by Tracy Korn
“Wait, what? Arco?” I say, turning to him.
“It’s all right—I was trying to bring Vox and Veece, too, but you said you had the Vishan treatment, right?”
“Yes. What are you talking about?”
“Your coordinates loaded into my head somehow when I was in your channel. When I woke up here, I just knew what to do at the console…the Vishan DNA is as close to the archive as we’re going to get. Can you stand?” Arco asks, helping me to my feet.
We’re standing inside a cube enclosure just like the ones from the Phase Two facility on the other side of the Rush. I pull in a quick, sharp breath and nearly start coughing.
“I transferred? Port-carnate transferred? Wait, but the treatment!”
“It’s all right, Ms. Ripley. That baseline is already aligned with the system here. The transfer recognized without issue,” Dr. Denison says. “Now please, we need a physical sample.”
He moves toward me with a syringe, and I flinch.
“A sample of what? What’s in that needle?” I ask, backing away from him. This is all happening too fast.
“You have incoming!” Calyx’s voice comes from somewhere. I look around but don’t see her. Denison swears and punches something into the flat, silver panel unit strapped to his forearm.
“You have comms? When did comms connect?” Arco asks abruptly.
“Right now, apparently,” Denison answers, taking another step toward me with the syringe. I pull back again.
“What’s in that? Tell me what’s going on!” I shout. Arco steps in between us and rubs my arms, lowering his chin to meet my eyes.
“Listen, it’s all right, OK? I rigged a port-carnate bridge to bring you here. After I woke up from being in your channel, that NET device was sending a buoy signal, so I anchored the system to it and plugged in the coordinates that kept flashing in my head,” he says, nearly out of breath. “They were your coordinates, Jazz.”
“Ow!” I jolt, feeling the needle plunge into the back of my shoulder. “Arco?” I search his face for an answer, not sure if the rock that settles into my stomach is my feeling of betrayal or his guilt. He shakes his head.
“It’s not what you think, OK? Denison needs a syringe of your blood because it’s been spliced with the Vishan DNA—the treatment, Jazz—that DNA needs to be routed into the core of this place.”
“Loading!” Denison says, injecting the syringe of my blood into a cylindrical container, which he then races across the room to insert into some kind of column receptacle. It vanishes in a vacuuming whoosh, and Denison runs directly at us. “Time to go!”
“Can you walk?” Arco asks, slipping his arm around my ribs and taking a few steps forward. I put one foot in front of the other, but my legs feel like they’re made of rubber.
“Whoa…”
“OK, I’ve got you. Come on. We need to move.”
After a few more steps, I feel a little steadier, but everything is still happening too fast. Dr. Denison waves something over the wall in front of us, and a door panel appears, then slides open. Beyond the door is a long, white corridor that reminds me of the dorm wing of Gaia Sur, but beyond it I hear yelling.
“We can’t go this way. There are too many clones now,” Dr. Denison says, then swears again as he looks back at us.
“Crite,” Arco says, wiping blood from his nose.
“Arco!” I gasp, moving to face him.
“It’s all right. It’s just the surge,” he says, bringing a small, metal cylinder to his nose and inhaling. He grits his teeth, but the blood stops.
“What was that?”
“Oxygen or something, I don’t know. My sister gave it to me. Come on. I know another way,” he says. Dr. Denison’s face is suddenly both hopeful and worried, but there’s no time to find out why when a guard in a red jumpsuit rushes around the corner and aims at us with the biggest gun I’ve ever seen.
Dr. Denison tackles him around the waist, then sits across his chest and drives the base of his hand into the guard’s nose.
“Crite!” I shout. Dr. Denison takes the gun and gets to his feet.
“They’re clones. He didn’t feel a thing,” he adds, catching up to us. “Lead on while that surge lasts.”
“What is a surge?” I ask. “Arco, what is going on?”
“I’ll explain when we’re not about to be vaporized,” he says. “Can you run?”
