by Tracy Korn
“It’s going to take a while to get out of here,” she says, kicking at the wall and sending crumbling earth everywhere.
“Steps?” I ask, remembering the story she told me back at Gaia of how she got out of one of these traps. She nods, but then we both stop all at once and exchange the same bloodless expression.
“What’s wrong?” Liam asks, confused. “Are you hurt?”
I scan the wall behind him, visible now with the increased light from the collapsed ceiling. Several slats are carved in varying places, a pair of eyes looking back at us through each one.
CHAPTER 18
The Mouth of the Wolf
Arco
I catch my sister’s eyes as she sits with Lyden and Calyx in the corridor behind us. She’s afraid but trying not to look afraid. I don’t even want to think about the experiments they put her through in order to make her fireproof, but I also won’t try to put it out of my head.
“I promise we’ll get you out of there,” I say.
The corner of her mouth twitches, then turns into a small smile. She wants to believe me, but I’m almost sure she doesn’t. She still sees me as that little kid clinging to her waist when she left for Gaia Sur that morning all those years ago. That kid who was crying because she wouldn’t come back.
“I know you will,” she says, but her conciliatory expression doesn’t change.
Eco clangs through the corridor in his dark red uniform, which matches the rest of ours. Lyden and Arwyn almost glow in contrast in the white Seam jumpsuits. I take a closer look at Eco—at the strap across his chest—as Tark starts the descent to Phase Three.
“What is that?” I ask, jerking my chin at Calyx, then nodding at the same strap across her chest.
“Neural ray,” she says quietly.
“A what?”
“They stop you…from the inside. Freeze the commands from your brain to your limbs, so you quit moving,” Eco explains with the smallest trace of a smirk. I swear, I feel compelled to hit him every time he talks.
“They’re armed in there? I thought this was just a medical facility?” I jerk my eyes to Tark, who starts to lean forward as he grips the arm controls of his seat. The Wraith shifts, nose pointed directly at the center of the haze cloud in front of us as the green, holographic display trajectory in front of us tracks the descent. Calyx gets to her feet and reaches over my shoulder, then punches something into the console in front of me. Just as she moves back to her seat along the corridor wall next to Arwyn, a compartment about two feet long and two feet wide opens in the floor next to me. There must be five, ten weapons just like theirs stacked on top of each other in the hole.
“It’s a medical facility no one knows about. Even the guards at Phase Two had neural batons,” Tark says. “Standard issue for Phase Three—there’s a lot more traffic here.”
“Wraith Class 77, you are on course for entry,” the male voice says over the comms again. I jump in my seat and watch a smile start on Tark’s face. “Don’t worry, Mr. Hart. If we do our jobs right, we won’t need to use them.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better,” I say as I fix my eyes back on the expanse of white haze before me. The trajectory dots disappear one after another on the holographic grid until they’re replaced by two parallel bars. All at once, the haze clears and smooth white walls appear in their place. They separate in the middle— dissipating rather than mechanically retracting—giving way to a huge hangar with a series of staircases that run the perimeter on multiple levels. Tark punches another series of buttons, and I hear the ship’s hydraulics engage. I watch guards dressed in red uniforms like ours approach the back of the ship through the window in front of us.
“Showtime,” Eco says, gripping the strap of his neural ray. He shoves the barrel into Lyden’s shoulder, which earns him a glare. He tries to laugh but swallows it after a second. “What? Just getting into character,” he says. Lyden shakes his head.
“Do we go with them?” I ask, but Tark doesn’t answer me. He brings his finger to his lips and sends me a golden stare in warning. I catch Arwyn’s eyes as she looks over her shoulder at me and tries to smile again. I nod to her, a reminder about my promise.
Eco and Calyx walk on either side of Lyden and Arwyn as the other two guards exchange nods, then turn to lead everyone into what looks like a solid wall until they’re right in front of it. It dissipates like the hangar wall, then reforms behind them like they were never there at all.
