TERRA (The Elements Series Book 2)

by Tracy Korn

  He turns his round, hazel eyes on me, then narrows them like he's trying to read something far away as he shakes his head and looks forward again, planting his wooden spear as a walking stick and picking it up again.

  "I gather if you thought you could stop some wrongs that would otherwise go on, you'd go too," he says decisively, then looks at me from the corner of his eye like he's trying to see if I'm paying attention. "And it wasn't being brave that made me come back out here. It was seeing you were fighting for a purpose in all that swinging you were doing." I must look confused when he turns back to me because he chuckles again, wiping the sweat from his top lip on his shoulder. "Some people just thrash around because they're cage-rattled, wise? Swiping at everything that walks by. Other people pound the lock," he says, then finds my eyes and nods at me like this is a secret between us. "Those are the ones who get out."

  As we've been talking, the terrain under our feet has turned from soft and muddy to dry and firm, scattered with angry bushes, sharply spiked with thorns and briars that stick to the laces of my boots.

  "It's different here…the ground is dry," I say, the thought falling out in words without any conscious effort on my part.

  "We're in the Tanglebush now—the desert, close to the Sands. This is the halfway point to the mountain," Dell says, then scans the horizon.

  "What are you looking for?" I ask as a chill runs down my back.

  "Tunnel sharks."

  ***

  We stop to eat under one of the last trees before the landscape stretches out into an expanse of red dirt, which is littered with rounded green shrubs.

  "What else did Azeris say when he messaged you by the Origin Wall? You said there were only two days left for my sister and your brother?" Arco asks Liddick as he takes a seat on a rock next to me. Liddick pops the last bite of his bread into his mouth and leans over, bracing his forearms on his knees before interlacing his fingers, and I realize this is the first time since we left the Vishan tunnels that we've all been able to stop and breathe.

  "He said it's called Phase Three," Liddick answers, swallowing the mouthful of bread, then pulling a draw of water from his desalinator tube. "I don't know what that means other than Phase Two is where they made Liam and the Ripley's dad assist in making Arwyn fireproof, and Lyden…" he stops, searching for the words. "When they put the gills in Lyden. Azeris was working on configuring a channel to Vox since she was so much closer to the labs than we were. If she could get in there and sabotage something, cause some trouble, it could buy us enough time to get there before the Phase Three transfer to somewhere in the atmosphere."

  "You keep saying that—what atmosphere? Like a space station?" Dez asks Liddick. I notice the edge in her voice, and that she's not sitting near him.

  "I don't know," he answers. "All Azeris said is that Liam told him there was another facility where they were testing the next level of experiments. They wanted to send Arwyn and Lyden because they were still strong. Apparently, most of the subjects don't last the duration of Phase Two," he adds, and I feel my chest constricting as his must be. He takes another pull from his desalinator tube, then clears his throat.

  "So Azeris was the source of the buzzing Vox was hearing when I saw her in the message she sent me…when she was in the Sand biome? That was Azeris getting through?" I ask.

  "It had to be. The timing was right. Why else would she be hearing buzzing—we're a long way from the neural interface Gaia was using to send us announcements," Liddick answers.

  "And her channel is probably amplified since she has the NET. Every time she made contact with Jazz, it was like sending up a flare," Cal adds, squinting against the bright light from the gas clouds before stepping under the tree and sitting in the shade with us.

  "Can't you just call to Vox? Initiate a message?" Tieg asks me, and I notice how hard his face has become, his narrow, almost glowing blue eyes piercing everything he sees. Red dirt smudges the sharp angles of his face, and I wonder if he's been burned or hit.

  "I don't know how to call her. She didn't know how she was calling me either, but she said whenever she ran across something she wanted to warn me about, I appeared," I answer, then nearly jump out of my skin when Tieg suddenly leaps to his feet and starts tearing at his dive suit.

  "What's wrong? Tieg, what's wrong!?" Dez shouts, frantically looking him over as he tries to find his dive suit pull cord.

  "There's something…on me!" he yells through his teeth as the back panel of his dive suit finally falls away.

