by Tracy Korn
Contents
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Quote
The Seam
1 Phase Three
2. Letting Go
3. Open Doors
4. The Line
5. Waking Up
6. Sojourner
7. Friends in Low Places
8. Pitstop
9. CEO
10. Piranha Wind
11. Leaving the Slide
12. Push On
13. Landing
14. The Wraith
15. The Badlands
16. Package 872
17. Stranglebush
18. The Mouth of the Wolf
19. Into the Tunnels
20. Find a Way or Make One
21. Tieg
22. When One Door Opens...
23. ...Another Closes
24. Round Two
25. Liddick
26. Drop Point
27. Going Deeper
28. The Between
29. Outfitting
30. Trackers
31. You Can Never Go Back
32. Recovery Rooms
33. The Prophecy
34. Distractions
35. The Platform
36. The Channel
37. The Core Room
38. The Space Between: Part One
39. The Space Between: Part Two
40. The Surge
41. Debriefing
42. The Hole in the Sky
43. Three Places at Once
44. Another Hole in the Sky
45. Seaboard
46. Somewhere Between Us
47. Transport
48. The Connection
49. Aftermath
50. The Leader
51. The Beginning
Continue the Journey
Acknowledgments
About the Author
IGNIS | Book Four
Copyright © 2018 by Tracy Korn. All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events or locales is purely coincidental. Reproduction in whole or part of this publication without express written consent is strictly prohibited.
Cover Design Copyright © 2018 by James Korn
Photography by J.Korn Photographics
www.jkornphoto.com
www.TheElementsSeries.com
Edited by Amy McNulty
Summary: The rebels at The Seam have been defeated thanks to the alleged treachery of one of their own. It won't be long before a manhunt ensues for Jazz's entire crew, and given what they know about Gaia's secret project, they won't be prosecuted…they'll just disappear. With Liddick still missing and the port-cloud stronger than ever, they haven't come this far to give in now. When Jazz announces she's going after Liddick herself, she draws a line in the sand she may not be able to erase. Arco has no choice but to let her go, but how does he lead everyone forward with the past holding him back? Outcast. Hunted. Lost. Success will demand a sacrifice.
On the edge, a leap of faith could save them all.
Digital Edition
For Ryan.
Fellow pilgrim, partner, and friend.
"I'm a pilgrim on the edge, on the edge of my perception. We are travelers at the edge, we are always at the edge of our perception."
~ Scott Mutter
"We, the people of The American Preserve, hereby organize under the articles of the Global Civic Council as agents for public health and commercial responsibility. Herein, we shall investigate and hold accountable by legal due process any organization, regardless of affiliation, which interferes with ecological sustainability."
Mission Statement for The Society for Environmental
Accountability and Management
(The S.E.A.M.)
CHAPTER 1
Phase Three
Jazz
The Boneyard is never empty. No matter what time of day or night, someone is always here.
If Vox and Lyden are eavesdropping on my thoughts like they usually do, they don’t say anything in reply. I guess everyone is too focused on trying to find out what to do now that the pro-Gaia propaganda they say Liddick wrote is bleeding through the virtuo-cines, seeping into the subconscious of anyone with even the slightest Empathic inclination. It will be harder than ever to convince the public that the port-cloud is literally killing the world now, and no one will believe The Seam’s claims about Gaia genetically experimenting on the people they’ve abducted or blackmailed.
It took us days to patch those glyphs, and someone has been at the consoles surrounding the column of light on the main floor of the Boneyard ever since. It was a gradient of rotating colors, each one representing a new script for the virtuo-cine that was pulled up…before Liddick reset the server and locked us out of the network anyway.
I watch the flat, gray cylinder jutting out of the platform in the distance. It’s hollow, dead, which is exactly how I feel when I consider the possibility that maybe the others are right. Maybe Liddick really did betray us.
I turn away from all of it, but especially from that thought, and look out the window panel in this corridor. It’s been closed until now. The milky port-cloud haze sits like a rising fog under the field of stars that extends into oblivion. Earth is under that cloud somewhere. That’s what they’ve been telling us, but they’ve been telling us a lot of things.
“When did three in the morning happen?” Arco asks, walking up behind me. He lifts his chin to the hovering blue hologram display over my head when I squint at him. It reads, 3:04 a.m. State Standard, American Preserve.
“I don’t know how anyone lives up here. It’s always dark.” I stare out at the haze and fold my arms over my chest, biting my lip to keep a yawn at bay.
“Calyx said there are bunks at the other end of this corridor. You should—“
“Arco, crite…” I let go of all the breath in my lungs as if it’s what’s weighing me down. “You should really stop telling me what to do.”
His eyes are wide when I look up at him, but then they fill with pity. All this does is light a fire under my skin.
“Sorry…” he says, then presses his lips into a line. In the light of the window haze, I can see shadow smudges under his eyes. He hasn’t slept at all either, I think, and the fire under my skin cools. “I’ll be down that way then.” He gestures past the main floor to the other end of the corridor where the bunks are supposed to be. “There’s nothing else we can do until they figure out how to get back onto the Grid.”
