Echo

by Valerie J Mikles

  The Bobsled rose over the trees, and Danny scanned the steep mountain terrain for the tell-tale black mark of a dome city. Between the map from Terrana and the information from Nola, he knew they had to be close.

  The first hour, everyone was chatty on the vring. Tray complained about getting jostled in the glider, and Chase made jokes from the comfort of the ward room. Tray’s mapping program worked like clockwork, filling in terrain information as the two teams scanned the land. It was fascinating to watch the world coming into light. This continent hadn’t been mapped in centuries—at least not by his people. Tray’s program overlaid the ancient maps, using a best guess analysis to pinpoint their position with respect to the old cities. The mountains were more stable than the coastlines, and all the rivers had changed course. Seasons were different and wildlife had migrated. Hopefully they’d have an easier time matching Corin’s directions to the new map.

  After three hours, Danny’s legs started to go numb. When he and Chase had dreamed up the Bobsled, they’d had much younger legs and planned much shorter trips.

  Lightning flashed across the sky, and Danny swore.

  “Lightning. We need to land. Hawk, Tray, I see lightning,” Danny vrang.

  “Clear skies in our quadrant. Not even a cloud,” Tray said. “It’s beautiful.”

  “Maybe you should head back anyway. I don’t want you getting caught in the rain,” Danny said.

  Sky touched down on the flattest ledge she could find. Pulling above the clouds wouldn’t help them find Cordova, nor would staying low to the ground. Once the rain started, they wouldn’t be able to see anything. If the past week was any indication, waiting for the storm to pass could take hours or days. This was ridiculous. It was time to go back to Quin.

  “I was so sure it was here between the mountains,” Sky grumbled, blowing air through her pursed lips. She pulled out a flask and took a drink.

  “This is not the time for sulking,” Danny said, taking the flask away from her. Sky shot him a look, then climbed over the seat to retrieve it. Danny scooted to the back of the ‘sled, but she crowded in, tugging his hips so he’d recline and she could be on top.

  “No, stop!” he laughed, moving the equipment out of the way. He grabbed her arms and they wrestled playfully, despite the cramped space. Once she had him pinned, she swiped the flask from his hand and took a drink. Then she bit her lip seductively.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, squirming. The Bobsled was too narrow to roll her off his body and the ceiling too low for him to push her.

  “You can’t tell?” she asked, teasing her fingernails against his sternum.

  “There’s no room,” he said.

  “Want to go outside?” She leaned close, dragging her lips over his cheek.

  “I’d like to sit up. I’m already losing feeling in my leg,” he said, shifting again. He could only remain uncomfortable so long before it stopped being fun.

  Sky shifted her weight, letting him move so they could sit properly on the saddle seat and cuddle. There was no comfortable way to be face to face, but he could hold her in his arms, and it was soothing to know she wanted to be there. When he held Amanda, it was to calm a fit. With Chase, it was confusing. With Sky, it was a comfort they both wanted. The rain blocked out the sights and sounds of the world and it was just them.

  “This is a better position,” Danny said, tugging up the hem of her shirt and dragging his fingers up her sides. Her skin was always cold to touch, but she never put on warm clothes. She hummed, arching her back ever so slightly to let him know the touch was welcome.

  “So, Jack Fisher. Not anything like Sydney Kassa, is he?” Danny asked, his foot finding his mouth. It was the most mood-killing method to ask whether her ex-lover intended to kill them.

  “No,” Sky sang.

  “John?” he asked. Sky’s relationship with Hawk’s father seemed rooted in confusion and miscommunication, but John was as gentle as men came.

  “Chase? Santos? Sikorsky?” Danny asked.

  “You’re really going to list all my former lovers?” Sky asked.

  “Remember that tact we ran out of back in Boone? And what was that one’s name? Brandon?”

  Sky smirked.

  “Don’t tell me he’s like me,” Danny chuckled.

  “Oh, we have one drunken make-out session and you think you’re on the list?” Sky teased, giving Danny’s thigh a pinch.

