by Tracy Korn
“We force them out into the open…” Avis says.
“Exactly. We cause public panic with medical statements about the genetic anomalies that seem to have drifted from the port-cloud. How often does the cargo scan clear on this ship?” I ask. “Do we have a recording of the Organics attacking the Sojourner?”
“We won’t need those. We have one of the bodies,” Denison explains.
“What?”
“The one we dislodged from the hull after we launched the neural pulse… The lights, remember?” Denison answers. “We can place the body at the perimeter of Admin City and go from there.”
“Good, then people’s imaginations will do the rest. Someone behind the scenes will be on the next private shuttle to Phase Three demanding to see for themselves what’s going on there.”
“That still doesn’t help us get in,” Avis says.
“Of course it does,” I say. “We go in masked in the wake of that shuttle, then make our way back through the facility. We get our people and get out.”
“And the DNA archive? What about disintegrating the facility and the port-cloud?” Ellis asks.
“We have another sample of the archive at The Seam building,” Denison adds. “When we drop off the test subjects for treatment, we’ll take it with us.”
“All right then… Round two.” A grin peels across Avis’s face. I nod, feeling optimistic for the first time since we got on this stupid ship.
“Round two. For Tark…”
CHAPTER 25
Liddick
Jazz
I can hear the falls in the distance and know that we must be getting close. The air is getting thicker, warmer, and it’s harder to breathe.
“You said we’d be going above the falls somehow?” Liam asks over his shoulder.
“We’re already above them,” Cal explains. “There’s a fissure up ahead—we can get a scope out everything before making any acquaintances.”
“How did we get above the falls?” I ask. “We’ve just been walking straight all this time?”
“If Liddick went down a chute way off toward the ocean like he was saying, those tunnels go nearly straight down to shark holding coves—the daylight landings—then it’s a straight shot to the mountain. ‘Bout the quickest way to get there from the surface,” Cal says. “The tunnel we’re in now was made by the hunting parties over time.”
The Vishan stories of being tested, of being chosen by the tunnel sharks to prove themselves to their Bestower come rushing back. If Liddick were here now, he’d be hard-pressed to keep his sarcasm about it to himself.
“There,” Vox says, then darts toward a horizontal crack of blue light in the earthen wall ahead of us. We move quickly and quietly to peer through it.
The pouring water of the falls obscures almost everyone below, but I see two of the guards Liddick mentioned. They’re dressed in black clothes that look like our dive suits from Gaia, except these are layered with strapped-on gear over dark vests. Both guards have neural batons attached to their legs and some kind of gun slung over their backs. I scan for Liddick and finally see him as he walks into view from the path apparently on the other side of the water. It must be a corner or something. My stomach jumps and my heart pounds in my chest. Liddick slows and looks up from the ground, but not all the way.
Rip, I hear him in my head.
We’re here…above you.
He doesn’t look up, but crosses to another person who looks about his age. This must be the friend he mentioned from the Badlands. All of them are dressed in the same black gear, only Liddick is in red, and he doesn’t have weapons like the others.
He’s not armed, do you see that? He’s telling the truth about being forced to do this, I think toward Vox. She doesn’t reply.
“I count five with him,” Dell says.
“The smaller one with the long hair is his friend—he’ll help us,” I whisper.
“But the others are armed,” Cal adds, peering through the fissure. “They don’t know about us, so you go down with Tieg. We’ll make a racket with that after you pass him over.” He gestures to the drill the other Vishan boys brought back with them.
“That thing better make one hell of a grind,” Vox says, narrowing her eyes at the small drill that looks like it’s held together with putty and joint tape.
“Trust me,” Dell answers.
Liddick, we’re coming down with Tieg. After we release him, Cal and Dell are going to cause a distraction. You can run with us then, I think.
All right. Be careful.
“Let’s go,” I say to the others. “Tieg, can you hear me? We’re going to get you help, all right? Your dad is going to treat whatever is happening to you, OK? There will be three men who will take you to your dad. We’re going to them now.”
Tieg doesn’t answer me. From the look on his face and the rigid way he’s standing, I wonder if he even can anymore. His bar wedges of teeth are locked together, and his engineered, nearly-glowing blue eyes widen at me. He presses against the restraints, trying to move his arms, but he quickly gives up, exhausted. The sight of the black, vein-like lines that started on his neck have moved over his jawline now, and I shudder at the sight of them.
“He’s getting worse,” Liam says. “Come on, come on…”
Cal points us in the direction that leads down to the level below, and we follow the tunnel around a short spiral. After several yards, I start to feel the spray from the falls against my face. And then we’re in front of them.
“Don’t move!” one of the guards yells, pointing his neural ray directly at me. The other two follow, aiming next to me at Liam, but then I see the tips of their guns lift to aim at Tieg, behind us. “What the…?”
“It’s Tieg Spaulding. He’s sick. You have to help him!” I say as calmly as possible. “He was bitten by a tunnel shark and the venom is doing something to him. Can you help him?”
None of them talk. They just stare for a second until one of them takes a few steps forward.
