by Joe Ducie
‘The Alliance said the Crystal-X was a meteorite that crashed to earth a long time ago. At least, that was the leading theory I heard from a man named Doctor Elias.’ Drake found he didn’t care so much that Elias had drowned below the Rig. The man had been experimenting on kids and disposing of failed experiments using mutant sharks.
They’re not going to get away with what they did to Doctor Lambros, Drake thought, not for the first time and not for the last.
Noemi shrugged. ‘Perhaps, but I think it is something more. Something …’
‘Divine?’ Drake offered.
Noemi smiled.
‘How old are you, Noemi?’
‘I am seventeen,’ she said.
‘Same as Tristan. And how long have you had, you know, magic powers?’
‘I have been cultivating my gift for seven years.’
Drake bit his lip and flicked the tassels on his hat over his shoulder. ‘Does it ever … overwhelm you? Or, like, do things you don’t want it to or … give you headaches? Stop you sleeping? I’m too new to this to know what’s normal.’
‘Balance is normal,’ Noemi said. ‘Whether you’re gifted with just one flower or exposed to an ocean of Yūgen, the balance must be upheld.’
‘You keep saying that,’ Drake said, trying to keep the edge of desperation from his voice. ‘But I don’t get it.’
Noemi nodded, as if she’d expected as much. ‘It’s not something you “get”, so much as something that finds you, in time.’
‘I’m worried I don’t have time. I absorbed a helluva lot of the Crystal-X, Noemi.’
‘How do you use your gift?’ she asked.
‘What, like, for good or evil?’ Drake chuckled.
‘No, not quite, although we’ll talk more on morality in a moment. How do you physically access the power and impose your will upon the world?’
Drake was already shaking his head before she finished speaking. ‘Wish I knew. I really do. I’ve only been at this two weeks. The things I did on the Rig to escape, healing myself, and what we’ve done since … it kind of just happens. I spent two weeks in the forest tinkering with it, and I learnt how to do some simple tricks, like start fires, but sometimes I don’t even notice the power happening until my hands are moving and blue fire is spewing from my fingers.’
Noemi nodded again. ‘Understand, William Drake, my studies have afforded only a surface grasp of the Path. I often feel as if I am stumbling in the dark myself, but the balance is there to guide us. A handrail in the dark, if you will. Your subconscious mind, the part of you that reacts quicker than thought, understands the balance. Even if your surface mind does not. Which is why, in all things, you must ground the balance in morality. A morality you believe in.’
Drake rubbed at his temple, trying to keep up with what Noemi was saying. Her soft accent and warm voice were distracting. ‘Good and evil, then? You’re saying, what, that it all depends on what I’m using the magic for?’
‘“Magic” is an ugly word to describe Yūgen,’ Noemi said. ‘One that suffices, I suppose, but think of it more as a power source. You said you’d seen your fair share of people going mad from being exposed to the Alliance’s source of Crystal-X. Who were they?’
Drake shrugged. ‘Kids on the Rig – prisoners the Alliance had sent to the “inescapable” prison.’ A slow smile spread across his face. ‘They’re going to have to build one on the moon to stop me.’
‘Do not give them ideas. So these kids on the Rig had committed crimes?’ Noemi asked. ‘And not just any crimes, yes? Murderers? Rapists?’
‘Not all of them,’ Drake said and grimaced. ‘Irene had her reasons, and Tristan … Tristan made a mistake. But yeah, a great lot of them were sent to the Rig because they were the worst of the worst. There was this one nasty piece of work, Alan Grey. I heard he killed people for fun with chains. That he liked to peel skin off people while … while they were alive. He was a messed-up kid.’
‘And what happened to him?’
Drake’s mind flashed back to the Titan, to his fight with Grey as the ship flooded and began to sink below the freezing waters of the Arctic Ocean. Drake had tried to save him, in the end, but Grey hadn’t wanted to be saved.
