Pulse Point

by Colleen Nelson

  ⌓

  At the base of the Mountain, the trees thinned and the valley stretched out below. The stream carved a path to the City. I turned to Gideon and Akrum. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  Gideon and Akrum set the stretcher down. “We’ve come this far.”

  Akrum looked around him and picked up a branch from the ground. “We could build a raft, you know. Tie some branches together and float him down the stream.”

  “You’ve got rope?” Gideon asked. Akrum nodded. “Worth a try,” Gideon said. “Be faster than carrying him.”

  My back and shoulders ached. Akrum’s idea made me want to cry with relief. While Akrum and Gideon went to search for branches that could be lashed together, I bent down to check on Lev. “We’ll be there soon,” I whispered to him. His teeth chattered and I tucked the blanket tightly around his body. His fever had gotten worse since Mara had turned back.

  A jolt like a million pulse points zapped me in the back. I fell to the ground, my limbs useless. Muddled images blurred in front of me. Two overseers. Akrum’s body dragged from the trees. And then Gideon’s. An overseer holding a stun gun stood above him.

  The effects of the stun gun rattled through my body. Saliva dribbled down my chin. “Gideon,” I gurgled. It was the most I could get out. He wasn’t moving. Neither was Akrum. Had the jolt they’d been given killed them?

  An overseer stared down at me. He wore the same suit as Lev and bore the tell-tale translucency of a Citizen. I noticed his eyes though. They were blue. And his body was broad-shouldered and muscular; more like a Prim’s than a Citizen’s.

  The blue-eyed overseer crouched down and pulled me into a sitting position so he could tie my hands behind my back. I gasped as the ropes he tied cut into my wrists. “Sorry,” he said in a low voice and loosened them.

  I watched as the other overseer used Lev’s pulse point to check his vital signs.

  “How is he?” the overseer behind me asked.

  “Not good.” He pulled a vial of liquid from his pack and plunged a syringe into it, filling the cylinder. “I hope this works,” he muttered as he injected it into Lev’s arm.

  My captor pulled me to stand, but it took all my strength not to collapse at his feet. “I’ve been waiting a long time to meet you,” he said softly.

  “Oo are oo?” I slurred.

  He didn’t answer me. Instead, his eyes landed on the knife in my belt. He looked at the overseer behind me and drew the knife out of its sheath. His voice was barely a breath. “I’ve also been waiting a long time to do this.”

  He was going to stab me! My heart jumped to my throat. After everything, this couldn’t be how it ended. But, when he looked into my eyes, it wasn’t my death I saw coming. “Duck,” he whispered.

  In a split second I realized his intention. I bent down as he pulled his arm back and let go of the knife. Not just let go, he sent it with such force that it sailed through the air and landed in the overseer’s chest with a sickening crack.

  The overseer didn’t see it coming. He looked up in shock and gave a strangled cry. “Jacob?” He staggered forward choking on the blood that filled his lungs.

  Jacob?

  The overseer’s legs buckled and he tumbled forward, lying motionless on the ground. Dead.

  “You killed him.” The thud of the knife entering his body echoed in my head.

  Jacob walked to the overseer and rolled him over with the toe of his boot. The overseer’s lifeless eyes stared up at him. He bent down, pulled the knife out of his chest and wiped it clean on the dead man’s suit. The smears of dark blood were a stark contrast to the stiff white fabric. A swell of vomit rose up my throat as Jacob walked back to me holding the knife. With a sharp thrust, he cut the ropes binding my hands and held the knife out to me. “You’ll need this.”

  I didn’t take the knife. I started to shake, and all at once, huge, hiccupping sobs burst from my mouth.

  Jacob’s face softened. He put his hands on my shoulders and bent his head so we were eye level. His blue eyes met mine. “Do you know who I am?”

  “You’re my—” I couldn’t bring myself to say it. Father wasn’t the right word, but neither was birth elder.

  He nodded. “Raina told you.”

  “She’s Mara now.” My voice was a croak.

  “Mara,” he let the name roll off his tongue. “So she’s still alive.” He sounded surprised and maybe disappointed too.

