by Tracy Korn
"All right," he sighs, then addresses Veece. "If we get these treatments and we don't find our people, we'll have to come back here, but if we do find them and they can reverse the DNA treatment, we'll take our chances going home."
"Fair enough," Veece answers, and the tension seems to settle until Joss's deep voice crashes through the momentary peace.
"So now we're going to be fireproof?" he asks, his voice pitching. "So tell me how this is any different from what you think Gaia is doing to people?" The question sends a rod of ice through my chest as the image of Vox on fire and Fraya crying out flashes in my mind again.
"Maybe it's not, but sometimes you have to fight fire with fire," Liddick says with a wink to me, entirely too proud of his pun as the smirk starts in the corner of his mouth.
Really? I think, and roll my eyes at him.
"This is some kind of joke to you?" Arco asks, stripping Liddick's smile away as fast as it formed.
"I think we all better be able to find the lighter side of this, or we're not going to make it," he answers.
"All right, so we get the DNA treatments in order to find Vox and our families, and one way or another we go on from there. We cross that bridge when we come to it. I don't see another way, do any of you?" I ask the group, and everyone shakes their heads or just looks at the ground as if the answer is there waiting to be found. Arco clenches his teeth, but he can't argue, and finally, his hard expression breaks.
"No," he says. "I don't like it, but no, I don't see another way."
"Then we're agreed on getting the treatments?" I ask everyone again. They all nod, albeit reluctantly, except for Arco and Tieg. "Arco?" I look up, and he sighs in resignation.
"If it's the only way we can go forward," he finally answers.
"Tieg, come with us," Dez says to her brother, the angles of his face made sharper by the rigid set of his mouth. "This is the right thing to do."
Tieg blows out a breath, then pinches the bridge of his long, narrow nose again. "This is split," he whispers a few times before looking back up at us. "Fine," he says, letting his hand fall to his side. "But we test this treatment before everyone gets it. You test it." Tieg fires a look at Liddick, and another rod of ice pierces my chest.
"Fine," Liddick answers. "Then let's get it over with." He nods to Veece and marches back through the fissure so adamantly I have to dart out of his way and lean back against the faceted black wall. When I do, I feel the buzzing radiating through my palms again, but when I pull them away this time, the sound doesn't stop. I look at Zoe, starting to feel confused.
"Now? He has to have the treatment right now?" I manage to say, but my voice sounds muffled in my ears under the low droning. Liddick! I try to call to him in my thoughts, but I can't focus enough to connect when the only instinct I have right now is to run.
"I don't know," Zoe answers from somewhere far behind me as the golden light of the pier folds into the muted shadows of the corridor leading back down to Center Hall.
***
By the time I get to the bottom of the rise, the buzzing is so loud I have to close my eyes. No, no…not now, Vox, I think, pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes to push back the noise, but it only gets stronger. Everything seems to slant sideways, then a sharp pain shoots through my knees just seconds before I feel the warm, hard rock on my cheek. I try to push myself up from the ground, but I see the fire from the center of the room again—the one from the first vision after Liddick and I made our way out of the pool under the falls. It's made up of three colors this time, red, orange, and green, and the glow worms on the walls have been replaced by the green moss from the hot spring room.
Vox, listen to me…send me back. They're going to make Liddick like Arco's sister…like them. They're going to make him fireproof. Vox! I call out, but there's nothing but the fire that starts to grow, spilling over the edges of its container like water overflowing from a tub. The flames widen from the center and I press my back against the wall, skimming the perimeter frantically searching for a way out. The flames lick out at me like they did before, first the green, which narrowly misses my forehead. The orange flame cracks like a whip at my shoulder, but to my surprise, it doesn't hurt. The red flame expands and crashes like a wave over my head; I crouch into a ball and cover my face with my hands, the flickering current of fire pushing in at all the dark corners, roaring in my ears until I shut my eyes as tightly as I can, and then it all stops.