‘The Alliance gave him a lot of Crystal-X, and it drove him batshit insane. Powerful, too. He could leap between the platforms. Almost fly …’ Drake shook his head and chuckled. ‘Damn, he was a jerk. Are you saying because of who he was, a murderer, the Crystal-X caused him to go insane? That’s why the Alliance was having trouble – because their test subjects were, what, evil?’ He clicked his fingers. ‘Is that the balance you’re talking about?’
Noemi shook her head. ‘No, you’re not seeing the whole picture, William Drake.’
‘Just Drake,’ he said. ‘So help me see it, then. What am I missing? Grey was a bad guy, so the crystal just made him worse?’
‘Alan Grey had as much chance as you of maintaining the balance.’ Noemi raised her hands and tapped her crystal thumb and index finger together. ‘It’s not about good and evil – there is no good and evil.’
Drake nodded along and sighed. ‘You’ve lost me.’
Noemi lunged forward and grasped the sides of Drake’s head. Her grip was firm, and she held her eyes on his. ‘What I’m about to tell you is something you must think about, if you’re to have any hope of maintaining your mind and your sanity, Drake. Fear will not save you. In this, hope and courage are for fools. I don’t believe it dramatic to say a great many lives, including my own, may rely on your understanding of the balance. Do you hear me?’
‘I … yes.’
‘Say it.’
‘Noemi, I hear you.’
She relaxed her grip. ‘Then listen well. To find the balance, to preserve the balance, you must see the good in that which is evil … and the evil in that which is good. No one person is wholly good or, whatever you may think of yourself or people like Alan Grey, wholly evil. The balance exists between good and evil, because those two states are flawed ideals, never truly reflected in reality.’
Drake took her wrists and gently removed her hands from the sides of his head. ‘So the balance is the middle ground?’
‘No.’ Noemi grinned. ‘And yes.’
‘You enjoy being cryptic, don’t you?’
‘We’ve spoken with clarity, Drake.’ She glanced at his crystal arm and grinned. ‘If you’ve the wit to see it. You won’t find true balance if I’m holding your hand along the Path.’
About an hour into the flight, Irene went and sat next to Drake. He was hunched over in his seat, his head in his hands, mumbling to himself about something.
She tried to make herself a comforting presence for a few minutes, not saying anything, but glad that she was near if he wanted to talk. In all her life, Irene had never met anyone quite like Will Drake. He was clever and knew it, but more than that he was kind when he had every reason not to be. The men in Irene’s life had always been the opposite, selfish and cruel.
After about five minutes, Drake let go of his head and gave her a forced smile. ‘Hello, Irene.’
‘Hello, Will. What are you doing on your own back here? We’ve got cookies and TV up the front.’
‘Just thinking about things,’ he said. ‘What I said back in the car, by the way, about you coming with me to London … I’m sorry I just assumed you’d be coming along. I know we haven’t talked about it, but you know I need you, right?’
Irene nodded slowly. She had held some vague idea about travelling to Moraine Lake, in Alberta, but this was more important. She wanted to help Drake. ‘It’s not as if I’ve got anywhere else to go … but I know. You don’t think you could heal your mother by yourself?’
Drake shook his head. ‘Look at what I’ve done so far, Irene. I’ve been able to heal myself – not so sure how, as it just kind of happens – but everything else I’ve done with this blasted power has either melted stuff or blown it up. I don’t even know if it’s possible, healing my mum of her cancer
, but if anyone can do it …’
Irene swallowed and felt a flutter of nerves, butterflies, take flight in her stomach. ‘Something like what your mum has … cancer? Will, I wouldn’t even know where to begin.’
Drake surprised her with a gentle smile. ‘I know. I worry about that a bit, but I think I know you well enough now to know you’ll try your best.’
‘Do you?’ Irene leant in close, so their arms brushed together – hers against his crystal limb – and kicked his boot with her sneaker. ‘You said something, back on that train when the soldiers attacked, that confused me.’
‘What?’
‘You said “follow the web”, or something like that.’ Irene glanced past Drake and out the small window, down at the lights of some town far below. ‘What does that mean?’
Drake stared at her, and his expression softened. ‘It’s nothing, really. Just something I tell myself.’