  It was my turn to nod. He gave me a long look. “We have a difficult journey ahead of us.”

  I had so many questions, but I didn’t trust myself to speak; there more important things to worry about. I looked around the clearing and stumbled over to Gideon.

  He lay on his side, breathing in short, rapid bursts. “He’ll be okay,” Jacob assured me. “Egan gave him a strong jolt but not enough to kill him.”

  “And Lev?” I asked weakly.

  Jacob’s mouth twisted in a scowl. “An injection of freshly harvested stem cells.”

  My stomach rolled at the word ‘harvested’ and its implications. Mara’s fears for the intertwining project had been real. I looked at Lev and wondered if the medicine would work. Another cruel irony: he’d come to protect me from the thing that might save his life.

  I stared at Jacob as he looked across the valley; the City was a speck in the distance. Even if I hadn’t been shocked by the stun gun, words would have failed me. He took a deep breath, letting it fill his lungs. “I thought I’d never see outside again. Never stand on this Mountain.” The pain of eighteen years in captivity showed on his face.

  Jacob sat down and gestured for me to come closer. He twisted the cap off his canteen and passed it to me. “Drink. You’ll feel better.”

  “How did you get out?” I asked, taking a long sip and handing him back the canteen.

  “When Lev and his partner didn’t return, another team was sent out. They saw beasts and came back, terrified. The Council realized they needed to send someone who knew the Mountain. Who better than a Prim?”

  I stared at him, confused.

  “They think they’ve turned me. That after years of abuse I’m loyal to them.” The bitterness of his words made me wince. “And they sent me out with this.” He pulled up the cuff of his sleeve and showed me a band around his wrist. “A tracking device.”

  My heart had started to regain its natural rhythm, but my head still spun. I didn’t know if it was the effects of the stun gun or all my unasked questions.

  “I’ve worked hard to make them trust me. It’s what we want them to think.”

  “We?”

  “The Underlanders.” The name hung between us.

  “There’s more of you?” Just as Mara and I had thought.

  He nodded. “The people who built the City were never released. There’s hundreds of them, men, women and children. And then the intertwined, Prim half-breeds. All of us are prisoners in the underland.” I thought of the calm, efficient City, so clean and orderly, and of the horrors that existed below. “They want to fight, Kaia. They want their freedom.”

  “Fight who? How?”

  Jacob’s eyes grew hard. “The Council. The overseers. Some are on our side; they smuggle us supplies and information. They know what the City has done is wrong.” He looked at Lev lying unconscious on the stretcher.

  Suddenly I was scared for him. What if Jacob killed him the same way he’d murdered Egan? “Lev’s not like the others,” I told him quickly. “He hates being an overseer.”

  “That’s what Mae told me too.”

  “Mae! You’ve seen her?” My heart jumped. It was true! She was alive!

  “Lev promised her he’d bring you back.”

  I started to weep again. For Mae, for Lev, for Gideon, for me and Mara. And for Jacob. For all of us, for the pain we’d endured at the hands of the City.

&nbs
p; On the ground, Gideon stirred. “What the—?” He shook his head and winced. “Kaia?”

  “I’m here,” I said, crawling towards him. “You’re okay.”

  He tried to sit up and saw Jacob. His eyes widened in fear at the sight of the overseer suit. He fumbled trying to get his knife.

  I calmed his hands, still trembling from the jolt. “No, don’t! It’s Jacob. He saved us.” Hearing the words out loud made them feel real.

  “Jacob?” he repeated dumbly.

  I nodded.

  Gideon struggled to focus. “Where’s Akrum?” Looking around, he noticed Egan’s body. “Who is that? What happened to him?”

  “Akrum got zapped too. He’s lying over there. That,” I said, looking at Egan, “was an overseer. Jacob killed him.”

  Gideon’s eyes flew to Jacob with the same horrified look I’d given him.

  “He had to,” I explained. “It was life or death.”

  “I’m sure it was, but how did he do it? What’s a Prim doing with an overseer?”

