story is and I don’t know about the EMP, but the commander told me why they’re leaving us alone. They think we’re no longer a threat to them.”
She flips back her bangs and snaps, “How does the commander know what they think?”
“Wonderland. We were able to profile a—”
“Wonderland,” she echoes. Nodding sharply. Eyes cutting from my face to the snowy street outside and back again. “Wonderland is an alien program.”
“Right.” Stay with her, but gently try to lead her back. “It is, Ringer. Remember? After we took back the base, we found it hidden—”
“Unless we didn’t. Zombie, unless we didn’t.” She jabs the knife toward me. “It’s a possibility, equally valid, and possibilities matter. Trust me, Zombie; I’m an expert on what matters. Up to now, I’ve been playing blind man’s bluff. Time for some chess.” She flips the knife around and shoves the handle toward me. “Cut it out of me.”
I don’t know what to say. I stare dumbly at the knife in her hand.
“The implants, Zombie.” Poking me in the chest now. “We have to take them out. You do me and I’ll do you.”
I clear my throat. “Ringer, we can’t cut them out.” I scramble for a second for the best argument, but all I can come up with is, “If we can’t make it back to the rendezvous point, how’re they going to find us?”
“Damn it, Zombie, haven’t you been listening to anything I’ve said? What if they aren’t us? What if they’re them? What if this whole thing has been a lie?”
I’m about to lose it. Okay, not about to. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Ringer! Do you know how cra—stupid that sounds? The enemy rescuing us, training us, giving us weapons? Come on, let’s cut the crap; we’ve got a job to do. You may not be happy about it, but I am your C.O….”
“All right.” Very calm now. As cool as I’m hot. “I’ll do it myself.”
She whips the blade around to the back of her neck, bowing her head low. I yank the knife from her hand. Enough.
“Stand down, Private.” I hurl her knife into the deep shadows across the room and get up. I’m shaking, every part of me, voice too. “You want to play the odds, that’s cool. Stay here until I get back. Better yet, just waste me now. Maybe my alien masters have figured out a way to hide my infestation from you. And after you’ve done me, go back across the street and kill them all, put a bullet in Teacup’s head. She could be the enemy, right? So blow her frigging head off! It’s the only answer, right? Kill everyone or risk being killed by anyone.”
Ringer doesn’t move. Doesn’t say anything, either, for a very long time. Snow whips through the broken window, the flakes a deep crimson color, reflecting the smoldering crumbs of the tanker.
“Are you sure you don’t play chess?” she asks. She pulls the rifle back into her lap, runs her index finger along the trigger. “Turn your back on me, Zombie.”
We’re at the end of the dark path now, and it’s a dead end. I’m out of anything that passes for a cogent argument, so I come back with the first thing that pops into my head.
“My name is Ben.”
She doesn’t miss a beat. “Sucky name. Zombie’s better.”
“What your name?” Keeping at it.
“That’s one of the things that doesn’t matter. Hasn’t for a long time, Zombie.” Finger caressing the trigger slowly. Very slowly. It’s hypnotic, dizzying.
“How about this?” Searching for a way out. “I cut out the tracker, and you promise not to waste me.” This way I keep her on my side, because I’d rather take on a dozen snipers than one Dorothied Ringer. In my mind’s eye, I can see my head shattering like one of those plywood people on the firing range.
She cocks her head, and the side of her mouth twitches in an almost-but-not-quite smile. “Check.”
I give her back an honest-to-goodness smile, the old Ben Parish smile, the one that got me practically everything I wanted. Well, not practically; I’m being modest.
“Is that check as in yes, or are you giving me a chess lesson?”
She sets her gun aside and turns her back to me. Bows her head. Pulls her silky black hair away from her neck.
“Both.”
Pop-pop-pop goes Poundcake’s gun. And the sniper answers. Their jam plays in the background as I kneel behind Ringer with my knife. Part of me more than willing to humor her if it keeps me—and the rest of the unit—alive. The other part screaming silently, Aren’t you, like, giving a mouse a cookie? What will she demand next—a physical inspection of my cerebral cortex?