After a second, I open my eyes and see Vox under a canopy of enormous, angular leaves, the largest of which run the length of my arm. They're the same, surreal green as the moss on the hot spring walls, and curl away from her when she kneels over a fallen tree trunk that is half rotted through. She scoops handfuls of brownish-green paste from the center of it, then covers the backs of her hands, the tattooed arrows on her neck, and just before she smears it over her face, I notice the red scrape marring her cheekbone. She looks up at me then and cocks an eyebrow before covering it, too, with the mud.
"It smells like dead fish, but it keeps the mosquitoes away," she says casually, pushing her hands over her face like she's washing it with soap until it's completely covered in a layer of dark green. She holds perfectly still when she finishes, her round, yellow eyes peering out at me like a tree snake, silent among the clicking and rattling sounds, the high squeals and hoots from somewhere…from everywhere.
"What is this? Clues? Why do you keep showing me that fire?" I say, but she just keeps staring at me with that stupid grin and amused glean in her eyes. "Vox! Are you even really here? I have to go back—did you hear me tell you what they're going to do to Liddick?" I sputter out loud, then seize in fear at the guttural, reverberating pulsing sound just behind my head. I duck instinctively as it passes over, so loud I feel it vibrating my teeth, my sternum, and every vertebra in my spine, but I don't see anything in the enormous, angular leaves and vines that cover every square inch.
What is that!? I think, terrified to say anything out loud to Vox as her mouth tacks even more deeply at the corner, and her eyes narrow just enough to hold in a laugh.
"I just told you. Mosquitoes."
CHAPTER 25
Frequencies
The vision of Vox dissipates before I'm ready, but I can't feel the ground under me even though I'm…moving? I force my eyelids open just enough to see a dull, orange light, then blink until I can make out that it's a fire getting closer to me with each jarring movement. Fear seizes my lungs when I realize someone is carrying me—gripping my ribs and my knees so hard it's almost impossible to move, but then I realize it's because it feels like my limbs are filled with sand.
"What the hell happened?" Liddick says, then again inside my head. Rip, can you hear me?
I can't put the words together quickly enough to address the urgency in his voice…to find the sounds that make the words, and then arrange them when everything is in slow motion like this. It feels like the 10 seconds before completely waking up, the in between place where the body struggles to stay where it is even though the mind says it's time to go.
"I found her lying on the ground, but there was nothing else there, and I couldn't have been more than 10 steps behind her." Arco's voice is very close—he's very close, and when I try to make myself say something, it feels like I've swallowed sand. "Jazz, it's OK…did something hit you?" he asks just as I feel myself lowering until the ground is at my back.
Was it Vox? Did you see something again? Rip, wake up! Liddick nearly yells in my mind, and the shock of it jolts through my chest.
Vox…yes. I think. "Yes," I repeat, out loud this time, coughing, but managing to open my eyes enough to see blurred faces staring down at me.
"Did you see what it was? Hold still because I think whatever it was hit you in the head," Arco says. I fight to tell him that nothing hit me as his warm hand brushes my hair from my face, which is starting to throb under my left eye, but the words just won't come out. "It's OK…don't try to talk," he adds, and frustration pus
hes against my ribs from the inside.
"Nothing hit her except the ground. She fell when she passed out," Liddick says, and the pressure in my chest subsides a little.
Yes…she showed me…I think, but it's all I can manage to pull out of myself.
"You saw that and just left her there?" Arco growls.
"Of course not! She got another message from Vox—just give her some space."
"How do you know she got a message?" Arco's voice is barbed again, and I take shallow breaths to speak so I don't cough, but it's too late to stop Liddick from responding.
"Because I just asked her, and she just said yes," he says, slowly and clearly, and I know he does this so that Arco knows without a doubt that Liddick asked me silently—that he can do something Arco can't, and a weight falls onto my chest…Arco. I have to get up before they kill each other, and me in the process.
"Stop," I cough, my throat feeling like it's lined with sandpaper as I try to swallow. The room starts to get sharper, faces come into focus, and the three tone fire I just saw flickers from inside a hollowed out rock in the center of this small cave. The lights dance on the dark walls all around us as Jesse adds silver, shiny rocks to the container, which seem to make the flames spread. "I just couldn't talk yet," I say to Arco as I sit up, each word scraping the inside of my throat. "Vox is in the rainforest. She was digging out mud from a tree trunk," I cough again.
