Countdown (Arrival Book 2) Read online

  Contents

  Title

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Author's Notes

  Thanks To

  Shameless Self-Promotion

  COUNTDOWN

  By Travis Hill

  Copyright 2016

  Cover art by: Keith Draws

  http://www.keithdraws.com

  If you have not read “Departure” yet, I recommend you begin there or else this story might not make nearly as much sense.

  PROLOGUE

  Departure: -19y 08m 26d

  I woke to the murky sunlight through the plexipane windows. My hand reached across the bed but only met sheets and a cold pillow. I sighed and rubbed my eyes, disappointed that Navine had already left for work. The way my heart sped up a little at the thought of her smooth legs, her dark, short hair… I squashed those thoughts and swung my legs out of the small bed. I had to be at work in an hour and couldn’t waste half of that dreaming about her roaming hands under the sheets.

  I saw the note on the counter on my way out the door. My heart sped up again as I wondered what kind of sweet love note Navine had left me this morning. I blinked at least ten times as I tried to read the words. I had to wipe my eyes after another few seconds of staring at the note.

  Andreada,

  We need to talk.

  Navine

  No “My Dearest Drea” or “Love, Navine.” The note was short and to the point, which pierced my heart like a vibroblade. It was the same kind of note Erina Salisco had given me on my fifteenth birthday even if the words weren’t identical. When I’d met Erina an hour later, she shattered my whole word by breaking up with me. I crumpled the note and threw it against the wall then ran to the bathroom.

  It took ten minutes of purging my tears, fears, even my hatred of Navine and what she was about to do to me. My chron pinged to let me know I had less than seven minutes to reach the street and board a transit car before I would be late for work. I didn’t care about my job suddenly. I didn’t care about anything. I wanted to stay in the bathroom until I died.

  Another ping brought me back to my senses. I wiped my face with a towel then ran for the door. I did my best to fix my hair and remove the red from my eyes on the elevator down to the street. By the time the car reached the ground floor, I looked halfway presentable even if I felt like a blob of steaming bile on the inside.

  Head down, I made my way to the transit stop. I did my best to pay attention to my feet, only looking up when it seemed I might crash into another pedestrian. The whoosh of a Guardian operating nearby made me glance around, but all I saw was the normal knot of citizens on their way to or from whatever task they were engaged in. I did my best to not think about anything as I stood at the curb. I didn’t want to cry again. I didn’t want to feel anything.

  The transit car slid to a stop, its doors opening silently. I watched a number of feet exit the car, then more as they entered. I looked up when it was my turn to board. My left foot had just touched the entrance step when I saw Navine across the street through the transit car’s window. She stood next to another woman, both watching me board the commuter vehicle.

  My feet hesitated for just a moment before I forced myself to keep going. Instead of running across the street to confront her, to ask her why she wasn’t at work, I stepped aboard. The seat nearest the middle exit was empty and I sat down harder than I intended, my eyes locked on the woman I was in love with. Her expression was blank as far as I could tell, but I only had a moment to take a good look before the transit car pulled away.

  I immediately touched the panel on the window next to me, alerting the car that I wanted off at the next stop. Two minutes later, I exited the transit and walked quickly back toward our apartment. My mind was a blur of worries, accusations, scenarios, and even a thread of rage that I did my best to keep from growing into explosive fury.

  I waited at the elevator on the ground floor of our building for ten minutes before deciding to take the car up. I fought with myself the entire ride, promising myself that I wouldn’t beg, plead, cry, or do anything foolish. The car lurched to a stop and the door dinged then opened. I stepped out just in time to see Navine duck into the stairwell at the end of the hall. My feet kicked into gear without an order from my brain and I covered the twenty meters in seconds.

  I yanked the door open and bounded down the steps to the next floor. Navine looked up in fear, as if I might do a flying leap down to her with a knife in my hand. Within seconds I was on the landing with her and the other woman, who gave me a fearful yet defiant look. The look of someone afraid but also of someone who has just stolen something dear, something precious from another.

  “Navine…” I said as I tried to catch my breath.

  “Andreada,” she said, using my full name.

  It snapped another piece of my heart off. The expression on my face made her flinch and she stepped in front of the other woman as if I might strike her. All of the fears that I hoped were foolish, jealous, or just paranoid thoughts that lovers sometimes have suddenly became real at that moment. Navine was protecting her from me.

  “What’s going on, Navine?” I growled, taking a step forward.

  “Andreada…”

  I watched the other woman’s hand reach forward and grab Navine’s. As if the woman’s touch filled her with courage, Navine straightened her back and gave me a sad yet somehow cruel look.

  “I’m sorry, Andreada,” Navine said. She didn’t look sorry at all according to my sudden fury. “I didn’t want it to end like this.”

  “But you wanted it to end!” I screamed in her face after taking another step forward. “Who is she?” I shrieked and stepped to the side to see what my competition was.

  “Kelle,” the woman said, her words coming out strong and clear though I could see fear and shame in her eyes.

  “Shut up,” I said to her then turned my fury on Navine. “Why? What did I do?”

  “You didn’t do anything, Drea,” she said but refused to look me in the eye.