I nod back at him as we all take off down the corridor. We make our way through several winding hallways and finally, down a flight of metal stairs.
“This came to you in the surge?” Dr. Denison asks Arco when we stop at a wall. Arco waves a badge from around his neck over a panel, which then opens.
“Yeah—I can’t explain how else I knew where to go. It was just there. Come on. We need to get on that ship.”
Arco gestures to a large, teardrop-shaped craft that looks a lot like the big brother to the Stingrays from Gaia Sur. I only hope it doesn’t have the same toy operating system inside.
“This one is closer,” I say, pointing to another ship that’s right in front of us.
“I know, but Calyx and the others are on the one over there. Trust me.”
CHAPTER 38
The Space Between: Part One
Arco
The door closes behind us as we rush to the small barrier wall, which is about chest-high. It surrounds the hangar in sections, and with any luck, we’ll be able to align with an opening that leads to the ship in the middle of the docked vessels. Calyx and the others have to be aboard that one—it’s the only one with a clear path to the launching dock.
We move to the closest break in the wall, which doesn’t line us up perfectly, but it’s as close as we’re going to get. Clone guards are everywhere in the hangar, boarding and searching the ships.
“We’re at the dock, and you’re about to have some company,” Denison says into his wrist comms.
“Copy that. We already have you mapped,” Calyx replies. “You cover incoming and we’ll get your back.”
“Copy.” Denison turns to me. “You take the right. I’ll take the left.” He nods to to the neural ray slung over my shoulder. I bring it forward and make sure it’s charged.
“Jazz, you stay in the middle of us, OK?” I say, handing her the neural baton from the side of my gear pack. “I hope you won’t need this.” She cracks it against her leg, and it buzzes to life.
“He goes left, you go right, I’ll get the middle,” she says with a flat smile.
I grin at her. “Let’s get out of here.”
She smiles, and before I can think, I’m sliding my hand behind her ear and kissing her just like by the moon pool at Gaia Sur.
She’s here. I don’t know if she wanted to be here, but right now I don’t care. Right now, in this minute, I don’t care about Liddick Wright or anything that has led up to this point. If we make it on board that ship in one piece, we can figure it all out later.
“Hey!” Denison shoves my shoulder with the butt of his neural ray. “Our window is closing, Romeo. Time to go.”
Jazz smiles up at me again and tries not to laugh. Her face flushes, and it’s all I can do to keep myself from kissing her again. She turns to face the scatter of clone guards beyond our barrier wall and blows out a breath.
“It’s not even their fault,” she says, gesturing to the neural baton. “They were engineered too.” Denison jerks his head back and gives her a side eye, but then just sighs.
“These are military grade clones. Like I said, they won’t feel a thing, Ms. Ripley—pain receptors would be a handicap,” he says with obvious restraint. “All right, let’s move.”
We rush into the fray of guards mobilizing toward us, and seconds later, the air ignites with a beam of light from the ship in front of us. It’s far over our heads, but I can still feel the heat from it singeing my forehead, chest, and stomach. I take out a line of clone guards who rush us from behind the landing gear. In the span of a few seconds, we clear the boarding plat
form, only to have more clone guards take their place.
“Jazz, go!” I shout, gesturing to the stairs, but she won’t take them. “What are you doing? Come on!”
“We have to help him!” she says, making me see that Denison’s ray isn’t firing. He doesn’t realize it either until a few clones rush straight for him even though he’s firing directly at them.
Jazz starts running toward Denison, jabbing and waving her neural baton in every direction.
“Jazz!” I shout up to her, but she can’t hear me. She downs a few guards with the baton, making her way to Denison just in time to keep one of them from picking him off from behind. She takes out the clone’s legs, but it doesn’t stop him trying to take aim with his ray. “Jazz, look out!”
I fire on the clone, and he drops. Jazz whips around, surprised for a second until she’s suddenly running toward me.
“It’s OK...it’s OK...” she says, but I don’t know what she’s talking about.