  "Crite—there!" Avis says, pointing to his shoulder where the end of a wide black bug about the width of my palm crawls toward his blue jumpsuit collar. I choke on the involuntary gasp that forces itself into my throat when I see hundreds of its yellow legs moving at different times.

  Tieg reaches behind his neck and grabs the enormous, foot-long centipede just as it starts to make its way down his shirt. Myra screams as he throws it to the ground, then pulls back and yells in pain.

  "Back up!" Dell shouts, pinning the shiny, black insect with the blunt end of his spear, the barbed, orange tail of it curling as all the bright yellow legs writhe in different directions.

  "It bit you?" Cal asks Tieg, who is holding his hand while a single stream of blood drips between his knuckles.

  "You could say that!" Tieg answers, and Dell flips his stick to the sharp end, then spears the centipede. Bright yellow ooze spills from the puncture, and the tail end flails and thrashes until it slows to sporadic twitches.

  "Burn it, or a hundred more will find him—it has your DNA. They hunt to stay hydrated," Cal says, gesturing for Avis to bring up a flame to ignite the bug.

  "And do it quick—they're all connected. These aren't like topside centipedes. Down here, they live in nests, and they'll track you. Show me the bite," Dell says to Tieg. He opens his hand, and Dell pours water from his bottle to wash away the blood, then looks at Dez. "Get the Avo paste from his pack," he nods. She complies, then puts it on Tieg's bite, wrapping it with the same kind of thin bandage I used on Arco's hands earlier.

  "We should move," Cal says, pulling his leather pack over his shoulder and grabbing his long wooden spear.

  Liddick and I look up at each other at the same time, with the same thought. Telepathic bugs? we both think, too horrified to find any humor in it.

  No, they can't be. That's why he said to burn it. The others will trace the DNA if they find the body, I think.

  Then why is Cal in such a hell-bent hurry to get out of here? Liddick replies, and cold shoots down my neck.

  "Stay close. I've seen tunnel sharks in this biome," Dell says, then turns to Cal. "You?" he asks.

  "In here, in the Sands, and in the Woodlands," Cal nods.

  "These are what pulled you and Zoe through the topside sand?" Ellis asks.

  "The things that are mostly people?" Fraya says, twisting her long auburn hair around her finger like she always does when she's nervous. Jax puts his arm around her and pulls her into him. He nods at me, pressing his lips together as if to tell me it will all be OK too.

  "Won't be any mistaking them," Zoe says, her voice unusually heavy. "They have shark heads—beady black eyes and no necks. Their teeth run in all directions like zippers connecting little mouths all the way down their body, so no matter where you try to hit them, they just bite off whatever you put out there…a knife, your fist," she says, and I remember the hand that General, the huge Badlander from the Vishan camp, was missing.

  "If they catch you, gouge their eyes before they can fold you into their fins. You won't be able to move if the spikes on the inside stick you in place," Dell explains, and the blood drains from Dez's face.

  "Spikes?" Dez asks, her voice pitching.

  "They stick you first thing and inject the nanites if they drag you from the surface, and you knock out for a few hours until it's too late for you to find your way back even if you could get free," Zoe adds, lifting her shirt to show the several white, circular scars under her arm.


  "If you struggle anyway, they'll spear you somewhere that will keep you still with a horn that comes out of their shoulder, so just sit out the ride." Dell adds. "If they don't kill you right there, they'll take you to the labs, and we'll come for you."

  Myra nearly starts to hyperventilate, and Tieg tries to put his arm around her shoulder, but she shakes him off.

  "Hell of a gamble, no?" Arco asks. "Not fighting back because you're hoping they won't kill you?"

  "Everything is a gamble," Dell says. "They're not bright…they're just programmed predators. If you're not dead in the first 30 seconds, they don't aim to kill you, but they'll keep you quiet," he says, pulling up his shirt to reveal the fist-sized scar that sits over the notch of muscle in his hip, then turns to reveal its match on his lower back.

  "Crite…" Avis says, pushing his blue bangs off his forehead.

  "Just keep your eyes open and stay close," Cal says. "Especially when we get to the Sands."

  "Because you're going to protect us from something like that?" Tieg asks, looking down over Cal, who is probably a foot shorter than Tieg and much leaner. "Why don't you let me carry that machete," Tieg adds, apparently having forgotten how Cal threw him back on the Lookout Pier.