  “No, you’ve been flirting with me for almost a year. You seem to want me on the list.” Danny let his hands sink down over her hips. The Nolan drugs may have lowered their inhibitions briefly, but the desire to be with her had been there for a while.

  “Jack’s not like any man I’ve been with,” Sky said.

  “And you parted on good terms.”

  Sky sniggered again. “Don’t worry, Danny. Jack’s a scientist. Sex was always more of an experiment than an experience. Adorably inquisitive, no boundaries. You’re not an exhibitionist, by chance?”

  Craning her neck, she kissed his chin playfully. Danny laughed, hoping it was a joke, but worried it wasn’t.

  “But they won’t try to breed us?” he checked.

  “Oh, no. They’re masters of genetics, that’s why I thought they could help Hawk’s people,” she said, settling against him and pushing his hand into her pants. “All their babies are made in test tubes. Sex is purely recreational.”

  Danny swallowed, his body getting hot. “Now I get why you like them.”

  4

  Morrigan’s hands shook as she entered the code to unlock the medicine cabinet. The meds Saskia had given her barely touched the pain in her face. Closing her swollen right eye, she tried to get the left one to focus on the medicine labels.

  In the past, she’d gotten angry at Sky for shooting Amanda when Amanda was having a fit. Morrigan had felt sympathy for her patient. Now Morrigan was the one sleeping with a pulse rifle next to her pillow. She glanced at the countertop, making sure the weapon was still within reach. Amanda’s potential to channel psychic powers, mind control, and telekinesis meant that Morrigan could be disarmed with a thought, but she still felt better having the weapon at her side.

  There was a cocktail of three drugs Morrigan used when she needed to escape. Her neck and shoulders ached from poor sleep, and there was no reason to put up with that, so she added a fourth. There was already a chance of overdose when she self-medicated, but right now, she didn’t care.

  A bustling sound from the hall, followed by a deep, whispering voice alerted her to someone’s approach. Her heart rate accelerating, she set down her jet and raised her pulse rifle. Chase edged into the infirmary, hands raised, eyes on the weapon.

  “You opened the cabinet,” he said.

  “I needed medicine,” she said, fumbling for the jet again. Her words were slurred by the swelling in her mouth. “I can’t be her doctor anymore. I have no idea what I’m doing.”

  That was the real problem. Morrigan had been stripped of her medical license less than a year into her residency. She was here because she couldn’t practice medicine in Quin. Someone as inexperienced as her should have been able to consult a more experienced physician for a patient as volatile as Amanda, but Morrigan was out here alone.

  Chase pursed his lips. “We’ll find Cordova soon. Then she’ll be their problem. Patient.”

  Morrigan shuddered and wiped her upper lip with the back of her hand.

  “Saskia says there’s a topical gel that might help,” Chase tried. He’d come in to stop her, and she had no doubt he’d called Saskia for backup. They weren’t going to let her take these meds.

  “Where?”

  “Where’s the gel? Don’t you know?” Chase asked, looking to the open cabinet. She’d emptied half the cabinets already, searching for some alternative. Something that would keep her from this dangerous cocktail.

  “I’ll take the jet,” Chase said, holding out his hand. She could jab him with the meds, and then he could enjoy the relief from reality. Mor
rigan closed her fingers around the jet, then extended her hand. What was she doing? This was for her, not him or anyone else. She jammed the jet into her belly, injecting herself before he could stop her.

  “Morrigan!” Chase cried, catching her in his arms. The jet fell to the floor, and Morrigan’s body folded in half. The effects weren’t instant, but the halos in her vision went from white to black and her face throbbed.

  “Why’d you have to do that? What was in there? What’d you give yourself?” Chase asked, tucking her body against his. He’d tried to comfort her these past few days, just as she’d tried to comfort him after he’d been tortured. Neither of them belonged on Oriana.

  “It hurts,” Morrigan said, pointing to her wounded cheek. “Where is the gel?”

  Chase lifted her onto the bed and tucked a pillow under her head. “I’ll find it. Let’s hope whatever you gave yourself doesn’t kill you.”

