Deadzone

by Jennifer A. Nielsen

  "Oh, uh, which one?" Oliver asked, looking genuinely afraid. The kid obviously had no experience with crushes.

  Before Yoshi could make up an answer, Javi said, "I'm going to check it out. I think we have to take the risk that something in it will help us."

  "Okay, but tie yourself to the rope," Molly said, tossing one end over to him. "If something happens, I want an easy way to pull you back to us."

  Javi picked up his end of the rope and tied it around his waist. His smile and wide eyes revealed his excitement to test out the object, which made Yoshi even more nervous.

  "Be careful!" Oliver called. Yoshi noticed he looked over at the sisters when he said that, still wondering which of the girls had the crush on him.

  When Javi had finished knotting the rope, he wiped both hands down his pants, then tiptoed forward across the sand.

  "Are you sweating?" Anna called.

  "Even a little?" Molly asked. "It only takes one drop."

  "Now I'm starting to sweat, thanks to you two," Javi said. "Just let me do this and stop fussing!"

  "No mizu, Javi," Kira said in broken English. Javi must've figured out that she was reminding him about water, too. But she wouldn't know why he turned around to roll his eyes at her before he disappeared.

  The rope was visible to the edge of the field, then vanished just as Javi had. It was a strange sight, as if the rope were floating on its own, moving and bobbing gently with Javi's invisible movements.

  Oliver giggled. "Javi, it looks like you're dancing!" he said.

  Javi seemed to take this as encouragement. The rope moved more dramatically, swaying back and forth and then jiggling. Yoshi couldn't figure out what Javi might be doing to make it move that way. Suddenly, the pink ponies shirt reappeared out of nowhere and landed on the blood sand. He must've taken it off and tossed it. Being moist with sweat, the shirt immediately sank into the depths of the sand. Yoshi figured Javi would be okay with that.

  "We can understand ditching the shirt, but if you toss out any other clothing, we're going to ask you to stay invisible," Yoshi teased.

  Javi's laughter rang out as the rope shook. It was a little disconcerting.

  Javi seemed to get back to business after that. The rope went taut as he apparently moved toward the cylindrical object. There was a long moment of stillness and silence.

  And then Javi's bloodcurdling scream rang out across the desert.

  "Pull him back!" Akiko said.

  "Go help him!" said Kira.

  "Quiet!" Yoshi said. He drew his sword, while Molly and the others pulled hard on the rope. Javi lurched back into view, falling back onto the sand and slipping partway beneath the surface. He wasn't moving.

  "I'll get him," Yoshi said. "The rest of you, stay put!"

  Yoshi kept his sword at the ready. He didn't like that Javi was lying on the ground, seemingly indifferent to the fact that he was one sweat droplet away from being a sand grabber's lunch. What had happened to him?

  "Javi? Are you stuck?" Yoshi realized he was speaking to him like he was a four-year-old kid who had just dropped his ice-cream cone. "I'm coming to get you."

  Javi didn't answer. But with his free hand, he wiped at his eyes and sniffed hard.

  "Javi, give me your hand so I can pull you out."

  "Can you see me now?" Javi asked.

  "Yeah. I can see you're halfway submerged in blood sand. Give me your hand."

  With Yoshi's help, Javi pulled himself out of the sand. Molly was calling to them to hurry back onto the emergency blankets. But not yet, Yoshi decided. Javi didn't look too steady.

  Javi's eyes darted around. "Where's my shirt? I guess pink ponies are better than a desert sunburn."

  Yoshi half smiled. "It's sand grabber food now." Javi's shoulders slumped and he stuffed his fists into the shreds of his pocket, looking as if losing his pink ponies shirt was somehow the worst news he'd ever heard. Before he could say anything, Yoshi took off his backpack, unzipped it, and pulled out one of the shirts that he had salvaged from his own luggage the night before. "This will probably fit."

  Javi held it up, a short-sleeve button-up with black shoulders and a checkerboard torso. A very cool shirt as far as Yoshi was concerned. "You sure you want to give this to me?" Javi asked. "If you were lucky enough to find the one piece of luggage with clothes that look like your style, then--" He stopped, realization dawning in his eyes. "Oh. That was your bag, wasn't it?" He paused again. "That's why you've been so upset." He started to put on the shirt. "I won't tell the others. And maybe you won't tell them why I sank into the sand? About the crying?"