“Are you all right?” I ask, and she looks at me blankly.
Denison runs up behind her and seizes her wrist.
“Crite... All right, keep pressure right there,” he says, pressing her hand high on my chest.
“What?” I say, but then touch the wet fabric of my jumpsuit. I pull my hand away and see...blood? The fabric of this guard uniform is red too, so I have to squint to see any contrast. “What happened?” I ask out loud. At least, I think it’s out loud. Everything starts slowing down, like I’m either waking up or falling asleep.
Denison is pulling me along with him. My legs are turning over. I’m taking steps. Jazz’s mouth is moving when I look over at her, but all I can hear is a muffled alarm in the back of my head. Another bright beam of light shoots from the ship and my forehead, chest, and stomach are on fire again.
“Just a few more steps, son...Calyx! Send Arwyn to the med bay and have Jax Ripley and Lyden meet us on the landing platform now!” Denison’s voice is loud next to my ear. The shock of it all of a sudden is like a slap in the face. I push up the stairs and nearly fall forward on the platform, but Denison catches me. “I got it,” he adds, pressing into my chest. The burning feeling shifts to a sharp pain, and all my fog clears for a second. The clarity is gone as fast as it comes, and my legs feel like they’re filled with water. Everything starts spinning, and I can’t seem to get a grip on anything.
“Arco! Arco, hold on!” Jazz says, sliding her arm around my back. I try to put my arm around her, but Denison has it pinned to my ribs. She presses her hand over my chest again, and I hear her crying. “It’s OK. You’re going to be OK.”
I turn toward her voice and find her face—her dark brown eyes, narrowed and spilling tears. “What happened?” I ask, but she just shakes her head at me as tears run down her cheeks.
“I don’t know...I don’t know. Something hit you, but you’re going to be OK.”
I look down again but don’t see anything other than blood moving between her fingers and pushing out from under her palm. Why is there so much blood? I think.
“Be careful—the projectile shifted, but it’s still embedded,” Denison says to Jax and Lyden.
“Crite, what happened?” Jax asks, taking Denison’s place.
“How is he hit? I thought they only had neural weapons?” Lyden follows, but then everyone’s voices just start running together until I can’t make out any words.
“Arco...Arco!” Jazz says, loud and clear, and it’s the last thing I hear before everything gets dark and quiet.
***
I push the heels of my palms into my eyes and press to clear my vision. It’s not as dark as it was, but it’s not exactly bright in here either.
The room is small with one row of steel cabinets on the wall and another set of what look like refrigeration units below.
“What is this?” I hear myself say, and a second later pieces start coming back to me. My hand moves to my chest to see if there’s still blood, but I only feel my skin and some kind of cloth…tape? I try to sit up but stop when I see her there curled in a chair next to me. “Jazz?”
She opens her eyes, then bolts up out of the chair.
“You’re OK. You’re OK…”
“What happened? What is all this?”
“We’re in the med bay on the Phoenix ship we took from Phase Three.”
“But what happened? The last thing I saw was one of those clones trying to fire on you, and then everyone was dragging me into the ship. And the blood...” I look down at my chest again just to make sure I didn’t miss it last time.
She wipes more tears from her face with the back of her hand and puts the other one on my chest.
“That was from when Calyx fired on the clone guards. Part of one of their neural rays broke off and hit you here. It wasn’t a big piece, but it punctured your artery. Your body rejected the blood from the synth unit.”
“The synth what?”
“Dr. Denison called it the blood cloner machine,” Jazz answers, this time letting the corner of her mouth drift to an almost-smile.
I follow the tube in my arm and see an IV bag of what looks like blood. “Then what’s that?”
She just looks at me now, finally letting the smile take hold. She shrugs. “I guess we’re the same,” she says. “Blood type, you know?”
I can only stare at her for a few seconds when she looks up at me again. The corner of her mouth quirks, and she bites her bottom lip nervously, like she’s trying to think of something else to say...or maybe she’s just waiting for me to reply. I brush the dark strands of hair from her cheek and stroke her bottom lip with my thumb.
