by Tracy Korn
"Who are you?" Liddick shouts as we catch up to them, but no one answers him either. The scarred boys go through the rock face opening first, followed by the two restraining Liddick's arms, each of his wrists held at an angle behind his back.
Inside, the new cave is so bright I can't see anything, but voices are everywhere when I land hard on the smooth, warm ground.
Liddick! I think, then feel him grip my hand.
I'm here! Are you OK? he answers, but before I can reply, a new female voice rises over all the others.
"Jesse, there you are…you and Ty lead out with us now. Jove wants another patrol of the swallow falls—worms are stirred up clear to the reservoir. Those two ain't the last of their group, besides."
"A third run? Come on, it's time to eat!" one of the boys near me protests as another cheers from the other side of the room.
"About time we had some ruckus! Jesse, pass over that blade if you're staying behind for soup and cuddles," he adds.
"Yeah, come here…I'll pass you a blade," the one near me growls, then fades into the shuffle of dissipating voices. I shield my eyes enough to see the last of their group moving through the rock opening we've just come through, while the two blond, scarred boys walk along the wall. I turn and find Liddick right next to me, as well as two bigger boys standing about five feet behind him. They both have dark hair, one of them wearing it pulled back in a small ponytail while the other just lets it fall into his eyes. All four are wearing worn, woven shirts that range from tan to a reddish brown, and their dark canvas pants are tucked into riot guard boots just like Azeris's when he came to help us rig the port-call channel in the Boundaries room. They all seem to be about our age, but older somehow…wilder. They can't be from Gaia.
"I have to hand it to you," the female voice from the tunnel says behind us, and when I jerk around to face her, my damp hair whips against my cheek. She looks like Badlander Fringe, just like Vox, with her gray tank top and military green canvas pants. She's our age too with copper hair that skims her shoulders. Her freckles are marred by soot, but the sharp lines of her face, the scar that looks like a coiled snake running across her upper arm, and the clip of her tone cancel out anything innocent she may have once been. "Most people don't get past the word cannibals," she adds, adjusting the wide satchel strap that runs under her arms as she brings the blade of a huge machete to rest on her shoulder.
"Who are you?" Liddick demands again, but she just looks him up and down and grins.
"I'm Zoe. And you're a long way from home."
CHAPTER 11
The Beginning
Zoe takes a step toward us, and both Liddick and I get to our feet. We turn toward the opening in the rock we've just come through, but the two darker boys move in front of it and block our way.
We could break through if we took them by surprise? I think, glancing at Liddick.
Even if they weren't built like shuttle busses, they'd catch us. They probably know this place, and we don't, he answers without looking away from them.
They don't have dive suits…how are they even down here? I wonder, turning to scan for another opening on the far side of the cave where the blond boys are backlit by several green-tinted torches mounted to the dark rock walls. They are smaller than the other boys, but Liddick is right; even if we could get through, they'd catch us.
"There's nowhere to go," Zoe says, tossing her rusty hair off her shoulder and angling her head. She shifts her weight and sheaths her machete at her hip, then looks us up and down. "Nice suits."
"Where's my brother?" I ask, then round on the larger boys behind us. The long-haired one dabs a cut in the corner of his mouth with the cuff of his sleeve, and in the light, I can see a long vertical scar running down his cheek. "Where did you take him?" I add, but the boy with the ponytail just smirks in reply, then kisses the air in my direction. I recoil, and he moves his hand over his heart like he's suddenly in pain. "Where is he?" I insist.
"Feisty!" the boy laughs, his eyes widening when the other one stops dabbing at his mouth to backhand him in the chest. "What? I mean, dibs is all I'm saying, you know?" he adds as the boy with the cut rolls his eyes and shakes his head.
"Can we get on with it already?" he asks Zoe impatiently, then leans back against the wall to blot his lip again. Zoe sighs and slides her machete to her back.
"Look, we're not trying to hurt you, wise? Sorry about their manners and the rough escort, but you people were entirely too loud out there," she says with mock chastisement in her voice, then shakes her head at us. Liddick's eyes flash to mine, followed immediately by a tickle in my chest as he smirks at me. "Oh, it's all fun and games until someone gets eaten," Zoe says again, and Liddick's smirk disappears.