“Scan…” he says into the long, metallic device strapped to his forearm. A blue light passes over Tieg, and the man’s face wrinkles. “Davis, send a feed; extraction at zero bravo. Package acquired,” he adds, snapping the blue light scanner closed. “Why is he tied down?” the man barks at me as one of the others comes forward, presumably to cut Tieg loose.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Liam says, holding up a hand. “He’s a danger to himself and everyone around him—he doesn’t know what he’s doing anymore.”
“I think we can handle him,” the man says with a pinched smile. Tieg starts to rock from side to side as one of the guards cuts the restraints loose, and I suddenly have a very bad feeling.
Get away from him, Rip, Liddick thinks, evidently feeling the same thing I am. I take a few big steps toward the waterfall as Tieg starts to growl low in his throat. A few seconds later, the drill sounds. The deep reverberation bounces all around us and actually does sound like something guttural.
“Analyze!” one of the guards shouts into his arm unit, but before he can get a readout, Tieg lunges at him, gripping his shoulders and trying to bite the man’s neck.
Come on! Come on! I think at Liddick, and we all run behind the falls.
***
We wait a few seconds, peering through the fissure to see if the guards manage to contain Tieg. They use a neural baton on him, then secure his arms around his waist with something. They look around for another few seconds before finally turning around, presumably to go back the way they came with Tieg in tow.
I stand with my palms against the wall, frozen in place. I’m afraid to take a breath in case they might hear it, though I know that’s completely irrational. We’re too close. We’ve come too far to risk anything else now.
Hey… Liddick says, brushing my hair away from my face. I turn to him slowly. His fingers fold behind my ear, and I can’t look away from him. His eyes are intense again, looking straight into me the way he does. I always look away. It’
s always too much, but not this time. He moves his other hand to my cheek and presses his lips against mine. I don’t know why I let him. Maybe to know that he’s really there. That we came all this way and really found him because it seemed too easy just now. The adrenaline of coming to this point…from leaving Admin City, from running in disguise, from jumping into actions without knowing if we would ever land safely. It all hits my blood in this second and makes me lightheaded. I wrap my arms around Liddick and feel myself fall into him. He’s warm and strong and here, and I’ve never been so exhausted in my life.
I let my head rest on his shoulder as he pulls me against him. He holds me so tightly I can feel his arms around my ribs starting to tremble.
Are you all right? he thinks. I nod into his shoulder and feel the hot tears start to stream down my cheeks like the vice in my chest that has been clamping them down has finally been released. They come, and I let them, and he starts to laugh.
I pull back from him, stunned, and wipe my face with the palms of my hands.
“What’s so funny?”
He studies my face for a second before he answers. “I knew you’d come, but I can’t believe you’re here.”
A laugh bubbles in my stomach at this, but it turns to a sob by the time it gets to my chest, and I’m crying all over again. He kisses me one more time, but now I pull back. Back from escape and into reality. This isn’t what I want. Liddick isn’t… I abandon the thought when I hear my name like a far away whisper.
When I look out toward the direction of the sound, Arco is standing there—right there in the tunnel!
“Arco!” I shout and run to him. He just looks at me, surprised.
“You can see me?” he asks, but I don’t understand.
“It must be the channel! You must be in mine because I can only see you. What do you see?” I ramble.
“Liddick. You and Liddick,” he answers after several long seconds. His face hardens, which makes me feel like I’ve been hit in the chest. How long has he been in my channel? I wonder just as he starts to disappear.
“Arco! Wait!” I call to him, blathering about finding Tieg, about how it was his father who took Liddick, as if any of that would make him seeing me kiss Liddick any better.
“We have to get to Admin City. I have to explain…” I stumble, turning to face everyone.
“Explain what? Are you all right?” Liam says, helping me up. It’s only then that I realize I’m sitting on the ground.
“What?” I ask, looking around, then nearly jump to my feet. “I saw Arco. He was in my channel just now, like when I saw Vox in the Sand biome and again when she got to Admin City with Azeris.”
Everyone looks at me blankly except Vox.
He saw you… she thinks, giving me a sympathetic look. I feel my composure crack and tears start to stream down my face again. I turn to Vox and blow out a breath. She nods at me, letting the corner of her mouth tack up just a little. We’re not done yet, she thinks after a long beat. It’s not over.
CHAPTER 26
Drop Point
Arco
It’s hard to breathe, and the walls are hard-packed earth. People are laughing in the distance, so I start walking toward them, and then I hear her… I hear her laughing. “Jazz?” A second later, she comes into view, folded into Liddick, who’s kissing her. I stop in my tracks and let her name fall off my lips one more time. “Jazz…” This has to be a dream. Just wake up… I tell myself. Wake up and stop this. But to my surprise, she looks around like she can hear me this time. I take a step toward her.
She smiles at him, and a wave of violence runs through me. I don’t move. I can’t move.
“Why?” is what I think, but I hear myself say the word, despite myself.
“Arco!” she says, then rushes from Liddick’s side straight to me.