“The package is away,” Denison says into the band on his wrist, then punches something into the console above his shoulder. Another holographic screen appears, showing what looks like the path everyone is walking behind Lyden and Arwyn.
“Whose perspective is that? Calyx’s?” I ask.
Denison nods. “It’s an ocular bug. I installed it while we were below deck. We’ll be able to see everything she sees now. Just a little extra security. I have the feed looped to our contacts back at The Seam building, and to one of our contacts at The State.”
“Good. So now what?” I ask. “We launch that wind?”
Tark punches in something else and the ship starts to hum again. “Now, it’s our turn. Indeed, Mr. Hart,” he adds as the ship begins to pull out of the hangar.
“There’s really no way to sneak everyone in now? We are right here?” I say. “It seems ridiculous to fly around and start trying to penetrate the barrier field, then bust through the wall of the place.”
“We’ve come too far to take the chance of getting caught now,” Denison says. “On a normal drop, the ship wouldn’t linger on the dock. We have to make this disappear like any normal run.”
“Something is wrong,” Ms. Reynolt says, making her way through the corridor to us.
Denison darts his attention to the hologram display he pulled up. Calyx and the others are still walking, people passing them left and right wearing red uniforms with white lab coats.
“What is it, Luz?” Denison asks. “Something there, or here?”
“I can’t be sure. It started here, and only got worse when Calyx took the others into the facility. The feeling is not subsiding. I’m afraid we’ve missed something.” Reynolt’s eyebrows dart together as fear registers in her eyes.
“It’s not too late,” I say. “We can go in after them. We haven’t left this hangar yet.” I want to say more, but Tark seems to step on the gas, and we pick up speed. “Hey!”
“If something is going down, we need to get clear so we can be in a position to help. We can’t get stuck here,” Tark explains. Denison nods a few times and then corrals Ms. Reynolt.
“We need to secure the zephyr and get it loaded,” he says, walking her back through the corridor to the deck below.
“I still don’t feel right about just leaving them here,” I say.
Tark exhales. “Listen—let this go. The only thing we’ll do by staying now is raise suspicion. If something isn’t already going down, you can bet that will tip our hand,” he explains. “Take your mark. We have work to do, and I’m going to need your eye.”
I pull in a breath and try to think of something to tell myself that will make my guts stop turning. And I can’t make sense of any of this make-it-up-as-we-go idiocy. There’s no going back, only forward. Always forward. No matter what, no matter if forward is a cliff edge. We just have to figure out how to fly in their minds. I feel like my head is going to split down the middle and fall off either side of my shoulders, so I push my teeth together and lean back in the seat. The Wraith picks up momentum until we’re clear of the hangar and back in the middle of the white haze. The screen in front of us shows a clear path as Tark punches something else into the console just before we rocket backward. After a few seconds, the haze is only in front of us with the black eternity of space seeming to push it away as we now slowly ease out of it.
Denison’s voice comes over the comms. “The wind is loaded and ready for disbursal.”
“Copy that,” Tark says. “Another ten minutes and we’ll
be in position. Running surveillance scans now.”
The projection of Eco, Calyx, Lyden, and my sister walking suddenly turns off. I notice it but don’t manage to say anything about it before Tark starts barking commands at me.
“Where are you?” he asks, hammering his fingers on the screen in front of me. We’re flying level, so I don’t know what his problem is until the whole ship suddenly jerks backward, then starts moving forward quickly. “Are you flying this thing, or am I flying this thing, Mr. Hart? We don’t have time for daydreams right now.”
The accusation hits me like a slap, the heat of it washing over my cheeks a second later.
“Right, sorry. The projection just disappeared and it threw me.”
“Probably interference. We’re moving fast.”
I push forward just a little and feel the ship surge again. Tark nods at me out of the corner of my eye, then detaches from his seat and heads back through the corridor behind me.