I nod at him but don’t follow when he turns to go. I just watch him, knowing he’s right about there being nothing else we can do right now. My dad, Calyx, Eco, and Tark, plus at least twenty more people behind consoles, are trying everything they can to regain access to the virtuo-cine network, but the feeling of hope slipping away is starting to thin the air. I know in the pit of my stomach they’re not going to be able to reverse the pro-Gaia propaganda Liddick wrote. Right this minute, it’s leaking into the subconscious of any Empath participating in a virtuo-cine, and it will eventually propagate to reach everyone, Empath or not.
Crite, sand dollar…lighten up, Vox thinks. My heart jumps into my throat at her loud voice suddenly in my head, especially since I can’t see her. I hear her snort in the direction of the main floor at my left, and when I jerk my attention that way, she snorts again.
“Go away, Vox. Go to sleep,” I say out loud.
“Been trying. Your pity party is too wild.”
I roll my eyes at her, regretting that I didn’t insist on Liddick showing me how to close off our thoughts back in the Vishan tunnels.
“Do you think he did it?” I ask after another minute. Vox slides around the corner with the back of her head leani
ng on the wall.
“No,” she says, and I notice her eyes are closed when she comes into the light. “But he definitely stepped in his net somewhere.”
“And now he’s tangled in it…” I say to myself.
Vox gives one giant nod, then overly exaggerates her response, letting her mouth open like gravity is pulling at her chin. “Yup.”
“We have to convince them that he’s innocent.”
She shakes her head from side to side, still without opening her eyes or moving her head from the wall.
“Quit bothering yourself with that.” The immediacy and certainty of her answer sends a spike of heat through my chest, but she interrupts my thoughts before I can say anything. And before you bark at me for hovering like I’m Arco, stow it, she thinks. Nobody said you’re a delicate flower. We do, however, think you’re being a skag.
“Really. Who’s we?” I hiss at her, and now she opens her eyes just long enough to drop her chin and stare at me like I’ve suddenly burst into song at three in the morning.
“Telling you to get some rest was boyfriend for ‘you’re being a skag.’ Everything isn’t about you, sand dollar,” she says, then heaves a resigned breath before I can respond. “Aaaand if you’re all done lamenting now, I’m going back to sleep in the chairs Sparkles told me to get out of.”
I fight the laugh in my chest at her nickname for Eco, wondering if she’s been trying to get the neural-whatever-they-are lights in his face to go from a pulse to a steady stream of red. She pushes off the wall with the back of her head, then heads back down the corridor to the main floor with her arms stretched out in front of her.
Open your eyes! I shout after her in my mind. She throws a thumb up in the air but doesn’t turn around…or lower her arms.
I look back out the port window at the haze below and remember the Vishan Lookout Pier…the zephyrs that came together to hover over the Bale field looking like simple fog instead of the razor-toothed tornado monsters they actually were. Arco brought me up there to talk about how distant I was being then…and he was right. He was right about all my doubts just being my own fears that I was projecting on everyone else. I thought he was the one who doubted me then with his constant hovering, but it was me…those were my own doubts the whole time. Did that just happen again? I wonder. Maybe I am being a skag…being angry feels better—not right, but better, I remember. It’s better than feeling helpless. I close my eyes and shake my head. I’m an idiot. I have choices. I don’t just have to watch all this happen. I remember the invisible panel door that leads out of here is close, and I stretch out my hand, immediately feeling the difference in air pressure. It’s right there. I could leave right now and find Liddick myself.
All at once I feel a weight lift off my chest. I turn and walk directly into the main room with the circle of uplink chairs. Tark and Calyx are talking with my dad. Eco, Liam, and Lyden are typing like mad men at their consoles, and Arwyn is saying something to Arco, who looks like he doesn’t want to hear it. I clear my throat.
“I’m going to find him,” I announce, then set my shoulders, waiting for the deluge of rebuttals to crash into me.
“What?” Jax finally says the word frozen on everyone else’s lips. Arco blinks at me, trying again to say something, but nothing comes out.
“I’m not leaving him out there. He didn’t do this,” I say, turning to look at my brother. His eyebrows shoot up as he gapes at me.
“Uh, did you miss the part where they have a record of him resetting the server and erasing all your work?” Jax chuffs a laugh. “You saw him with your own eyes, Jazz. You saw him pull that lever.”
“That doesn’t mean he planned to sabotage us. You didn’t see his face when he realized it was me in that virtuo-cine. He thought someone was playing games with him in there… We just need to let him explain what happened.”
“Mr. Wright had a storyboarder credential,” Mr. Tark says, blowing out an exasperated breath. “He wrote that pro-Gaia propaganda thread and the subliminal glyph code that now incriminates you and Mr. Hart.” Tark’s golden eyes are stony when he pulls a big hand over his mouth and down his chin, dropping the sentences on the floor like they’re made of lead. I clench my teeth to keep from yelling my response.
“I don’t care how it looks. He wouldn’t betray us. I know there’s more to this story, and I’m going to find out what really happened,” I say, turning toward the door at the end of the corridor. I only get a few steps before it hits me that I have no idea how to get out of here once I’m through the first panel door, let alone where to even begin looking for Liddick.