  Jacob started to explain again and moments later, Akrum stirred. “Gideon!” he gasped and tried to leap into action. His body didn’t obey his head and he fell back to the ground and groaned.

  “You were hit with a stun gun,” I told him. “You need to rest.” Akrum rolled over and looked at me. His hair stood on end and his face looked more wizened than before, if that was possible. He reached out for a tree and used it to pull himself to sitting. “I thought they killed you,” he said. His voice shook. He took in the scene around him and for the first time noticed Jacob.

  “Akrum,” Jacob said.

  Akrum stared at him. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. “I don’t believe it,” he finally whispered. His face contorted in soundless anguish and he began to weep. The sobs wracked his body, making his shoulders shake. Jacob went to Akrum, bending over him and holding his head against his chest, rocking him like an infant. Jacob muttered apologies, as if being held captive had been his fault.

  “I never thought I’d see you again,” Akrum sobbed.

  Gideon and I swallowed back our own tears watching them. The reunion was bittersweet. Akrum told Jacob about the lives that had been lost while he’d been held captive. The hardships the Prims had endured: hunger and cold; storms and illness. “We never forgot you,” he finished. “Every child in camp knows your name.”

  Jacob nodded, and took a deep breath, wiping his eyes.

  “Why are we waiting here?” Akrum asked. His usual vigour had returned. “We need to get back. Tell everyone. There will be a celebration!” But his energy was short lived. As soon as he tried to stand, it was obvious he was in no state to go back up the hill. He wobbled and then sank back to the ground.

  “It’s getting dark,” Gideon said. And it was true. The sky had shed its last wisps of dusk. Stars glowed, but night hadn’t fully swallowed the Mountain. “We can go to the cave, rest up by a fire until we’re strong enough to move.”

  “What about him?” Akrum nodded to Egan, the dead overseer.

  Jacob didn’t even look his way. “Let him rot.”

  Jacob and I carried the stretcher while Akrum and Gideon led the way to the cave. “I used to dream about these tunnels,” Jacob said. “I’d map out the maze of twists and turns in my head so I wouldn’t forget them.” He wasn’t talking to anyone in particular, but we all nodded.

  Lev

  “Kaia?” I groaned, opening my eyes. My body felt not my own, but for the first time since Raf’s death, my mind was clear. An orange glow flickered off rough, stone walls. I knew I wasn’t in the City, but I felt safe and warm. Layers of blankets made it hard to move.

  “I’m here,” she whispered.

  “Where am I?”

  “In a cave on the Mountain. We’re resting before—” she broke off. I shifted under the blankets to see who she’d turned to look at. “He’s awake,” she said and then another face appeared. A male in a survival suit.

  All at once, alarms rang in my head. Raf had told me what they’d do with Kaia when they found her. “No!” I shouted. Adrenaline pumped through my body. I tore off the covers and threw myself on the overseer. “Run, Kaia!”

  The sickness had left me drained and all it took was a flick of his arm to send me reeling. “It’s okay!” Kaia shouted. “He’s not going to hurt me.”

  “That’s what he says,” I spat. “I know what they want to do to you.” I narrowed my eyes at him with as much ferocity as I could muster.

  “No, it’s not what you think,” Kaia said. “He’s not an overseer.”

  From the corner of my eyes, two Prims gawked at me. It was worse than I thought. We were surrounded. I got to my feet and held my arms in a fighting stance, ready if they came at me.

  “You’re going to take on all of us?” The older one asked calmly. There were deep grooves around his mouth and on his forehead. Wiry grey hair stood on end. He snorted, “Guess the medicine worked.”

  “Stop it, Akrum,” Kaia chided. “He’s confused. He doesn’t know what’s going on.”

  “Who is he?” I asked, glaring at the overseer. “Why is he here?”

  “His name is Jacob—”

  “The one they took?” The fight drained out of me. I wobbled on my feet.

  “You knew?” Kaia gaped at me.

  “Not until I was on the Mountain. Raf told me things. The City’s not what we thought it was. You can’t go back,” I told her. “Ever.” I worried that I’d shock her with my words, but instead, she nodded.

