(eng) K. A. Applegate - Remnants 02 by Destination Unknown

Author:Destination Unknown [Unknown, Destination]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

‘THEY’RE HEADING FOR OUR PEOPLE!’

‘It was peaceful,’ Shy Hwang said to his daughter.

It took her a moment to track. Was he talking about Yago’s coup? The disturbing landscape?

No, of course not. He meant her mom’s death. 2Face blushed with the good half of her face.

‘I know, Dad. We were all asleep. She was asleep. It was peaceful.’

Her father let out a stifled sob. He wiped tears from his eyes and set his face in a parody of determination.

2Face had never thought much about her parents’ relationship. It had always been there. They argued occasionally but made up quickly. But of course they’d been together for seven years before 2Face was born. Not that 2Face wasn’t devastated by her mother’s death. But, to her shame, she had to admit that her father’s grief was deeper, more personal.

She resisted the insidious edge of contempt for her father. It was right that he grieve. She was the bad one, she was the one who was failing her mother’s memory. Her father was reacting the way a man who loved his wife should.

And yet, he had to be able to see that there was a crisis before them, a mess that required action.

He’d be okay. He’d be okay in time. That was it, he needed time.

Why didn’t she? How had she turned so quickly away from grief? Maybe she was more resilient. Or maybe she was just more cold-blooded, less feeling than her father.

She reached for her father to take his arm, to comfort him, but something held her back. Instead she said, ‘Maybe we should hurry up or Mo will get way ahead of us.’

Shy Hwang shook his head, trying again to resume the mantle of parental authority. ‘No. I’ll call him back. We should stick together and take our time. We’re in a strange place.’

He yelled to Mo’Steel, who pretended not to understand his words and simply waved back.

So 2Face and her father accelerated their pace, passing beneath a sketchy tree whose trunk seemed to have been constructed of three or four irregular slices of bark piled together.

Brush strokes. Miss Blake might be a simpering throwback, but she was right about this. It was all some weird 3-D representation of a painting. How had they done it, the aliens? Holograms and force fields? Genetic manipulation? Or was none of this real and the Wakers were still sleeping, sharing the same dream?

One thing was for sure: If any of this was real, the aliens, if aliens they were, had vast powers. It had to require enormous energies to excavate the gray-shade canyon, enormous power to grow this fabulously strange landscape.

Why? Why would an alien race want to do this? What was the motive — there had to be one. At least it wasn’t an aggressive move, that much was obvious. The aliens had gone to a lot of trouble to create an environment for their human guests. That had to be good news. In fact, very good news.

No, 2Face told herself, the real dangers were from within, from Yago and Billy Weir and Tamara and the baby.

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