“You can you see me?” I ask, feeling like I’m free-falling. I can’t get a deep enough breath before she throws her arms around my waist and presses her cheek hard into my chest. I can’t feel her, so I wonder if she’s really there. I move my hand to the back of her head and can’t feel her thick hair between my fingers. I hold it out in front of me and watch it slip through, but still, there’s just nothing. She pulls back from me and looks up, her face streaming with tears.
“It’s the channel. You must be in mine because I can’t see anything but you. What do you see?” she blurts all at once, and I’m answering before I even know what I’m saying.
“Liddick…you and Liddick…”
Her face falls immediately, and I can’t find any more words, though I know there’s plenty more to say. And then she’s gone. The dark tunnel, Liddick, everything is gone except a dull, hazy light that’s getting brighter, along with a low, slow-motion voice that I can’t make out. After a few more seconds, both the pitch and the decibel of the voice change, and I hear my name loud and clear.
“Mr. Hart! Wheels down, son,” Denison says, the intense brightness in the room making it a fight to open my eyes.
I’m on a cot that I don’t remember getting onto…until I do. Crite. Was that a dream?
“Right. Coming,” I say, pushing my hands over my face. “How long have I been asleep?”
“Maybe four hours,” Denison answers.
We land the Wraith at Reese’s private dock back in Admin City. The small hangar is state-of-the-art with the entire roof opening to accommodate our landing, then closing once we’re clear. Before I can even get out of the pilot’s seat, the scans show me that people are already outside the ship helping the testing victims off the platform.
I run down the ramp and survey the perimeter, just waiting for riot drones to surround us, but it looks like we’re the only ones even remotely nearby. The cylindrical buildings we saw when we first arrived in Admin City are far off in the distance, and from the look of the rectangular glass building in the distance, this place seems like some kind of Skyboard North resort. I gawk at it for a second more until I notice the commotion Denison and Ms. Reynolt are making to help some of the test subjects into the arms of people dressed in differently-colored jumpsuits… Are they his staff? There must be twenty of them coming and going.
A tall man with thick, white hair like Denison’s runs from the building in the distance to us. He’s in a long, white tunic and pants with a slim, silver control panel strapped to his forearm.
“Let me scan her,” he says to Denison, punching buttons on the arm control. Data starts populating a series of blue hologram grids that appear over the girl under Denison’s arm. “I knew it…” the man says to himself, then looks up at Denison. “They used tardigrades.”
Denison nods. “The other four are male—their mutations are more advanced than hers. Reese, they’ve progressed even since we pulled them from the labs,” he adds.
“We can stabilize them once we stop the catalyst,” the man Denison called Reese says as he grabs two of the staff wheeling a gurney by. “Take her and the other four like her first—look for the blue-tinged lips and throat.” The men nod, taking the girl with them toward the building.
“Prometheus therapy?” Denison asks. Reese nods, then steps to the other testing victim being escorted out and pulls up a new set of holograms that populate with data. He sighs, then motions for more staff to take the girl he just scanned to the building behind him.
“Briggs, some of these mutations—“
“I know. We just have to do the best we can. When can you get the word out on the neural feeds?”
“Tomorrow morning at the earliest. I’ll have the body moved tonight. You have the body?” Reese asks. Denison steps back, then leads Reese up the ramp of the ship. He darts a glance at me. “Who is he?”
“Arco Hart—one of the Gaia cadets I told you about. Arwyn is his sister,” Denison answers.
Reese’s hard expression changes to one of compassion, almost apology. He smiles a little at me.
“Thank you,” he says in a careful voice as he offers me his hand. “Reese Halliday. Your si
ster was slotted to be one of my interns before…this. You and your friends were very brave to come for her. For all the testing victims.”
“It’s the only choice we had,” I explain, shaking his hand. “What Gaia is doing is wrong.”
“That, it is. And now, we can stop them,” he adds with another nod. “Fuel up. I’ll have some provisions loaded when your dock is clear. Do you need room for the Phase Two group?” he asks Denison.
“No, they’re stabilized at The Seam—we transferred them first. You’ll have your hands full here.”
“All right. Watch the feeds—I’ll send word.” Reese claps Denison on the shoulder just before turning to me again. “Arco, was it?” he asks. I nod. “You get your sister to me. We’ll reverse what they did to her. I promise.”
I clear my throat so I don’t choke when I answer him.
“I will. Thank you.”
He turns then, running up the dimly-lit path after the last of his staff in the distance.
***
Denison makes his way back to the dock of the Wraith as I’m loading the last of the boxes that Reese sent down.
“Reese just issued a statement about the body of the Organic his crew deposited on the edge of the district. We need to get into position before it goes to the feeds, and someone decides to pay Rheen and Styx a visit to find out what’s happening in Phase Three.”
He gives me a decisive nod before he leaves. I start to follow him, but sit on one of the boxes and push the heels of my hands into my eyes, like that will dislodge the sick feeling in my head after that dream. I can still see the smug look on his face… his hands on her. Anger shoots through me again, just like then, and I want to throw something through a wall. I push to my feet and make my way to the bridge.
Denison has already managed to get into the co-pilot seat by the time I get there. I slip into the seat next to him, feeling like this whole arrangement is wrong.
“Why aren’t you flying this thing? You were the one teaching me back at Gaia,” I ask.