‘Oh?’
‘Sounds embarrassing, saying it out loud,’ he said. Irene poked her tongue out at him. ‘Oh, whatever. Every time I’ve escaped from one of the Alliance’s prisons, the plan I make in my head, I always see it as like … like a spider’s web, you know? At the centre is the goal – to escape or whatever – and there’s, like, dozens of ways to get there. It’s what I tell myself, when they put walls or barbed wire in my way.’
‘Or strand you on an oil rig.’
‘That one almost had me.’ Drake ran the fingers of his good right hand in slow circles on Irene’s palm. She suppressed a shiver and a smile, but pleasant goosebumps ran up her arm. ‘Anyway, follow the web. I need to follow it all the way back to London. That’s the goal, the prize at the heart of the web. Get back to my mum before it’s too late. And now I’ve got a way to save her, Irene.’
Irene took a deep breath. ‘You’ve got me.’
‘Yes. I’ve got you. With your knack for healing, I think we’ve got a chance.’
Irene found herself thinking that she wanted to go with him, that she’d believe him if he told her to jump out of this plane without a parachute and that everything would somehow work out for the best. He must be so worried … but he hides it so well. ‘What about after?’
‘After?’
‘After London? You told Noemi you’d go to Japan, to her secret school or wherever she thinks you need to go. Doesn’t that sound absurd?’
Drake shrugged. ‘I think we’re going to have to head there first, but I’ll make them take me on to London from there. So long as you and Tristan want me around, I’m sticking with you two. That’s a promise. But if she can really give us somewhere away from the Alliance … somewhere safe? Somewhere I can relax and figure out this crystal nonsense. Irene, that sounds too good to pass up.’
Irene agreed.
Chapter Ten
Skeleton Man Has a Plan
‘We’re about ten minutes outside of Niagara,’ a female voice chimed in the cabin. Drake guessed it belonged to the other pilot, some woman named Grace. ‘About to begin our descent. No chatter on the ground to indicate the Alliance know we’re up here.’
Drake finished a bag of crisps and watched the end of some old sitcom from the turn of the century with Irene and Tristan. He licked the salt from his lips and took his seat again at the back as they made their descent. The lights on the ground grew closer, bands of twinkling streetlamps and houses, running like arteries across the land.
Niagara Falls, he thought. Never thought I’d be seeing that. He couldn’t shake the irksome feeling that London kept getting further away, as Japan – kilometre by kilometre – grew closer. It’s not a prison, he reminded himself. At least, Noemi says as much. But once they have you, will they be so eager to let you go?
‘Will they be able to stop me …?’
He leant over in his chair and stared at the top of Noemi’s head, her smooth dark hair trailing over one shoulder in a loose ponytail. He wanted to trust her, he really did, but for all he knew they were about to land at an Alliance military base. That seemed a touch far-fetched, but he’d put nothing past Lucien Whitmore. Not even a cute, magical, sometimes invisible, ninja girl.
‘Something coming up alongside us,’ Toby said through the intercom. ‘It looks like a … oh shit – it’s an Alliance Seahawk!’
Drake pressed his face against the window and saw the chopper keeping level with the plane as they descended to only a few hundred feet above the ground. They must have still been shooting through the air at hundreds of kilometres an hour. Skeleton Man, that wasted creature with pale skin, leant out of the chopper and grinned at Drake. He should have been blown away, swept into the jet stream, but the trails of air seemed to bend around him, as if he were protected by an invisible shield. It looked surreal – and horrifying.
Bastard stole my cool shield move, Drake thought.
Skeleton Man’s hand shone with a sphere of rippling yellow energy.
‘Oh dear,’ Drake muttered, half a second before a beam of raw light exploded from the chopper and shot into the plane. ‘Hold on!’
The entire cockpit of the plane – and the two pilots – disintegrated in a flash of heat and blinding energy. The rest of the cabin was left exposed to the elements, cool air, and wisps of low cloud. Drake heard Irene scream, and his eyes bulged as what remained of the plane fell forward into a spiral, the force pressing him back into his seat. Through the hole where the cockpit had been, lights spun dizzyingly round and round.