“Relax, Zombie,” she says, quiet and calm, the old Ringer again. “If the trackers aren’t ours, it’s probably not a good idea to have them inside us. If they are ours, Dr. Pam can always implant us again when we get back. Agreed?”
“Checkmate.”
“Check and mate,” she corrects me.
Her neck is long and graceful and very cold beneath my fingers as I explore the area beneath the scar for the lump. My hand shakes. Just humor her. It probably means a court-martial and the rest of your life peeling potatoes, but at least you’ll be alive.
“Be gentle,” she whispers.
I take a deep breath and draw the tip of the blade along the tiny scar. Her blood wells up bright red, shockingly red against her pearly skin. She doesn’t even flinch, but I have to ask: “Am I hurting you?”
“No, I like it a lot.”
I tease the implant from her neck with the tip of the blade. She grunts softly. The pellet clings to the metal, sealed within a droplet of blood.
“So,” she says, turning around. The almost-smile is almost there. “How was it for you?”
I don’t answer. I can’t. I’ve lost the ability to talk. The knife falls from my hand. I’m two feet away looking right at her, but her face is gone. I can’t see it through my eyepiece.
Ringer’s entire head is lit up in a blinding green fire.
60
MY FIRST REACTION is to yank off the hardware, but I don’t. I’m paralyzed with shock. A shudder of revulsion next. Then panic. Followed closely by confusion. Ringer’s head has lit up like a Christmas tree, bright enough to be seen a mile away. The green fire sparks and swirls, so intense it burns an afterimage in my left eye.
“What is it?” she demands. “What happened?”
“You lit up. As soon as I pulled out the tracker.”
We stare at each other for a long couple of minutes. Then she says, “Unclean glows green.”
I’m already on my feet, M16 in my hands, backing toward the door. And outside, beneath the sound-deadening snowfall, Poundcake and the sniper, trading barbs. Unclean glows green. Ringer doesn’t make a move for the rifle lying next to her. Through my right eye, she’s normal. Through the left, she burns like a Roman candle.
“Think this through, Zombie,” she says. “Think this through.” Holding up her empty hands, scratched and scuffed from her fall, one caked in dried blood. “I lit up after you pulled out the implant. The eyepieces don’t pick up infestations. They react when there’s no implant.”
“Excuse me, Ringer, but that makes no freaking sense. They lit up on those three infesteds. Why would the eyepieces light up if they weren’t?”
“You know why. You just can’t admit it to yourself. They lit up because those people weren’t infested. They’re just like us, the only difference being they don’t have implants.”
She stands up. God, she looks so small, like a kid…But she is a kid, right? Through one eye normal. Through the other a green fireball. Which is she? What is she?
“Take us in.” She steps toward me. I bring up the gun. She stops. “Tag and bag us. Train us to kill.” Another step. I swing the muzzle toward her. Not at her. But toward her: Stay away. “Anyone who isn’t tagged will glow green, and when they defend themselves or challenge us, shoot at us like that sniper up there—well, that just proves they’re the enemy, doesn’t it?” Another step. Now I’m aiming right at her heart.
“Don’t,” I beg her. “Please, Ringer.” One face pure. One face in fire.
“Until we’ve killed everyone who isn’t tagged.” Another step. Right in front of me now. The end of the gun pressing lightly against her chest. “It’s the 5th Wave, Ben.”
I’m shaking my head. “No fifth wave. No fifth wave! The commander said—”
“The commander lied.”
She reaches up with bloody hands and pulls the rifle from my grip. I feel myself falling into a completely different kind of wonderland, where up is down and true is false and the enemy has two faces, my face and his, the one who saved me from drowning, who took my heart and made it a battlefield.
She gathers her hands into mine and pronounces me dead:
“Ben, we’re the 5th Wave.”