  “I know. We know.” Kaia gestured at the males with her.

  There was a long, awkward silence.

  “I killed Raf,” I blurted. “He wanted to take you back and leave you in the underland. I pushed him off a rock and the beasts came. I heard them eating him.” Just saying the words made the sounds echo in my head. My guts turned with nausea. “And then I got sick. I hallucinated. I thought I saw him, back from the dead. And Tar. It was all her idea, Kaia. Banning energy sharing, taking Mae, the match with Sari, all of it. I think she wanted to make you so miserable you’d do whatever she wanted.”

  And me? Had she cared at all when I didn’t return? I’d seen one flash of compassion for me on a hologram. Even if it had been real, it wasn’t enough.

  In the flickering light of the fire Kaia looked more Prim than Citizen. And older, as if her time away from the City had aged her by years, not days.

  Everyone sat and Jacob passed around a canteen, first to Kaia and the Prims and then to me. I hesitated before drinking from it. The thought of putting my lips where the Prims’ had been was repulsive. I felt their eyes on me and knew I couldn’t refuse.

  The water tasted pure and clean, and better yet, stayed down. I passed the canteen back to Jacob. “I came to the Mountain to find Kaia, but I’m at your mercy now.” I grit my teeth and avoided looking at Gideon, the Prim I’d attacked. “I can’t go back.”

  “Luckily you’ve been sleeping for twelve hours, so we’ve had time to consider it,” the old Prim said. Why did everything that came out of his mouth sound like an insult?

  “You’re Tar’s son. That makes you valuable. You might be her one weakness.” Jacob met my eyes and for the first time, I noticed they were as blue as Kaia’s.

  “But you’re also an overseer. How could we ever trust you?” The old one glowered at me.

  I met his eyes. “Hurting the Prims would hurt Kaia. And I’d never do that.”

  “Stop tormenting him,” Kaia told them. “You’re coming with us.” She emphasized ‘us’ and I felt a flicker of unease, but then she put her hand on mine. For a second, we weren’t in a room with Prims, but back in the orchard, planning our future.

  Gideon looked at me as if he’d eaten something rancid.

  “If you betray us, I will slit you from your guts to your throat and wear your skin for a
coat,” the old one said and then gave me a maniacal grin.

  I turned away, disgusted.

  Jacob spoke, “The offer is conditional, Lev. We need you with us when we go back.”

  I thought I hadn’t heard him properly. “Go back?”

  “To get Mae,” Kaia reminded me, frowning. “And free the Underlanders.”

  “The who?”

  “I told you he didn’t know,” Kaia said to all of them. “There are people trapped in the underland. The workers who built the City and others like me. Jacob is in charge of them.”

  “We’re getting stronger. We’re ready to fight,” he said.

  “A rebellion.” A slow smile spread across Akrum’s face.

  “We’ll raise an army on this Mountain,” Jacob said and looked at me. “And then we’ll go back. We know the underland and you know the City. You have inside information about the Council. We can work together to take it back.”

  It was lunacy to agree to their plan. They thought they could prepare a group of people living in the wilderness to fight trained overseers? We had stun guns and a dome to protect us. Who knew what else Tar had access to? Or what she would do if the Underlanders revolted? But when I looked at Kaia’s face, I knew I couldn’t say no.

  Kaia

  Lev had rested and eaten. He got stronger by the hour, but knowing what had made it possible, harvested stem cells, turned my stomach. Gideon and Akrum had rummaged through the overseer’s packs, marvelling at the City’s technology. The lightstick got passed hand to hand until its glare gave me a headache and I begged them to put it away. The rest of the supplies were divided between us. Lev was weak, but he’d make it to camp, if for no other reason than to wipe the smirk off Gideon’s face.

  I was going back up the Mountain with a heavy heart. Mae was still in the City. Jacob had assured me that she was safe. As long as there was the chance that I was alive, Tar would keep Mae as bait.

  “There’s one thing I have to do before we set off,” Jacob said. He picked up his stun gun and held it to the cuff at his wrist. When he zapped it, there was a sizzle and thin plume of smoke rose up.