“You’re just going to go?” Arco says so quietly I wonder if it’s actually a thought in my head. I look back and see him slide his hands into his white jumpsuit pockets, his broad shoulders seeming to dip under the weight of something heavy. Everything that’s been rigid about him for so many weeks—or has it been months now?—slips away. He raises his chin just a little and asks me again. “You’re just going to leave? That’s it?”
“I have to,” I finally hear myself say, the edges of the words crumbling like dry leaves, which is exactly how everything inside me suddenly feels: brittle…breaking.
“And where will you go?” he asks, pressing his lips into a line and narrowing his eyes at me, genuinely interested in my answer.
“I don’t know; what were Liddick’s last coordinates?” I manage, shooting my focus at Eco. The lights in his cheeks flash green as he laughs out loud.
“You can’t just walk into the Mainframe Office, Jazwyn. We can’t even get into that place.”
“How do you know that? Have you ever tried?”
Eco opens and closes his mouth, then looks at Calyx.
“Well, no, but that’s because we already know—“
“You don’t know. You don’t know because you’ve never tried.”
“Jazz, are you listening to yourself?” Jax asks. “If The Seam can’t get into that place, neither can Liddick, even with all his connections. Someone had to let him in there—someone he’s obviously working for.”
“And are all the people who work at the Mainframe office pro-Gaia? Pro-Biotech Global and Carboderm Corporation? Are they all against The Seam?” I turn to my dad. He crosses his arms over his chest and sighs.
“No, minnow, but at best, the ones who aren’t have to appear neutral. It’s dangerous to bite the hand that feeds you at that level.” He struggles to say the last few words, like he’s suddenly in pain now too. What is this? More pity? I don’t need pity from anyone. I need answers!
“What if Liddick didn’t realize what he was doing? What if he’s in trouble?”
“Jazz,” Arco says with the last of a breath. “What if he’s not? What if he just he saw his opportunity and took it?”
“Opportunity for what? To be a storyboarder? He doesn’t care about that! He wouldn’t betray us!” I force out the last words as my throat constricts.
“I know you want to believe that, but look at his track record over the years.”
“He was trying to help his brothers, Arco. You know he wanted to keep the rest of us safe.”
“All he managed to do was either use people or alienate them. What is it going to take for you to see that he just doesn’t care what happens to you? Why can’t you see that I’m—“ Arco breaks off his words like a branch over his knee…hard and sudden. The silence that follows snaps me in the chest, and all I can do is shake my head at him, waiting for the rest of what he was going to say. He pushes his hands through his hair and turns away from me.
“Look, I know you don’t like him. I know you don’t trust him,” I say. “But I’m not asking you to do either of those things. I’m asking you to trust me.”
Arco doesn’t turn around. He clasps his hands behind his neck and sighs. The muscles in his back flinch behind the thin, white jumpsuit fabric, and I can feel him trying not to scream at the top of his lungs. He blows out another breath and slowly turns around.
�
�It’s not that I don’t trust you,” he finally says very quietly. “Hell, Jazz. If I had to bet on anyone, it would be you.”
“Then what is it?” I look around the room at all the wide eyes…all of them looking at me like I’m some kind of shivering puppy. Pity…again. Why can’t anyone see the very simple problem here!?
“Just let her go,” Vox says, shattering the silence like a hammer through a window. She slides off her virtuo-cine uplink chair and shoves her hands into her jumpsuit pockets, then shrugs at Arco. “Let her go.”
“Vox, she can’t just—“ Jax starts, but Arco holds up a hand.
“No,” he says with a small nod, then looks directly at me. “You know what? She’s right.” His eyes narrow like he’s trying to see something far away, something far behind me. “I need to let her go.” He nods again in answer to a question I haven’t asked, and then I realize it’s not my question he’s answering at all—it’s his own. A sharp pain runs through the center of my chest, and then a searing heat. It’s so real I look down to see if something has actually just stabbed me.
“And what the hey, I’ll go with her,” Vox says, jackknifing the heaviness in the room and startling everyone, including me. “Better than waiting around here for The State to come vaporize us, right?”
“Wait, what?” Avis says.
“Go look at your blippy stuff.” Vox pushes her chin at him, which sends Avis scurrying back to his console screen.
“I’ll go with them,” Liam says. “This whole thing is my fault.”
“It’s no one’s fault,” Calyx says, exhausted, then looks from Liam to me. “You don’t know what you’re undertaking, Jazwyn. People’s lives are wrapped up in this—they will lose everything if the port-cloud comes down. If Liddick is involved with anyone who—“
“If he is, it’s that much more important to get him out,” I say, turning to Liam, and eventually, everyone else in the room. “Look, I’m not asking anyone to go with me. I’m not asking for anyone’s help, but I know that I’m not the only one here who thinks Liddick is innocent, despite however it seems.” I glance at Lyden, who’s been uncharacteristically quiet. He nods to me and opens his mouth to say something, but Calyx cuts him off.