  Yoshi clamped a hand over Javi's shoulder and started to lead him back toward the blankets. "All I could see is that you were sweating, dude. Just like the rest of us."

  Oliver punched Javi lightly on the arm. "That was so cool! Did you know you were invisible before we told you? What made you reappear again? Did the desert look different while you were invisible? Could you see us?"

  "Yeah, it was ... pretty cool," Javi said. His mind was somewhere else entirely.

  "What did you see?" Molly asked.

  Javi took a deep breath. "I saw some bones. Old, bleached bones in a metal container. I guess it startled me."

  That was true enough, Javi figured. He just hoped nobody asked for more details.

  Molly looked skeptical, and Anna said, "That was quite a scream."

  "Like I said, I was startled," Javi insisted. "I was hoping for pizza and found bones." He tried a smile.

  "While you and Yoshi were talking, I made some calculations," Oliver said. "I estimated the distance based on what Yoshi described seeing from the top of the hill, the ratio of the desert to the overall hologram map that Anna saw in the cave, and how far we've traveled already. If we leapfrog the way we've been doing, we won't get off this sand until sometime tomorrow."

  "What if we run?" Anna asked. "Then we would have a shot at getting off tonight. We could make camp on better ground."

  "Where we can find water, and hopefully some food," Yoshi said. "And I don't know if any of you drool in your sleep, but let's not find out while we're still on the sand. It's a no-brainer. We should run."

  "If we run, someone else will go down in the sand," Javi said. "I think sweat is a bigger risk than drooling."

  "Every minute we're on the sand, our risk of someone going down increases!" Yoshi turned to Oliver. "Calculate those odds!"

  "It's cooled off a lot," Molly said. "We shouldn't have as much of a problem with sweating. But running directly on the sand does pose a greater risk. Let's take a vote."

  Yoshi translated for the sisters, and reported that both agreed with him, though Javi wasn't sure that was true. Kira was a risk-taker, but Akiko was still standing in the very center of her emergency blanket. No way had she voted to run.

  "I vote for safety," Oliver said. "It only costs us a day to continue leapfrogging."

  "But if it's another day like we've already had, I want off this sand," Anna said. "I think we should run."

  "Leapfrog," Javi said. He needed to slow down, to think about the implications of what he'd seen. Rushing anywhere right now seemed like a bad idea.

  "Sorry, Javi," Molly said. "I'm voting to run. Even with the blankets, we're safer if we can sleep on solid ground tonight."

  Assuming that whatever came after the blood sand was safer. Everyone wanted to believe that was true, but there was no way to know for sure. He didn't say it out loud, though.

  Molly made everyone double-check their water containers to be sure nothing was leaking. Everyone claimed to be dry again, and the first breeze of the yokaze gave them hope that if someone did start to sweat, the night wind would solve that problem. When they were sure it was safe, Molly folded up the emergency blankets and returned them to her backpack.

  Yoshi had his sword sheathed, but his hand was on its hilt, ready to pull it out if necessary. Javi stuck his hand inside his pocket, the knife tight in his grip.

  "We run together,"
Molly said. "No one gets too far ahead, and absolutely no one gets left behind. If you run into trouble, holler for help and the closest person will help you get out." She waited for Yoshi to finish translating, then said, "We run for four minutes, rest for one minute. Everyone ready? Go!"

  The team left at exactly the same time and did as Molly had instructed. Akiko was a slower runner, but Kira was right at her side, holding her hand and pulling her along. Yoshi was fast, but kept an eye out for Oliver behind him. Anna, Javi, and Molly made up the last of the group, though they were almost on the heels of the rest of their team.

  When about four minutes had passed, Molly called for everyone to stop and rest. Javi was glad to catch his breath, but was also surprised to discover that he preferred the run. When he ran, he had to focus on the team, on keeping himself dry, and on anything happening around them.

  Here, when he was still, he had time to think about what he'd seen in the cloaking field.