  “Shut up!” I screeched, my voice cracking, throat burning. “Shut up! You don’t get to call me that anymore!”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  I lashed out, shoving Navine as hard as I could. She fell backward into Kelle, both of them tumbling to the hard fibrene floor of the landing. I wanted to rush forward and kick them both as hard as I could. I wanted to hurt them both. The tears on my cheeks were from anger, betrayal, and broken promises.

  “You said you loved me,” I hissed instead of pummeling the two women. “You liar!”

  Navine picked herself up from the floor then helped Kelle up. Navine took a tentative step toward me.

  “I’m sorry!” she wailed, but it sounded fake to my ears.

  “How long?” I asked, my voice somehow dead calm.

  “Andreada, please…”

  “How long?” I shouted, making both of them flinch.

  “Long enough,” Kelle said from behind Navine.

  My mind went blank. I ran forward, shoving Navine into the wall before grabbing Kelle’s shirt in both of my fists.

  “You fucking bitch!” I screamed then swung her around with everything I had, letting go so she would smash into the wall.

  Instead, she literally flew down the stairs head-first. The instant I let her go I knew my life would never be the same. The force I’d used was more than I intended, as was my release point. I only wanted to hurt her, to let her know that she’d stolen everything from me but wasn’t going to steal the last moments of my time with Navine.


  Kelle’s gasp was cut short when her head bounced off the stairs with a sickening crack, a second one following when her body hit the landing below. I stared at her for a few seconds, part of my brain happy that I’d knocked her out, another part screaming inside my skull that I had killed her. When she didn’t move, didn’t breathe, I felt my entire body become cold.

  “Nooo!” Navine screamed and shoved me out of the way.

  She bounded down the steps to the next landing and kneeled beside her new lover. Navine’s hand went to Kelle’s neck, then her chest. Navine turned and looked at me with fear and hate.

  “You killed her,” she said, her voice so low I almost didn’t hear her.

  “No…” I said and closed my eyes.

  “You killed her!” Navine yelled loud enough to hurt my ears.

  I took a step toward the stairs down but stopped when Navine pointed at me while backing away.

  “You’re evil,” Navine said with venom. “You’re going to burn for this.”

  She turned and ran down the stairs, screaming at the top of her lungs that I’d murdered someone. I took off after her, bounding down steps three at a time, praying that I wouldn’t slip or miss a step and end up like Kelle. When Navine realized I was only a meter from her, she shrieked even louder, tears and snot spraying from her nose and mouth.

  I caught her on the third landing, my hand first slipping away from her shirt but finding her hair after another three steps. She whirled and tried to slap me but lost her balance and nearly fell backward. I tried to pull her into me, to hug her, to tell her I was sorry, but her second attempt to hit me connected. My vision went white for a few seconds and I swayed, my grip on her hair suddenly broken. I thought she might hit me again but only began to scream and race down the stairs again.

  When I caught her a second time, she hit me with a closed fist. Navine wasn’t a fighter any more than I was, but the sudden pain of my nose being smashed into a million pieces rebooted my rage. I shoved her as hard as I could.

  Navine’s arms whirled as she tried to stop herself, her legs scrabbling for purchase until she hit the railing. Time stood still then moved forward in slow motion as her body tilted and went over the edge. I could only stand frozen in place as I watched the woman I believed I would spend the rest of my forty years with disappear from the landing.

  I ran to the edge while my ears tried to filter out her scream. Her screams died along with her when she slammed into the floor twenty meters below. I remained frozen, staring down at her broken, bloody body until voices began to shout above and below me. I panicked and ran down the stairs, shoving anyone in my way to the side.

  I didn’t stop when I passed Navine’s body. I didn’t stop when a number of voices shouted at me. I didn’t stop even when my brain finally forced me to acknowledge what I’d done. I ran without direction, without thinking beyond avoiding citizens and especially Guardians.

  I finally stopped two hours later when my sides and lungs hurt so badly that I thought I was suffering cardiac arrest. I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t know where I was going. My first thought was to find the nearest kiosk or citizen with a comm unit and turn myself in.

  I immediately pushed that idea into a dark hole when I realized what my fate would be. The thought of stepping through the Justice portal filled me with dread that drowned out the other emotions fighting for control. My next thought was of suicide. I had just murdered my fiance and her partner. I had nothing left to live for other than facing the Upperjustice ministers as they read my sentence. Death seemed a far better option.

  The Bower, some part of my brain offered. I latched onto it. The Bower was, as far as I knew, worse than both death and whatever unknown fate awaited on the other side of the Justice portal. But I wasn’t ready to kill myself, and I definitely had no intention of stepping into the portal reserved for criminals and misfits.

  I calmly walked out of the narrow alley I had ran into to catch my breath. I was sure an army of Guardians would descend on me any second. All I saw was a few curious glances from citizens as they went about their business. No doubt a crazed, murderous woman with a bloody nose and even bloodier shirt was something they didn’t cross paths with every day, but they were too polite to do more than shake their heads while giving me a friendly smile.