  Cal flicks a small, black scorpion out of his path with the end of his wooden spear, and my stomach drops as it sails through the air, then lands several feet to our left. Myra's hand moves to her mouth and her eyes widen as it skitters away.

  "The bigger they are, the less of a threat they are," Cal says, smirking up at Tieg. "It's the small ones that will kill you."

  CHAPTER 46

  Tunnel Shark

  The shrubs that seemed to be everywhere just a few minutes ago are suddenly sparse, replaced by thorny, winding brambles and dark, twisting branches that look like some kind of landscape circulatory system over the red ground, which is also starting to fade to a desert sand color.

  "It looks like this whole place got burned down," Avis says, squinting as he looks out at our surroundings.

  "It's not as hot either," Dez adds. "Did we cross out of the Tanglebush?"

  "Almost," Dell answers. "Just over that hill. This is the last of anything we'll see in the way of plants for a while. The Sand biome, and the Freeze, which comes after that, are the shortest in the Rush, but they're extremes. They'll knock you about, wise?"

  "What do you mean?" Ellis asks, looking down his long, thin nose at Dell, but there is worry lacing his voice.

  "I mean they're the hardest to take—always good to have your wits on call so you can catch things before they jump out, but out there…it's quiet until it's not, and then it's too late."

  "What do you mean it's too late? Why do you always talk like that?" Ellis asks, shaking his head in exasperation.

  "I mean you don't see anything coming. It's just there on top of you," Dell says like it's the most obvious answer in the world.

  "What is there on top of you?" Ellis presses, his voice constricting, and I glance at Liddick.

  He's starting to fray, I think. Ever since the alligator. Liddick nods.

  I know. I've got him, he replies.

  "Funnels for starters," Dell answers. "They just look like pits in the sand, but giant antlions live at the bottom of them."

  "That's what I saw when Vox messaged me," I say. "She had to kill one with a long stick because the rain woke it up."

  "Rain? Does it look like it ever rains out here, Jazz?" Ellis snaps. "Everything is in a state of rigor mortis!"

  "It's not normal rain," Cal says with an extra calmness in his voice as he darts a look at Dell. "It's mineral rain. Not strong enough to burn anything, but enough to poison whatever would grow. Don't let any of it get into your eyes or mouths if we get caught in a downpour."

  "Or what? Let me guess? It will eat our faces off?" Ellis says, his voice crackling into a neurotic laugh on the last words. Cal narrows his eyes at him, and Liddick moves to his side. He grips Ellis's shoulder, then talks to him in a quiet voice.

  "Raj, you're coming loose, man. Take a deep breath, OK? We're going to make it. If it rains out here, just deploy your helmet like in Xenotrope 6—remember how we saved the planet in that virtuo-cine?" Ellis nods quickly as a grin starts in the corner of his mouth, but can't quite take hold. His lips twitch, and he blinks repeatedly. "So take a breath. Take a few. It's just a cine, OK?" Liddick adds with a few pats to Ellis's back.

  Ellis swallows, then takes a few deep breaths and nods again, normally this time.

  I look up at what should be the sky, and notice the clouds are starting to band into those bruised, cylindrical twists like they did when we first left the Vishan tunnels. It is going to rain. A lot, as Vox said.

  "We have to hurry—look at the sky," I say. "The rain is coming."

  "If you slide…even if you start to slide into a funnel, dig your sticks into the ground in front of you to stop yourself. Get a good grip, wise?" Dell says to us all in warning, but underneath, it sounds like a plea.

  He feels like we're on his watch, Liddick thinks, picking up the same feeling I am.

  He told me he came with us because he knew we would fight to get to the mountain. I think he's getting nervous that not all of us will.

  He might be right, Liddick answers, and I look up at him as he grips Ellis's shoulder in reassurance again.

  ***

  The threat of the mineral rain increases as the clouds above thicken and swell, twisting into arcing columns that squeeze out the light from the gas pockets above them, but fortunately, there is no lightning behind them this time. It seems like dusk back home with the last of the light shining just brightly enough to see what is nearby, but not enough to prevent the shadows in the distance from becoming whatever they want to be.