  “I’ll be fine once it kicks in,” she said. Fire spread through her body. Morrigan keened, her body arching, her eyes shooting open. Amanda stood at the door, watching with her creepy, unfeeling eyes. Morrigan’s hand flapped, feeling for the pulse rifle.

  “What are you doing here?” Chase snapped, glaring at Amanda while keeping Morrigan braced to the bed.

  “I came to help,” she replied, cocking her head so that her brown hair curtained her cheeks.

  “You two need to stay away from each other,” Chase said. Morrigan wished he’d to let go of her and grab the pulse rifle to defend them, but he didn’t touch weapons.

  “You need the numbing cream?” Amanda asked, stepping into the room.

  “Amanda, just leave her alone,” Chase begged.

  Amanda scanned the room, her face calm, her eyes never blinking. Then she went to one of the drawers and pulled out a tube.

  “Everything’s labeled in here,” she explained. “Spend enough time on that bed and you’ll have the labels memorized, too.”

  She approached them slowly, holding out the tube. “I’m sorry. Please—”

  Chase snatched the tube. “Thanks. Please go.”

  The meds reached Morrigan’s mind and the panic around Amanda’s presence went fuzzy. Numbness spread across her face, accompanied with a surge of incredible relief. Chase floated over her, his body silhouetted by the overhead lights. He turned the tube of medicine in his hand.

  “This should help, right?” he asked her. He tried opening the tube, but his fingers twitched, and he couldn’t get a grip. Crying in frustration, he nudged Morrigan’s shoulder.

  “I need a hand opening this,” he said.

  Morrigan laughed. She didn’t need the gel anymore.

  The goggles and the oxygen mask kept Hawk’s face warm, and the cold wind cut at the collar of his flight jacket. His long hair had been shaved off, and his hat seemed to catch in the fine peach fuzz, making his head itch. The next modification he’d make to his glider was adding a hood.

  Even with the improved engine he and Chase had installed, and the oxygen masks, they were limited in their altitude. All the instruments for measuring altitude, attitude, and speed were ad hoc add-ins that he and Sky had done to make the glider safer.

  “The others are grounded in a storm,” Corin relayed, speaking Nolan.

  “And they’re not talking?” Hawk asked, answering in Rocanese. Their languages weren’t exactly the same, but close enough, and it was comforting to speak his native tongue and be understood.

  “We muted them,” Corin said. “I think Sky was on top at the time. Would you like to hear?”

  “Oh, kerf. No!” Hawk exclaimed, wishing Corin hadn’t evoked that particular mental image.

  “I’ve been thinking about a line in the song,” Corin said. “They greet us at the mountain’s side, and they guide us on the path.”

  “What about it?” Hawk asked. “Sky said something similar. They were tracking her for days, and they intercepted her before she saw the city. It’s probably tricky on foot, but even a small settlement would be noticeable from above.”

  “My people used to trade often with Cordova, before we started purging spirits,” Corin said. “The medical technology that partially healed my ribs is a hundred years old, but it came from trade with them.”

  “Do they have a lot of spirits there?” Hawk asked. If the trick to finding Cordova was passing into another realm, Hawk didn’t want to go.

  “I don’t know. It wasn’t part of my training. I could ask, but then I would have to… ask. Any information we have would be a century out of date,” Corin said, distress creeping into his melodic voice.

  “Don’t get upset. I’m not going to ask you to call home.”

  “I’ve been sitting up too long. I need to rest,” Corin said, his panting becoming more labored.

  “Okay, bébé. I love you.” He thought he heard a sob before Corin cut the vring. He waited a moment, then switched to Trade. “Who else is listening?”

  “I am,” Saskia replied.

  “Is Corin okay?” Hawk asked.

  “He’s lying down. Healing is exhausting,” Saskia said, sounding unconcerned. “How about Tray?”

  “I’m staying low so he can take his mask off whenever he needs to throw up,” Hawk said. “How many sick bags did you give us?”

  “Ten. But if he needs more than one, you should turn back.”

  “That’s hardly fair. He needed the first one before we even got our wheels off the ground,” Hawk chuckled. “I’ll update you in a few.”

  He switched to an internal comm so that he and Tray could talk privately. “Still with me back there?”