"Eaten?" he asks.
She said cannibals Liddick. Canni—I start to think, but Zoe's answer cuts me off.
"We could have let the worm or the tunnel sharks have you," she says, raising her rusty eyebrows in punctuation as she thins her lips into a matter-of-fact smile.
"The what?" "But I promised Vox we'd make sure you made it here unkilled and in one piece, or thereabouts."
"Vox is here? Where? And Fraya? Where is my brother!?" I manage to say just before my throat closes against a new rush of adrenaline. Zoe's patronizing expression flattens into a hard, serious one as she pulls a knife from her boot and starts making it dance in her hand, flipping it end over end as the blade catches the green, glinting light of the torches on the wall in small, blinding flashes.
"First off, Fraya is fine, and your brother is as big as a walrus, not to mention about as graceful," Zoe says, locking her dark eyes with mine as she twirls, releases, and then catches her knife. "He took a swing at Dell there once we finally fished him out of the water. Lost his footing after he connected, though, and wound up kissing the rock face," she adds under a bubbling laugh. "But he made a pretty good dent in Dell's face first," she nods to the boy who is still dabbing his mouth.
"Is he all right? I want to see him," I say through my teeth, pushing forward until Liddick grips my shoulders.
Rip, just take a breath, he thinks, but I can barely keep myself from running at her as blood pounds in my ears.
"He's a little bit unconscious right now, but he's in good hands. I'll take you around when he wakes up, fair?" Zoe asks with that one-sided smile.
"There are more of you down here?" Liddick asks, taking a step forward so he's at my side again. "You said most people don't get past the word cannibals."
"That's right," she answers.
"So you're Fringe? Badlanders, this far down? How? And where is Vox?" I ask. Zoe grins, then puts her knife back into her boot.
"Most of us are Badlanders—we have a few Tinkerers from Seaboard, though how we're here is a story for later. Vox said you were a quick study," she answers with a wink. I look around like Vox is going to materialize on cue from inside the walls somehow, and one of the blond boys shakes his head.
"She's not here any more. Left a few hours ago," the taller one says, his clear blue eyes catching the torches just off his shoulder. Now that there is more light, I can see that his scars aren't just similar, they're almost identical to Vox's tattoos.
"She knew we were coming. Why would she leave?" I press, heat rising in my cheeks all over again.
"You can thank Cal for that," the tall, ponytailed boy answers with a nod at the other blond boy, whose dimples tack his cheeks when he sighs and rolls his eyes.
"Look, for the last time, it's not my fault. How was I supposed to know what her people believe up there?" the blond boy who must be Cal asks, holding out his hand like he's waiting for one of us to put the answer in it. "She's gone, OK? She went to the Motherland that doesn't even exist in the mountain. Do you think I'm happy about that? Vahg om," he says, then closes his eyes and shakes his head at the ceiling as the boy with the long cheek scar and cut lip speaks up.
"It exists," he says from the other side of the cave, lowering the cuff of his shirtsleeve from his m
outh. The temperature seems to drop 20 degrees as Cal and the taller blond boy both look away at this, and Zoe just clenches her jaw. Liddick must register the awkward tension too because he reroutes the conversation.
"You must be Dell," he says, nodding to the boy's bloodied shirt cuff. "Jax's handiwork? Bet that made your day," he adds, offering his hand. "Liddick Wright."
After a beat, the boy comes off the wall to take Liddick's hand with as much of a smile as he can manage, and I see several more scars on his hands and forearms.
"Dell Marchand," he says, then turns to me and winks, raising two fingers to his brow like a salute, and it seems like his round, hazel eyes belong to someone much older. "You're Jazz?" he asks, and flips his feathered brown hair back, revealing just for a second another long, white scar running just over his eyebrow. I nod, and he half smiles at me.
He's not quite as big as Jax after all, and not as intimidating as I thought at first. This close, I actually feel a sense of ease with him, but also a feeling of pity somehow. Is it all the scars? I wonder.
Bet he's got a story, Liddick thinks, evidently picking up on my feelings again.