  "How dark is it going to get? What if we can't see where we're going and we slide into one of those funnels?" Dez asks too quickly.

  "The Cycle stones," Arco says at my side. "They're like little flashlights, remember? If it gets any darker, we can use those."

  Cal nods, and Dell confirms with a nod of his own.

  "We have a little while before any of that, but have them ready all the same," Cal says.

  Jax and Fraya move to walk with Arco and me as Liddick keeps Ellis close, enlisting Avis to walk on his other side so he's not exposed to the open rigor mortis bush plateau.

  "People are starting to tweak," Jax says to Arco. "That's dangerous."

  "I know. We just need to keep them talking—pull them in…but Spaulding won't fall in with me. Have Fraya reach out to Dez, and he'll follow. He trusts you. Get Zoe to bring Myra in with you too. Wright looks like he's got Raj, and Ling has his back."

  Jax nods. "And you?"

  "We're good," Arco says, then looks down at me. "We're good, right?"

  I nod, "I fixed things with Dell," I say, and Jax smiles.

  "I knew you would," he says. "All right. I'll get it going. Looks like things are about to get uncomfortable," he adds, taking another look at the sky.

  Arco presses his lips into a line and nods again, but then his resigned expression shifts to surprise as the ground starts to rumble under our feet.

  "What's that!?" Myra yells.

  "Listen, stay tight. I mean it, stay tight. No space between us, understand?" Dell says, a different edge to his voice…cold and menacing.

  "What's happening? Why did the ground shake like that?" Dez demands as Tieg changes positions with her, bringing her to the inside of the group. Zoe does the same with Myra and slides her machete under her arm, then grips the handle as the ground rumbles again.

  "What the hell is that?" Tieg echoes.

  "Maybe a tunnel shark," Cal says, his voice low and cool like Dell's. "But I've never seen them come through the ground until we get to the looser sand."

  Myra starts to cry, sending a biting fear over me, which I can feel seeping into everyone else too. Liddick meets my eyes.

  We have to push them before they tear everyone apart, he thinks, jerki
ng his head at Ellis, then angling it to Myra. Myra's been tweaking, now Raj, and Dez just started. It's going to spread.

  How do we push them all at the same time? I ask.

  Project, just like you did in Tark's virtuo-cine with the Badlander cannibals. Do you remember how you did it?

  I didn't do anything except try to convince myself, not anyone else. I just kept thinking about what you told me…how the rocks were cold in the sun, so it couldn't have been real. But this is real, Liddick.

  Not any more. Not for everyone, he answers after darting another glance at Myra.

  The ground rumbles again, and my heart starts to pound in my chest. Flames light Myra's shoulders, and Dell swears.

  "Myra, pull that in! Right now—focus!" he says. "Bring her to the middle!"

  Zoe guides Myra until she's in the center of everyone, then talks adamantly into her ear until her flames dissipate, but Zoe's expression blanches a second later when Myra actually starts giggling. I feel the ricocheting hysteria weighing down the back of my head, making me dizzy, and in this moment, I know that she has just completely detached from reality. The ground shakes more violently, and longer this time.

  "Weeeeee!" Myra shouts at the top of her lungs, and a chill runs down my spine when I see that her eyes are so wild it looks like they might pop out of her head, and her mouth is open to the point that it looks like she's going bite something. Zoe suddenly looks lost, then lets go of Myra and meets my eyes. I shake my head at her.

  "Don't let her go!" I yell. "Hang on to her! She thinks she's on a ride!" Myra's arms fly into the air as she starts to sway, first to the left, then to the right, which edges Dez and Zoe out a few steps. "Keep her close!" I shout again to Zoe. "Myra, you have to lock in, OK? Lock in or you'll fall out!"

  Myra's mouth shifts from the wide, psychotic position it's been in to the word oh, then she nods at me like I've reminded her of something very important. She brings her fists to her chest like she's holding onto the pull bars of a solarcoaster, and to my relief, she stops swaying. I almost lose my footing when the ground moves this time, and Dez suddenly screams hysterically at Myra's side as a sheet of red flames engulfs them both.