  "Javi," Akiko whispered beside him. When he looked over, she smiled and gave him a thumbs-up, which spoke more than her few words of English allowed her.

  He nodded back, reminding himself that this blood sand was their current problem, and everything else had to wait for now.

  "Go!" Molly said.

  They ran again, passing a whole spine of rocks that Javi was sure Molly must have seen. She didn't order them onto the rocks, though. She just wanted them going forward as fast as possible. So he redoubled his efforts, imagining there was something snapping at his heels. It was all too easy to picture, and it kept him moving.

  "And stop," Molly said four minutes later. She looked back. "I think we've come a long way. Maybe almost a mile."

  "Recalculating," Oliver said. Seconds later, he nodded. "I think we can do this."

  "That's not very specific for someone's who supposed to be good at math," Yoshi said. "What were you recalculating, exactly?"

  "Our odds," Oliver said. "I didn't figure you'd want the exact number, but since you asked, back where we started our run, our odds of getting off of the blood sand were about a hundred to one. Now they're ... better."

  "Enough talk," Molly said. "Everyone get ready, and run!"

  And so they did, starting and stopping and starting again, continuing forward in fast-paced bursts of dry sprints for what seemed like an hour. Javi's mouth had become its own desert, his tongue sticking mercilessly to the roof of his mouth, and he was sure everyone else felt the same way, but nobody suggested bringing out their water. His legs were beginning to ache, and even after a minute's rest, he couldn't catch enough of a breath to begin running with nearly as much energy as before.

  There was some good news. He'd finally gotten Hercules in range again and pushed the remote control to stop his rolling. When they had caught up with it, Javi picked up the robot and inspected it.

  "I agree, it's been useless in protecting us," Javi said, "but at least it hasn't tripped over its whiskers."

  "Not yet," Yoshi said.

  "Let's just walk for a while," Molly said, although Javi could tell she wasn't nearly as winded as he was. "At least we're moving forward."

  "Good," Anna said. "Because I have some questions for Javi."

  Javi groaned. He just wanted to get Hercules strapped onto his back and think about nothing more complicated than that. "Later, okay?"

  "These are important now. For instance, how do we know there isn't a cloaking field beside us right here?"

  That was a fair question, and luckily, one he could answer without getting a pit in his stomach. "I didn't see the cloaking field at first, but once I knew it was there, I could see that the light was distorted around it. Not much, maybe how it would look if you were wearing a pair of glasses with a prescription that was a little off. Trust me, this whole run I've been watching everything around us. There's no distortions."

  "But if we did see a distortion, what does that mean?" Oliver asked. "Is it a buried device like the ones we found in the jungle? Do our devices have a stealth setting?"

  "I'm more concerned about the possibility of an ambush we can't see coming," Yoshi said.

  Javi shrugged. "I think even if there's another cloaking field, it's probably empty. Nothing was in the first one."

  "Just a pile of bones in a metal cabinet?" Anna asked.

  "Uh, yeah," Javi said.

  Anna stepped closer to him. If she noticed the beads of sweat forming on his forehead or his increased rate of breathing, she didn't care. "Were they human bones?" she asked.

  "No, and I don't want to--"

  "An animal?"

  "I--I don't know."

  "How could you not know?"

  "Enough, Anna!" Molly said. "He's not ready--"

  Javi stopped and turned to face Anna directly. He knew he was going to yell, but he didn't care anymore. "What I saw was a monster. It was hideous, like a human skeleton but ... tall, and angular. It was misshapen and covered in slime and ... and it didn't look like anything I've ever seen. And if it had been alive, I'm pretty sure it would have shredded me to bits in an instant. Are you happy now? Does that answer your questions?"

  "Sort of." Anna paused, as if trying to think of something to say. Finally, she said, "I'm sorry, Javi. I can understand why that would be unsettling."

  Javi almost laughed. "Unsettling," he said. "Sure. That's one word for it."

  But it was hard to put into words just how spooked he was. That skeleton had looked real to him, which meant it had once belonged to a living, breathing creature.

  And that led directly to the question that guaranteed he'd be having nightmares for as long as they were stuck here.