A wash of panic hits my chest when I realize I’m flying the ship alone. I scan Tark’s side of the controls and see that he has not engaged autopilot. I blow out a breath, then take in one twice as deep. All right, all right. Just follow the grids. The course is right there. Just get into position, I think, pushing any thought of the hologram, my sister, of whatever Tark is doing… and Jazz… out of my head. I have work to do.
CHAPTER 19
Into the Tunnels
Jazz
It seems like several hours go by before we finally make a hole big enough for us to fit through. We’ve rolled up our burlap wraps, and our white jumpsuits are filthy.
“It looks like this tunnel goes both ways,” Liam says, peering from left to right, but there’s nothing to see in either direction since there’s no light. Vox steps over the pile of earth and rubble at our feet and walks through the hole.
“They went this way,” she says and starts heading toward the path that leads right.
“How do you know?” I call up to her. “There’s no light!”
“Yes, there is!” Vox calls back to me, holding up her palm with a small red flame inside. Liam’s jaw drops and I blink my eyes a few times, also surprised.
“She never had a dose of that DNA?” Liam asks, looking at me.
“She never had to. She’s Vishan,” I answer. Liam darts a glance at Vox before we follow her. I hesitate for a second when something rustles behind me, and I stop in my tracks.
“What is it?” Liam asks, studying my face for an answer that doesn’t come. “Jazz, what?”
“I heard something. What are we supposed to do if we run into a tunnel shark down here?” I ask, feeling my heart start to pound in my chest. “We don’t have any weapons. Maybe we should go back and find Azeris first after all.”
Liam pulls in a breath and exhales through his nose, nodding.
“Why did you stop?” Vox yells back to us, making my blood go cold. “We don’t have time to wait. Is somebody bleeding?”
Vox! Stop yelling, I think. There’s something behind us!
I turn to face the gaping hole in the wall, and the pit beyond it. Shafts of sunlight spill through the opening above, like a sunshine fence keeping the withered, dried strangled bushes at bay against the other side. I try to think of a way we could somehow climb them to get back to the surface, but there’s no guarantee we wouldn’t waste all the daylight trying.
“We can’t cross the Badlands at night,” I whisper to Liam. “We would run the risk of getting pulled in by a tunnel shark anyway if we tried, and there would be nobody in the vicinity to help us like there is now. We have to keep going forward. That’s the only way we’ll find Liddick.”
I nod to Vox when she comes into sight as if I’m explaining this to her and Liam instead of to myself, which is what I’m actually doing. They exchange surprised glances.
“All right,” Vox says. “Then come on before they’re out of range.”
***
We stay close together when we walk this time. I remember Cal’s warnings about getting too far apart when we crossed the Sand and Tanglebush in the Rush. We can’t see far in the light of Vox’s little red palm flame, but it’s enough, and I feel like we’re heading in the right direction.
“How far ahead do you think they are? I ask Vox, just to see if she feels the same way I do about our proximity.
“I don’t know. They may have a five or ten-minute head start.”
“And you’re sure they’ll help us?” Liam asks.
“No,” Vox answers, which feels like suddenly falling in cold water.
“No? What do you mean no?” I ask. “Of course they’ll help us. Why wouldn’t they help us?”
“They may not be able to do anything without Cal and the NET device. We won’t know anything until we catch up with them.”
She says this casually, but it still hits me like a boulder in the stomach. She’s right, though. Nothing is certain. We can’t plan this. I realize that when I close my mouth after noticing it’s still hanging open with all the things I’m not saying. Liam sends me a knowing smile.
“We’ll figure it out,” he says, seemingly just to me. “One way or another, we’ll find him.”
We walk on in silence for several more minutes in the glow of Vox’s little fire. I think we must be descending because the damp smell of cold earth is starting to feel dryer, warmer, thinner. We’re getting closer, although I have no idea how far we still have yet to go.
In the distance, a scratching sound pulls my attention away from my incessant but unproductive obsessing about how we will manage to not get ourselves killed down here, from asking all the what if questions I can’t find answers to, no matter how many times I ask them.