  “Excuse me,” I said to a man who waited at the corner. He turned toward me, his eyes widening for a fraction of a second before resuming his normal citizen persona. “Can you please direct me to The Bower?”

  “I’m sorry?” the man said, taken aback as if I’d just asked him to smash me in the head with a hammer.

  “The Bower,” I said. “I need to know how to get to The Bower.”

  “Uh, why do yo—”

  “Just tell me where the fucking Bower is,” I growled.

  “Sure,” he said after taking a step back. “You can board any transit to Polaris District then head east for a couple of blocks. You can’t miss the big, ugly scar in the ground.” He peered at me with narrowed eyes. “Why do you wa—”

  But I was already running. The Polaris District was almost ten klicks away and I’d have to cover it on foot. The instant I boarded a transit car or did anything that required my ID, the Guardians would track me down.

  I ran for another hour then holed up in the stairwell of an apartment building in the Uriah District. My mouth was a desert, my nose, chin, and shirt crusted with dried blood. My sides were on fire, and my brain was in meltdown mode. I thought I would go crazy, but I fell asleep within seconds of my head touching the dirty fibrene floor.

  I woke to darkness. I was thankful for that more than I was ashamed about relieving myself in the stairwell. Then I was on the run again. I expected some of the billboards and information panels to have my picture along with “WANTED” in big red letters. Murders were rare in the city, and double murders were so rare as to cause a major uproar.

  I stuck to the alleys when possible, and when not, I pretended like I had every right to walk down the city’s streets at night. Every eye that fell upon me was a potential enemy, one who would call the authorities and put an end to my escape. Every intersection was a gamble thanks to the cameras and traffic drones.

  I didn’t think it would be possible to make to the Polaris District, sure that a drone or some other sensor along the way would set off an alarm once my ID was detected. No one paid attention to me. No Guardians fell from the sky to apprehend me and whisk me off to the Upperjustice Ministry. No alarms blared to alert half the city that a murderer was in the area.

  ***

  Departure: -19y 08m 23d

  I watched the road that led down into The Bower for almost twelve hours while waiting for the right moment to make a dash for it. Guardians milled around the entrance at random intervals, but there seemed to be no set time they arrived, left, or hung out. I was hungry, thirsty, dirty, and desperate. I didn’t know how long before I snapped. I was running out of options when it came to eating, drinking, and sleeping.

  That worry forced me to think about how I ended up across the road from The Bower’s entrance. I had killed two women in cold blood, one of them my lover of almost two years. I broke down and cried for a long time. I cried for taking the life of the woman. Kelle. I tried to justify it by blaming her for knowingly fucking my fiance. When that didn’t work, I begged for forgiveness from both her and a God no one believed in anymore. Neither Kelle nor God forgave me.

  Navine… My dearest, sweetest, lovely Navine. My future wife. The woman I woke up each day just to see her smile. Navine would never smile again. I did everything I could to shut off my emotions. That worked for a few minutes, then the guilt tore me to shreds to the point I almost ran to the nearest citizen so I could give myself up and pay the price for my actions.

  Two hours later, I didn’t have time to think about Navine, Kelle, or anything else. The four Guardians at the entrance to The Bower disappeared into the hole. I looked around then bolted from my spot half a block away, praying no
one saw me as I streaked through the darkness. The Guardians would see me, of course. They saw all with their strange electronic eyes. The pitch black night that swallowed me up was impenetrable to all but the automatons.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Departure: -12h 07m 00s

  “We have to go, Drea,” Melly said, tugging my arm.

  “I don’t want to,” I said. She heard the sulking, near-whining in my voice. “Well, I don’t. I want to stay here with you.”

  “You can’t,” she said, her voice heavy with emotion. “You know you can’t. We’ve talked about this for years.”

  “I don’t care,” I said.

  “Bullshit. You do care. You’ve seen what happens when you miss your departure.”

  “I don’t care,” I said again, feeling every bit the petulant child that I sounded.

  “Then you lied all these years,” she said with sudden anger as she let go and pushed me away. “Because if you cared, you wouldn’t do that to me. You wouldn’t make me watch it.”

  “It’s not fair, goddammit!” I nearly screamed.

  “I know, baby,” she said, her face immediately back to the crushing defeat she’d tried to hide from me for the last few months.

  Hell, the last year or more, but it really began on my 39th birthday. She stroked my cheek, trying to wipe away my single tear without allowing herself to shed any. The heartbreak in her face made me want to fall to the floor and give up. I would just lie on the floor and cry until I missed my departure. The memory of what happened to the unlucky (or stupid) ones who missed their departures was ingrained in us from childhood. Even without the instructional holos we were forced to watch at various intervals in school, there would be one or two who drove the message home every month when they refused to depart.

  “Come on,” Melly said. “We have a ways to go just to get topside.”

  When I refused to budge, she cupped my cheeks and pulled me in close. I stared into her eyes for an eternity while she nearly destroyed me with an intensely passionate yet soft, loving, slow kiss. My mind whirled as her tongue gently flitted against mine. Time became nothing. My departure became a worry for someone else. I was no one and nothing, my only thought on Mellisandra and how much I loved her.