"Vox talked to you? And you saw her?" Cal narrows his eyes at me, then looks at Liddick.
"Our telepathy started at Gaia. It's part of the Empath career track—" Liddick starts, but stops abruptly when Cal interrupts.
"She took the NET," he says, locking eyes with Veece.
"Go check," Veece nods to Jesse, who rolls his eyes, then darts back through the fissure in the wall. Veece blows out a breath as Dell starts to laugh.
"This isn't funny," Cal glares at Dell, but this just makes him laugh harder.
"Oh, was it only funny when I told you to bury that thing the second Vox found out about the mountain…what did you say, she can't even control her fire, how could she control the frequency?" he adds, and even Zoe starts to smile as Jesse slips back through the fissure.
"Yeah, it's gone," he says as Dell laughs again and raises his arms in triumph.
"We'll see how funny you think it is when I tell Jove you're bringing it back," Veece says through his teeth, then glares at Dell. "I'm going to get a biome map from Kora and somehow convince her that it's for no particular reason," Veece growls at him again, then storms out of the cave. Dell sobers as Cal pulls a hand down his face and lets out a long sigh, then slouches to a sitting position against the far wall and lets his head fall back, the front of his cropped blond hair edging against the rock like a blade.
Control her fire? I think, and Liddick meets my eyes. Is that why fire keeps appearing in these messages from her? I ask, but he just shakes his head, as unsure as I am.
"Someone going to enlighten us here?" Tieg asks after a few more seconds of silence.
"Our Neural Enhancement Tuner—the NET…it looks like a tuning fork, and is one of the origin artifacts we use to find anyone who gets too close to the crop boundary," Cal answers, then rolls his eyes. "Not such a problem since most don't venture close, but the Council goes up to the Lookout Pier and strikes the NET once a month as a beacon to remind the ancestors who went to the stars that we're all still here," he explains, rolling his eyes and shaking his head.
"And those ancestors are supposed to be one of your grandfathers and one of Cal's grandmothers?" Liddick asks. Cal nods, closing his eyes. "But Veece doesn't even believe any of that story from what you said in the Origin Wall room…why is he so bent about it?"
"Everyone else believes. Like I told you before, the truth doesn't matter to them—only tradition matters."
"Maybe Vox didn't take anything…she doesn't need that to talk to me like this—we could do that before we ever got here. Liddick and I can do it too…" I say, hoping this will resolve everything, but Cal just looks up at me and sighs again.
"Have you always been able to see her in your mind when she's talked to you?" Cal asks, opening his eyes and racking his forearms over his knees. I shake my head. "And this time you saw her digging in a fallen tree and spreading green mud on herself?"
"Yes, she said it was for the—"
"Mosquitoes," Cal finishes my sentence with a decisive nod. "She took the NET. That's why you can see her and not just hear her—she's still in the rainforest biome," he adds, then lets out an exhausted sigh when we all just look at him blankly.
"That's impossible," Arco says, narrowing his eyes. "How could a tuning fork do that?" he asks, and Cal gets to his feet, closes his eyes in a long blink, then holds up his hands.
"All right, so when sound hits matter, the matter resonates. That movement creates a visual signal…"
"Yes," Arco interrupts impatiently, then resets himself. "I know how imaging works, but that's like sonar for 3-D mapping. How could a tuning fork do what this does?" he asks, holding up his forearm Nav unit. "And if it can, if your tuning fork is actually strong enough to create a vibration that can paint a whole life-sized scene, why can't the other Vishan see what Vox is sending on its frequency? Why is it just Jazz?"
"I really don't know," Cal answers after a second, then shakes his head and shrugs.
"Wait, the buzzing from before—the sound of Azeris's open channel that Jazz and I can hear…it's because our neural structuring is the same—Jazz and I are both Reader Empaths—that's why we both heard the marlin that night before we left, remember? Liam had configured a channel on the virtuo-cine network like a delivery system to me. Jazz would have seen everything I did if she had gone into them too, I'm sure of it. Maybe this tuning fork creates a similar network for her since Vox is a Reader too," Liddick says, looking around for input.
