Arrival. Морган Райс

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СКАЧАТЬ and computers. There was even something that looked like an old-fashioned telegraph machine in the corner, as if the people there didn’t trust that the more modern equipment would be there for them when it was needed.

      “They have so much stuff,” Luna said, pressing a button and getting a burst of white noise in response.

      “We have so much stuff now,” Kevin pointed out. “Maybe if there are other people out there, we’ll be able to communicate with them.”

      Luna looked around. “Do you think there are other people left? What if it’s just us?”

      Kevin didn’t know what to say to that. If he was going to be trapped as one of the last people in the world, there was no one he’d rather be stuck with than his best friend. Even so, he had to believe that there were others out there somewhere. He had to.

      “There must be other people somewhere,” he said. “There are other bunkers and things, and some people will have worked out what was happening. There were people broadcasting pictures, so they must have known what was going on.”

      “But the screens went blank,” Luna pointed out. “We don’t know that they’re still out there.”

      Kevin swallowed at that thought. He’d assumed that the signal had just cut off, but what if it wasn’t the signal? What if the people sending it were also gone?

      He shook his head. “We can’t think like that,” he said. “We have to hope that there are more people out there.”

      “People who can kill the aliens,” Luna said, with a harsh glint in her eye. Kevin got the feeling that if she’d had the means to fight them, Luna would have been out there right now trying to take them on.

      Kevin could understand that. It was a part of who Luna was; a part of what he liked about her so much. He even felt a part of the same anger, feeling it bubbling up inside him at the thought of being tricked by the aliens, and at everything that had been taken from him.

      He needed the distraction of looking around the bunker as much as Luna did, because the alternative was thinking about his mom, and his friends, and everyone else who might have been standing under the alien ships when they came.

      They continued looking around the bunker, and it didn’t take long to find what looked like a back way out. The words “Unsealed Environment. For Emergency Escape Only!” were stenciled above a hatch that looked like the torpedo tube from a submarine, complete with big circular handle to seal it. It seemed barely big enough for most people to crawl through. Of course, for Kevin and Luna it would mean plenty of space.

      “Unsealed environment?” Luna said. “What do you think that means?”

      “I guess it means that there’s no airlock on this exit?” Kevin said, not sure. The words stenciled around it made it sound like something hugely dangerous to open. Maybe it was.

      “No airlock?”

      “People wouldn’t want one if they had to get out fast.”

      He saw Luna’s hand go to the gas mask that she’d had to wear for the whole drive over, and that now hung from the belt of her jeans. Kevin could guess what she was thinking.

      “There’s no way the alien vapor can get in here,” he said, trying to reassure her. He didn’t want Luna to be scared. “Not if we don’t open that door.”

      “I know it’s stupid,” Luna said. “I know that the vapor probably isn’t even out there anymore; that it’s just the people they’ve taken over…”

      “But it still doesn’t feel safe?” Kevin guessed. Nothing felt safe right then, even in a bunker.

      Luna nodded. “I need to get away from that door.”

      Kevin went with her, back into the bunker, away from the emergency exit. It actually made him feel a bit safer, knowing that the two of them could escape if they needed to, but he hoped they wouldn’t need to. They needed somewhere safe, right then. Somewhere they could hide from the aliens until it was safe to come out again.

      Or until his illness killed him. That was a particularly horrible thought. There weren’t any tremors from the leukodystrophy right then, but Kevin had no doubt they would be back, and worse. Only the fact that they had bigger things to worry about forced him to push thoughts of it away, and what did it say that it took an alien invasion to make his illness look insignificant?

      “I think there are rooms down here,” Luna said, leading the way down one of the corridors. There were. There were whole dormitories there, with rank after rank of bunkbeds that were mostly no more than metal frames, but with a few that had possessions by them, along with mattresses and bedding.

      “You’d have thought that some of them would stay inside,” Kevin said. “It makes no sense that there’s nobody here.”

      Luna shook her head. “They would have gone outside to help. And then… well, by the time they worked out it was a bad idea, the aliens would have controlled them.”

      That made a kind of sense, but it was still a horrible thought.

      “I miss my parents,” Luna said from nowhere, although maybe she’d been thinking it all this time. The pain that had come from Kevin’s mom being taken hadn’t gone away; it had just been pushed into the background by the need to keep doing things, by the need to get to safety, and to make sure that they would both stay safe.

      “I miss my mom, too,” Kevin said, sitting down on the edge of a bed frame. He found that it was impossible to picture her then as she’d been before the aliens came. Instead, the image that sprang to mind was of her as she’d been on the doorstep of their house, controlled by the aliens and trying to grab him.

      Luna sat on a bed frame of her own. Neither of them had picked one of the ones with bedding. That didn’t feel right somehow. Those felt as though they belonged to someone, and their owners might be back at any moment.

      “It’s not just my parents,” Luna said. “It’s all the other kids at school, all the people I’ve ever met. They’ll all have been taken. All of them.”

      She put her head in her hands, and Kevin reached out to take her hand, not saying anything. It was just as enormous for him in that moment, with the thought that everyone out there in the world might have been taken by the aliens. Ordinary people, celebrities, friends…

      “There are no people left,” Luna said.

      “I thought you didn’t like people anyway,” Kevin countered. “I thought you’d decided that most people are stupid?”

      Luna smiled slightly at that, but it looked as though it took an effort. “I’ll take stupid over controlled by aliens any day.” She paused for a moment. “Do you think… do you think that people will ever be all right again?”

      Kevin couldn’t look at her. “I don’t know.” He couldn’t see how they would. “We’re safe though. That’s all that matters.”

      It wasn’t, though. Not by a long way.

***

      They looked around the bunker until they found more bedding, not wanting to take anything from the bunks that were already set up. Those remained as pristine as if their owners might come back at any moment, although Kevin had to hope they wouldn’t, because he guessed that the aliens controlled СКАЧАТЬ