She’s so damn beautiful. Her long, dark hair falls over her shoulder onto my chest. I thread pieces of it through my fingers, watching it weave around my knuckles until a tear falls on the back of my hand.
“What’s all this?” I ask, wiping one of them from her cheek. She leans into my hand and lowers her chin, then just lets the rest of it come. “Hey…hey…come here.”
She buries her face under my jaw, and her hair falls across my throat. I comb down her back with my hand and pull her closer to me.
“If I lost you…” she whispers. “Arco…I’m sorry…I’m so sorry…” she says through heaving sobs.
My chest hurts again, but not because of the shrapnel or fused artery, or whatever else was wrecked in there. I take as deep of a breath as I can without coughing and press my lips to her forehead. “It would take more than this to keep me from you, OK? A hell of a lot more than this.”
She crawls onto the gurney and curls into me, still crying so hard, she hitches for breath. I close my eyes when I feel them start to burn and blur, too, then pull her closer, stroking her hair until she falls asleep in my arms.
CHAPTER 39
The Space Between: Part Two
Jazz
I forget where I am when I open my eyes and see the metal cabinets and long, metal counter space along the wall. Arco… I think, but he’s not lying on the gurney with me anymore. I jump down and rush into the corridor, scrambling to remember where I am and how I got down here. We came up from the landing platform and they took him… Where did we go? Where did we turn? I think, feeling the blood pounding in my ears.
I turn down another metallic corridor, this one with ducting and some kind of storage bins built into the walls. Just as I turn the corner, I run straight into Jax.
“Whoa!”
“Where is he?” I ask. “Where’s Arco?”
“I was just coming to get you…”
“Jax!”
“OK, OK, zone. He’s fine. He’s in the galley.” I run a few steps past him, then realize I don’t know where the galley is either. I stop and look at Jax over my shoulder. He shrugs and starts talking again like this is all a big joke. “I mean, I told them to wake you up, but he insisted that they let you sleep. I’m only your twin brother, though, so what do I know about what you might want…and—“
“Jax!” I grind his name between my teeth, and h
e laughs.
“Oh! Would you like me to show you where the galley is?” he asks with mock surprise. ”Sure. Follow me.”
I punch him in the arm when he gets close enough, and he laughs again, throwing his arm around me and nearly crushing me in a half-bear hug.
We wind down a few more corridors until one corner opens into a large room with more metal fixtures. A metal countertop sits in front of a deep sink, and there are tall metal cabinets overhead. Everyone except Calyx and Lyden are sitting with Arco, who’s wrapped in a blanket with a bowl of something steaming in front of him.
“Arco…” I say on the last of a breath.
He stands up, wincing a little, but then he throws off the blanket and walks toward me.
“Careful. The fuses are still bonding,” Dr. Denison says sternly, but then a smile starts to move across his angular face.
“Hey…” Arco says in a quiet voice just a few inches from me.
“Hey…”
My heart pounds against my ribs being with him again. It feels like it’s been years, but at the same time, like we’ve never been apart at all. I don’t know what to do with myself standing here, somehow in between it all. I glance through the set of windows on the far end of the galley, but see only the expanse of black space.
“Where are we?”
“Somewhere they can’t find us,” he answers, bringing one hand to my face and brushing my bottom lip with his thumb again. “You saved my life.”
I look up at him, into his hazel eyes that are warm and kind, but now also a little sad.
“What’s wrong?” I whisper. He shakes his head just a little.
“Nothing. Not one thing,” he adds, then leans close and kisses me. His arm moves around my waist and pulls me close, so close and tight, I’m afraid I’ll aggravate his injuries. His other hand is light over my face, his fingers combing over my jaw and down my throat, through my hair. I feel like my chest will explode until a huge clamor of applause and cheers startles us both. We laugh for a second, and he clears his throat. Mine feels like it’s starting to close as tears burn my eyes again.