"Then why can't you see what Vox is sending Jazz?" Arco asks, angling his head down at Liddick and narrowing his eyes. "Since you're the same."
"Because Ms. Reynolt said we can only talk to each other like this one at a time…" I answer, surprised that it comes to me so quickly. "Liddick could never hear what Vox said telepathically to me, so it makes sense that he wouldn't be able to see it either…I mean, if it's all built on the same connection, right?" I look up at Arco and can see him clench his jaw as he takes in a slow, deep breath.
"It makes sense," Ellis answers, and Arco cuts him a glare.
"So this tuning fork…the NET," Avis starts, then nods to Cal, "the NET is basically functioning like a giant antennae for you and Vox—one that lets you see the messages she's sending, not just hear them?" he asks me, then nods repeatedly to himself this time, seeming to have decided on the answer without needing mine.
"You never passed out when Vox talked to you before," Arco says, then turns to Cal. "Why can she receive these messages if only Vishan can use the NET? What's it doing to her?"
"We never showed Vox how to use it. Jazz must be able to receive the messages because of the connection she and Vox already have…" Cal answers, then stands and crosses to me. "Does it hurt when you get these messages?" he asks, suddenly reaching over and pushing up my eyelid with his thumb, then angling my face to look at my cheek. I pull back from him.
"It's just a strong buzzing."
"Buzzing that has gotten stronger since Vox has apparently been using that thing to reach out to you," Arco adds, then looks up at Dez, whose long arms are folded over her chest as she suddenly looks up at us when he addresses her. "Can you scan her to see if there's any damage?"
"I tried to scan Jax earlier to measure his concussion progress, but the instruments don't seem to work any more. We sealed his eyebrow, but since the damage is still there, I don't think our nanites are working either," she says, pushing her straight blonde hair behind her ear, then recrossing her arms.
"So let me get this straight, these suits are the only things keeping us alive right now?" Joss speaks up, flattening his wide palms ove
r his chest panel as I refocus on the conversation.
"Not the only thing entirely," Ellis adds. "From what I read before we left, the baselines they gave us when we first got on the sub to Gaia will continue working so long as they can be charged. So, our internal levels should not be affected as long as we are either near a hub like Gaia or a Leviathan, or as long as we are wearing the suits. The nanites they gave us in the med bay—the repair bots—can't stay online indefinitely without a hub. There are just so many more of them…millions for each of our systems. Our suits just can't keep up with that turnover, so we need to be careful."
"So if this NET is causing damage, and her nanites can't fix it? How do we stop the messages?" Arco asks Ellis, then glances at Cal.
"No!" I protest. "Vox is sending us these images for a reason. I think she's trying to leave us a trail to the mountain."
"We'll have to do without the trail, Jazz. You can't keep this up through seven biomes, or whatever they have out there," Arco says.
"There is one way," Cal answers, then angles his head at his hand, which sparks with a small red flame.
"All right, enough…I said I would do it. How do we start?" Liddick asks, taking a step toward Cal.
"Only the Council can perform treatments, but we need someone who will come now and be discreet so we can get the NET back before Jove knows it's gone."
"Vita then. I'll get her," Zoe says, and Cal nods to her.
"Hurry."
CHAPTER 26
Bonds
Vita's last name is also Dyer, and I study her face for any resemblance to Vox as she unrolls a cloth with strips of white fabric, a small set of tongs, and several thin pieces of stalk that must have come from the Bale field. She holds out her hand to Cal, who sighs, then pushes up his sleeve as she pulls out one of the stalk pieces. It's pointed on the end, and I feel my breath catch when she sinks the tip of it into the crook of his arm, then pulls a smaller piece of stalk from the inside of it until it's fully extended—it's like an old style syringe, I think. When she withdraws it, she nods to Zoe, then to one of the cloth strips, which Zoe wraps around Cal's arm. Vita dribbles the blood from the thin stalk into a small hollow in the rock slab we're sitting on, which doesn't seem terribly sanitary. I start to ask her about it, but she's already in the middle of gesturing to Liddick.