“Did you hear that?” I ask, but Vox and Liam just look at me with confused faces and shake their heads. The scratching sound comes again, this time, louder…closer.
“I heard it that time,” Liam says.
“Tunnel sharks also made huge, thudding noises in the Rush,” I say. “Nothing sounded only like scratching.”
“I don’t see how it could be the other Vishan, unless this tunnel loops around. That’s the only way they could get behind us,” Vox says, pushing to get in front of Liam as she extends her palm full of fire. The scratching sound comes again, this time accompanied by shuffling, like heavy, dragging footsteps. My heart starts pounding in my throat, and my mouth goes dry.
“I don’t think that’s a tunnel shark,” I say, looking around for anything I can use as a weapon. There’s nothing but dirt and more dirt. I grab a handful of that so at least I have something to throw in the face of whatever might be planning to attack us.
“It’s not a tunnel shark—at least not a healthy one,” Vox says. “Whatever that is, it’s injured. Nothing healthy moves like that.”
The scratching and lumbering sounds give way to low moans, almost words.
“Wuuuuh…” a male voice says, and I feel tingles start along the back of my neck and run down my spine.
“That’s human,” Liam says, blowing out a small breath. I feel the tension and fear surrounding us drop a level, but only because at least it’s not a tunnel shark.
Liddick? I think, holding my breath and hoping I hear his voice in my head in reply.
“Hey!” Vox shouts, extending her fire and taking a few steps toward the sounds.
“Wuuhhhhhh!” the voice calls again, this time louder and desperate. “WUUHHHHH!”
“Tieg?” I say under my breath. “That sounds like Tieg…he and Dez never arrived at The Seam, Liam. I forgot, with everything that came through about Liddick… What if they never made it out of Phase Two?”
Panic rises in my stomach, offset only by the guilt I feel for not realizing sooner that they were still unaccounted for.
“We all assumed they were on a separate transport—it’s not your fault. Everything happened pretty fast up there,” Liam says, but I don’t feel any better.
“Whhhaaaater…” the voice says again, but this time
I push past Liam toward it.
“Jazz! Wait!”
“He said, ‘water.’ Tieg! Is that you?”
Vox follows quickly behind me with her palm fire until we both stop cold at a huddled mass against the dirt wall of the tunnel.
“Hey!” Liam shouts as he closes the distance between us, then stumbles to an abrupt stop when he sees what we see. A clicking sound comes from the black mass folded against the wall. We all take a step back. It starts moving, slowly pushing upward until it’s clear that it is a person.
“Tieg!” I shout, convinced it must be him because he’s much bigger than Liddick. I take a few more steps toward him until Liam grabs my arm and keeps me back. I turn to him and start to pull out of his grip, but he holds up a finger against his lips, then pulls a canteen from his satchel and slides it to the hunched-over person with his back to us. The canteen hits his foot.
“It’s water! That’s what you said…you wanted water?” Liam calls to the person. He’s barely finished the sentence when the crouched mass pounces on the canteen and begins desperately trying to remove the lid. He claws and bites at it until it finally falls to the dirt, and he starts to drink like he’s never going to stop.
His face is still in shadows, but his throat is covered in black lines, just like his hands. He starts to cough, but then recovers and tries to take another drink, but the canteen is empty. He growls, desperately shaking it over his mouth until he finally gives up and throws it to the ground.
“Wahhter…no…more water!” he says, shuffling toward us.
“Whoa!” Vox says when he comes into the light of her hand flame.
“Tieg…” I say on the last of a breath. It is Tieg, or at least, it used to be.
CHAPTER 20
Find a Way or Make One
Arco
It seems like the more I try to concentrate on not thinking about her, the harder it gets. I even disabled the tracking windows that appear in my peripheral vision for her group. I couldn’t make myself stop checking on her, and it was interfering with my own mission. I have to get it through my head that we are not on the same path anymore. She made her choice when she decided to go after Liddick instead of believing the obvious: he betrayed us all.