"That's Alec," Dell says with a jerk of his head to the ponytailed boy still standing on the wall, who then pushes forward and offers his hand. Dell takes a few steps back, but still keeps his eyes on us.
"Alec Farr, welcome to our humble abode," he says, sweeping his arm out in a wide, exaggerated movement to present the room. He's much taller than everyone in the cave, and his long, thin nose and high cheekbones seem too refined for his tattered shirt and broad build. His long and graceful fingers wrap around my hand, and for a second I wonder if he's a lost cloudy from Skyboard.
"This is Cal Shepherd," Zoe adds, angling her head to the surly blond boy with the dimples who just told us about Vox. His diamond scars are also nearly identical to her tattoos, and so is his expression of relative disgust with everything. His ice blue eyes snap up at the sound of his name, and with another sigh, he bothers himself to come forward to offer us his hand.
"I would say it's a pleasure, but it's not. I had things to do today," he says before crossing back to the boulder he was sitting on. "That's Veece. He's a pain in the ass," Cal adds over his shoulder as he hooks a thumb at the taller blond boy who is already walking toward us.
"Veece Singer," he says under a raised eyebrow, which warps the edges of the diamond scar on his forehead. The collar of his shirt falls forward as he bends into the greeting, revealing scars lead to the same maze pattern as Vox has on her chest.
You saw that? All their scars are like Vox's tattoos…like the Badlander barbarians' scars from Tark's virtuo-cine, I think, and Liddick nods cautiously as Zoe makes her way over to us and slips under Veece's arm, wrapping one hand around his waist and extending the other to us.
"Zoe Frank," she says, which makes Liddick flinch.
"Frank?" he asks too abruptly. She stiffens, raising an eyebrow at him and cocking her head to one side.
"Yeah. Problem?"
He freezes, and I have to nudge him after several seconds.
"There's no problem. You just reminded me of a friend of mine," he says, studying her face as a wash of anxiety floods from him. I start to ask what's wrong, but Zoe starts talking again.
"All right, well I suppose it's safe to introduce you around now that we're all finished being hostile—except for Cal, but he's always sore that way, so don't take it personal," she says with an air kiss to Cal when he rolls his eyes at her. "Keep in mind it won't be everybody because a good scoop went to lift the rest of your friends before they made bait out of themselves like you almost did," Zoe adds. "You saw they just lit out."
"They're going to bring the rest of our group here? Right now?" I ask.
"Well, yeah. Been awhile since the worm had anything live to eat as far as we know. Can't have hoolywallers rappelling down the rock falls and causing vibrations all over to draw it up. I swear it's like you never been in the middle of the world before," Zoe answers with a click from the side of her mouth, and I can only stare at her, dizzy with the swirl of her words. "When your walrus wakes up, we'll have you explain the happenings, wise? Dell sure wouldn't get two words into what was actual before he'd spring another leak," she continues, then angles her head at him and chuckles as he dabs the corner of his mouth again. He narrows his eyes at her. "Definitely going to be puffy for a spot, aren't you?" Zoe asks.
"I'm not going to be puffy," Dell answers, his heavy, dark brows knitting together, but his lip is clearly starting to swell.
"You're already puffy," Alec says, snickering.
"You want to see puffy?" Dell lowers his chin as he takes a step toward Alec, who raises his hands in surrender and laughs again.
"All right, so wait…" I start, trying to make sure I understand everything. "Jax hit his head on a cave wall, but he's fine, except for being unconscious. Vox was here, but she left for some homeland. She told you we were coming, so you're helping us not get eaten by the worm thing that hunts by sound at the bottom of the waterfall? And Fraya is fine here somewhere too. Is all that right?" I ask, shaking my head.
"Right, right, and right." Zoe says, her brown eyes sparkling in the torchlight as she fights the grin starting to tug at the corner of her mouth. "Next question?"
"You're Fringe—I mean, Badlanders, and you're going to tell us how you got down here later, OK," I say, looking from Zoe to Alec and Dell, "but who are you?" I glance at Veece, then at Cal, who grins, shaking his head.