Drake gripped the seat in front of him. Raw fear squirmed in his gut. The front few metres of the plane, including half the kitchen, had been sheered away as cleanly as if piano wire had been pulled through an apple. The plane was going to crash.
No …
‘No!’
Fierce fire burnt down Drake’s arm and incinerated the leather glove concealing his crystal hand. Glittering blue and white sparks burst from his fingers, twisting into tentacles of power that shot through the plane. The swirling energy coalesced as it left the plane. His stomach doing backflips, Drake watched, amazed, as a shining crystal bird emerged from within the furnace of power. With a great screech – as of a hawk or an eagle – the bird grew until it eclipsed the view of the ground. A massive wingspan steadied the bird and sharp claws dug into the ruined fuselage of the falling plane. Well, better than a damn spider. Crystal talons punched through the casing of the aircraft as if it were nothing more than a tin of soup.
Close to the ground now, Drake saw a roaring torrent of white water cascading over a cliff face fifty metres above the river in the gorge below. Niagara Falls!
With another screech, the crystal bird wrenched the plane upwards, and Drake’s head spun as they cleared the top of the falls. Freezing spray stung his skin like tiny pebbles. The talons of the bird cut clean through the roof, and the crystal creature lost its grip on the broken and battered fuselage. Still carrying a fair bit of speed, the plane dropped into the river that fed the monumental falls.
Cold water surged into the cabin as Drake was thrown forward from the impact, his seat belt digging painfully into his waist. The abrupt stop disorientated him for a moment, but only a moment. He unclipped his belt and fell into the aisle, cool water already a quarter of a metre deep and rising as the lights in the cabin flickered on and off.
Of Noemi and Takeo he couldn’t see a thing, but Drake headed towards the front of the plane for Irene and Tristan. He found Tristan treading water, swimming against the influx from the front of the plane, the backpack slung over his shoulder as he made his escape out into the river. Irene was still in her seat!
A mask of blood covered her face, and her head lolled against her shoulder. Drake pulled himself into Tristan’s chair and grasped Irene’s shoulders. ‘Irene!’
The water had risen to seat level now, and Drake splashed Irene’s face with a cold handful. Some of the blood washed away, quickly replaced from a deep, nasty gash over her left eye, but she coughed and gasped from the cold.
Drake breathed a heavy sigh of relief as she looke
d around, disorientated and confused.
Irene saw him, smiled, and then grasped the side of her head in pain. ‘What … Will?’
‘I conjured some sort of crystal bird,’ he said. ‘Big old bird that caught us before we crashed. All magical and what not. Buggered if I know how. Hang on.’
Drake unclasped her seat belt as the water surged over the leather seats and they started to float. The cabin was under a metre of water now, and what remained of the kitchen plunged towards the bottom of the river. It looked as if Tristan had made it out. In the poor light, Drake didn’t know if Noemi and Takeo had done the same, but their seats were empty. He looped his arm under Irene’s and pulled her against the flood.
The fuselage struck the bottom of the river, and a rush of bubbles from the rear of the aircraft surged forward, shooting him and Irene out of the plane and into the river proper. He kept a firm grasp around Irene as the current swept them back along the length of the plane.
The falls! Drake’s heart seized with fear. He’d have no chance to help Noemi or Takeo if they were still in the plane. He and Irene were about to plummet to their deaths.
The current forced them along the surface, and Drake gasped air as the weight of his crystal arm – a weight he didn’t feel in the limb itself – tried to pull him back under. Irene grabbed the scruff of his collar and kept him afloat. Swept along the river, Drake heard the falls roaring somewhere ahead in the darkness.
‘Will!’ Irene called. ‘Look!’
She began paddling, large strokes with her free arm, and Drake saw they were close to the shoreline – a series of rocky outcrops and dry land. Irene’s strokes pulled them closer, riding the current, until Drake’s feet scraped along the bottom of the river as the depth disappeared.