  Were they sharing the rift with a living version of that thing?

  She had pushed too far, again. As she always took everything too far. Deep inside, Anna had always wondered if the only reason Team Killbot allowed her to work with them was because of her talent with robotics, and not because they liked her. She knew she wasn't the easiest person to like.

  This time, she planned to make it up to Javi. Of everyone in their group, she had the best chance to understand the biology of the rift. All living things--even "monsters"--had strengths and weaknesses. If there were creatures out there that frightened Javi, she could figure out their weaknesses, and then they could defeat anything that threatened them. It was simple science.

  Molly had the team running again. She said she'd spotted trees up ahead, which Anna couldn't see yet, but she didn't say anything about it possibly being a mirage. Even if Anna was right, Molly would take offense at the suggestion that the trees were only a figment of her dehydrated imagination. Maybe Molly had better eyes. The landscape did seem different on the horizon.

  Anna was pleased with herself for keeping that entire train of thought in her own head. Not that she had much breath for speaking.

  After another few bursts forward, Yoshi gave a whoop of joy and ran even faster. She looked to where he was pointing and realized Molly had been right--those were trees ahead. They were still only desert trees, but had a few actual leaves. Leaves meant water.

  Kira said something to Yoshi, who translated, "The sisters want to keep running until we're off the blood sand. I agree!"

  Team Killbot cheered. Everyone saw the trees by now, not far from some tall rocks right at the edge of the blood sand.

  Tall ... identically shaped rocks. That wasn't possible.

  Anna stopped running. Akiko was closest to her, so Anna grabbed her hand. The rest of Team Killbot stopped moments later, seeing the same problem she had already noticed.

  "Pincer robots," Yoshi muttered. "Five of them."

  They were spaced out along the edge of the blood sand, each one facing the team and with their pincers raised. The only way off the sand was to get past them.

  "What do we do?" Oliver asked, stepping toward Yoshi.

  Javi grabbed Hercules from off his back and turned on the battery again. "We can use this as a distraction. Send it off to the right while we remain still, and hope th
e pincer robots follow it." He looked at the robot as he set it on the ground. "Sorry, Hercules."

  Anna remembered the joke Yoshi had made about Javi kissing Hercules good-bye. Javi looked so sad now, she almost thought he might do it.

  To her surprise, Anna realized she felt a desire to say good-bye to the robot, too. They had built Hercules from scratch, from nothing more than metal parts scattered across a table. She was proud of the job her team had done. They had all hoped Hercules would win that competition--that it would come through for them, follow their instructions, and take down the competition.

  And she supposed, they felt the same hopes for Hercules now. It was only the stakes that were different. Hercules had to be sacrificed in order to defend the team. Even though it was only a robot, the thought of losing it made her feel sad, too.

  Anna wasn't sure how to deal with that. Emotions were hard.

  She knelt beside Javi, put a hand on Hercules, and said, "Thanks, little toaster. Win this one for our team, okay?"

  Anna and Javi released Hercules, who rolled to the right, his soccer-kicking appendage ready for battle.

  Sensing the movement, the pincers responded, aiming their attention toward Hercules.

  "Now what?" Oliver asked.

  Anna pulled out the device she had been carrying in her backpack. "What about using low tech? It exploded the mites."

  "These things are five times the size," Javi said. "That's five times the explosion. Five times the amount of metal scrap in the air."

  "Then let's use low gravity," Anna said. "Stir up some sand twisters."

  Molly's grin was cautious. "That's a risk to us, too."

  "We can dodge the twisters," Javi said. "Not explosions."

  Molly pulled out her device as well. "Okay, but let's make a run for it, getting as close to the edge of the blood sand as we can. As soon as the robots are within range, or if they cut us off, turn on the low grav and hope it works like before."

  Yoshi had been translating, and everyone heard Kira's loud sigh. He turned to the rest of the team and said, "She thinks this is a terrible plan."

  "A terrible plan is better than no plan," Javi said.

  Was it? Anna wondered. Chaos certainly had its place in nature. Regardless, she rotated the disk to the "low tech" setting, but she'd use it only as a last resort.