"Noooo, thank you. The last time I answered that question, that vig-rhova with the yellow eyes lit out right now for purpose and conquest," Cal answers. "By all means, you tell it so everyone can blame you when they leave like Vox did," he adds, unfolding his hand palm up at Veece as if to introduce him on stage.
Veece smiles and closes his eyes in a long blink before taking a deep breath and letting it out with a sigh.
"We're called Vishan," he says, and I feel my eyes widen as I remember Vox's story about her ancestors.
"Vox said Vishan lived in the stars, and she didn't even believe that," I say as Liddick gives me a quizzical look. I guess I never told him about this.
"Legend says two of the original twelve—the twelve who started the six families—went to the stars, but we've lived in these caves and tunnels for almost 200 years. I'll be happy to tell you the rest of the long story, but if it's no bother to you, I'd like to wait until we collect the rest of your friends so I can just tell it once," Veece says, his nearly invisible eyebrows raising slightly in question and wrinkling the arrow scars on his forehead again.
"But how are any of you down here at all with no protection against the heat? The pressure? We have these suits and nanites, and—" I stop abruptly when the look on Dell's face shifts from warm and curious to hard and withdrawn, the cold snap of the sudden change in his feelings stinging me like the whip of a tree limb pulled too far back. "What? What did I say?" I ask, confused, and wait for someone to start talking.
CHAPTER 12
Center Hall
What's wrong? What did I say? I ask Liddick in my mind.
I don't know. Dell must have an issue with nanites, he answers, then takes a step toward the others. "We got our nanites from Gaia Sur. Vox didn't tell you where we were coming from, or why?" he asks Zoe and the Vishan boys.
"Oh, she told us…" Cal answers, then takes a deep breath like he's going to continue, but Veece interrupts.
"We know you're looking for your family, and that you believe they're down here somewhere."
Liddick turns to him with a sudden adamance. "Right, and did she tell you about the experiments? About how Gaia just replaced people? We have a map to where we think they are, but we could use your help," he says.
Veece and Zoe exchange knowing glances, then look over at Dell, who pushes his hands over his face until he sucks in a breath through his teeth. He touches the corner of his mouth, then sighs at the fresh blood.
"I said don't ask me," Dell
growls, walking purposefully toward the far wall. He pulls back a long, dark cloth, revealing another fissure, the glow from the other side spilling in as he goes through. Alec smiles at us sympathetically before following him as Veece thins his lips into a line, widening his eyes in question at Cal. Zoe opens her mouth to say something, but Cal's sudden guffaw stops her.
"Don't look at me!" he laughs, shaking his head. "I don't even believe that sandy, in case you're somehow squeezed for my position on the matter." Cal holds out his hands like he's presenting physical evidence right there in front of him. "There's nothing out there except the worms and the tunnel sharks pulling sandies through the ground—not biodivers or molecuter combers, or whatever Dell calls them—just the beasts, and I can tell you firsthand the only thing up in that mountain is hot and flowy."
"Will you just—" Veece starts.
"Not to mention, even if I wanted to go back there, which I don't, you saw what happened to Dell when his nanites wore off in the Rush. Without treatments, these sandies would make it exactly 10 feet in-terra before—"
"Biodesigners," Liddick interrupts, which immediately and completely stops Cal's rant. "And Molecular Coders," he adds, taking a seat on a boulder near the wall behind us, then leaning over his knees and interlacing his fingers. "That's what Dell, the other sandy, actually called them, isn't it? We know about those too. They're real."
Cal's expression slips from adamance to surprise before he regroups, then exhales like he's exhausted.
"Look, no swipes intended, wise? But you're a little light on rainforests and swallow falls at your beachside city wrecks, right?" he asks, but doesn't wait for an answer before shaking his head and shrugging. "So, no I'm not going back to that mountain," he insists to Zoe and Veece before making a move toward the cloth-covered doorway in the shadows, but then abruptly turns around after a few steps and holds up a finger. "And I'm especially not going with new sandies in tow. I still can't believe you let Vox leave without more training," he says with a backhanded swat of the air, then finally pushes through the cloth that's covering the rock opening, temporarily flooding the cave with light again. After a few seconds of awkward silence, Zoe blows out a breath.