  “Umm,” Tray stammered.

  “Is the survey equipment working?”

  “Yeah. Cameras are fine. It’s my eyes that are blurry,” Tray said, his voice haggard.

  “Let’s turn back. This headwind is burning my fuel. We won’t finish half the grid at this rate.” Hawk wasn’t sure how steeply he could bank without making Tray sick.

  “We brought extra. We’re staying out until we find it,” Tray said. In Tray’s mind, if today’s search failed, their next stop was Quin. Maybe they weren’t meant to find the city.

  “Sky was pretty sure it was in her grid anyway,” Hawk murmured.

  “So, this was just a joy ride?” Tray sputtered.

  “Could have been, if you’d just enjoy it,” Hawk smirked.

  Tray laughed, then made a heaving sound. Hawk flew them between two mountain peaks and the wind shifted. The plane dropped ten feet and Tray yowled. A glowing, purple halo filled Hawk’s vision, signaling a powerful energy source. The light temporarily blinded him, and a gust of wind pushed the glider higher. He looped around but couldn’t close his spirit eyes to the electrical net in shape of a dome.

  “Tray!” Hawk called.

  “I’m okay,” Tray moaned.

  “That’s a dome.”

  “Are you sure?” Tray asked. “There’s nothing on my sensors. And I don’t see anything.”

  “I see it. The sun’s energy is heating up the shell. They’ve figured out how to make themselves invisible,” Hawk cried. “Get ready for landing.”

  “Ha!” Tray said weakly. “We win!”

  5

  Hawk had braced himself for a portal to another dimension, but he hadn’t been prepared for an invisible city. He was pleased to see it was concealed by technology and not spirit power. Most domes were opaque stone structures, and they didn’t light up with energy the way this one did. Now he knew why Sky had said they would hear them before they saw them. There was that line in Corin’s song about being guided in, and that, too, seemed to suggest outsiders couldn’t find the city on their own.

  The dome didn’t hit Hawk’s eyes as a solid object, and the trees surrounding it presented a problem, since it took a bit of space to land the glider. From what he could see through his physical eyes, he was almost certain the dome was situated on a cliff face. Though his glider had every upgrade Quin could offer a small craft, the brakes hadn’t been te
sted on rough, muddy terrain. Still, when the wheels touched down, the shocks absorbed most of the jostling. They overshot their mark and stopped only ten feet short of a giant boulder.

  Hawk whipped off his harness and pulled down his mask. Behind him, Tray panted hard, and Hawk decided not to look, in case there was more vomit. Closing his spirit eyes, he surveyed the area. The open spot he’d found to land looked like it had been cleared and leveled by humans. There were wide trail heads leading into the woods, and a large, raised wooden deck that went from one trail head all the way to the face of the cliff.

  “Should we knock?” Hawk asked, tapping Tray’s knee excitedly. Tray slipped a pulse rifle into his hand.

  “I don’t see a dome,” Tray said, clearing his throat. He shifted forward to peek out. “There’s nothing to knock on.”

  “They’re using technology to hide themselves,” Hawk said. “Now tell Sky to get off the Captain and get over here.”

  Tray gave him a questioning look and relayed his doubts to Saskia. Eager to make contact, Hawk stripped off his gloves, his outer shell coat, and his hat, then tucked the pulse rifle into a holster under his shoulder. He scanned for any sign of a greeting party, but imagined the locals might be unnerved by his ability to home in on their dome without assistance.

  “We meet them on the mountainside, and they guide us on the path,” Hawk said, echoing the song.

  “Let’s just hope they don’t guide us off the cliff,” Tray muttered, scanning the drop-off. “I don’t see any railing.”

  “You’ll hit the dome before you hit the cliff,” Hawk assured, offering Tray a hand as he climbed out of the cockpit.

  Tray seemed happy to be out of the plane, but he didn’t like the ground much better. The terrain was soft and gravelly, giving under his weight like wetland mud. The glider had one wheel stuck in the mud, and it’d be a pain to take off again. Still, the gravel indicated human intervention in the landscaping.