TERRA (The Elements Series Book 2)

by Tracy Korn

  "Where do we go now?" Myra asks.

  "We need to find Azeris and Vox," I say. "They were in a coolant room when I saw them in the vision."

  "That's for the computer servers…this way," Dell says, taking us down the next set of stairs that eventually disappears straight into a white wall.

  "Excellent—now what?" Tieg says, gripping the railing and looking over the edge, which leads to nothing but a white floor several flights down.

  "Like I said, this way," Dell repeats as he puts his arms through the wall in front of him, then disappears into it. We all exchange incredulous glances, then push through after Dell and find him waiting on the other side.

  "It's a hologram…" Myra says, and Dell knifes a finger over his lips. Once we're all through, he leads us around a corner toward a door with an unlit control panel, but I see another door with a panel of scrolling letter As—they're moving just like the ones Liddick and I saw in the Vishan caves when we first surfaced in the Stingrays. The panel is about 10 feet ahead on the other side of the corridor, and the low buzz still in my ears gets stronger as I walk toward it. This must be where we need to go.

  "Jazz!" Dell hisses at me, waving me back to everyone, but I shake my head and point to the door next to me.

  "Azeris marked this one. See the letter As?" I answer, forgetting that only Liddick and I can see them until Dell just squints at me.

  "The coolant room is this way!" he hisses again.

  "Nobody is in there," I whisper back, then look at the holographic keypad. How do I open you…I think, and like they were magic words, letter As appear in succession over certain numbers…1…1…1…3. The pattern runs twice before I catch on, then push them in the order they flash. The panel slides open, and I look back at everyone just as surprised as they seem to be. "Come on," I say, walking through the doorway into a small room with nothing in it except a series of built-in metal console stations that stop abruptly against the metal back wall.

  "There's no one in here," Dell says.

  "They have to be in here…they coded the door," I say, confused until I see the back wall glint, then shifts into an A when I look directly at it. Liddick? I think, but don't hear anything in response. I walk toward the wall and lay my palms flat against it as I hold my breath and close my eyes, trying to push everything out of my head except for him. You have to be here. You would know to meet up here just like I knew. We've come too far, Liddick…I think as my throat closes, but I swallow and shake my head against the growing buzz that tries to drown out the words in my mind.

  Jazz? I hear just as the wall in front of me dematerializes, and I see her sleeve shredded to the skin all the way up to her shoulder, her winding map tattoos marred with red scratches just like in my vision. Her burgundy hair is braided back from her face in several rows, and her light green eyes widen.

  "Vox," I breathe her name, then watch the recognition spread over her face.

  "I knew you'd make it…" she says, smiling until her expression falls as she scans our group. She looks back at me, and I can feel her pity starting to surface.

  "Where's Azeris? Is he looking for Liddick?" I ask so abruptly that she flinches.

  "After he programmed the false wall behind you, he went to jailbreak your dad. They locked him down when they found out he sabotaged the last test on Lyden and Arwyn—see?" she says, motioning to a series of embedded panel screens along the wall behind her. The one on the left shows footage of Azeris at a control panel in front of a large, clear box enclosure…my father's.

  "Jax!" I call, motioning him over as the door to the enclosure suddenly opens. My father rushes out of it, and he and Azeris run through the lab doorway that closes immediately behind them. They slip around the corner just as a man in a long white jacket stops to key something into the door panel of the room they've just left.

  That brief second of seeing our dad there makes the time between my heartbeats stop. For that frozen moment I can't move because I almost don't believe he was really there. I look back at Jax and nod, too shocked to cry, to talk, to do anything but look up at him and know that we've come all this way for a reason, and we're not going to stop until we're free. All of us.

  "It's him…that was really him in there right now," Jax says at my side.

  "That's what I just said," Vox adds, making her way past us toward the door. "Come on, we have to go."

  "Wait!" I almost yell. "Liddick is still out there…we have to do something. How did you find me when I was in the Woods?" I ask, but she just shakes her head.

  "I didn't…those clouds over the Woods weren't there when I came through. I didn't know what was happening when you transmitted to me…but when you did, I felt it coming for you," she says, her eyes widening again like she is afraid to blink because in the very second she does, something will jump out at her. "I just kept trying to talk to you telepathically. I was just as surprised as you when it worked."

  "I didn't transmit anything," I answer. "I don't know how to do that. It had to be the NET," I add, but she just shakes her head and turns her eyes on Cal.

  "How does it work?" she asks, but she's met with a level blue glare.

  "It's different for each person," he finally starts to answer. "It's like a homing device—reads your frequency and projects it to others on similar frequencies," he adds, keeping her pinned in place with his eyes. "Want to tell me why you took it?" he follows, sharpening the last few words. Vox takes in a breath, then sighs as she tilts her head like she's trying to hear something far away. "Well? Of all the things, why take that?" Cal presses, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth as he raises his eyebrows at her. She looks back at him slowly with the beginnings of a smile.

  "Because I knew they would send you to come after it," she answers, and we both feel the wave of nervous adrenaline that suddenly radiates from him. After several seconds, Cal fights back the smile by pressing his lips into a hard line, but his dimples betray him, and so do his eyes. He forces his eyebrows together and nods at the ground, and a grin spreads over Vox's face.

  "All right, then give me the NET," I demand, turning back to Vox with my hand out. She looks at Cal, but I intercept his protest. "We have to try," I say. "Please…" After a second more, he nods to Vox, and she reaches into her collar to pull it from the chest panel of her dive suit. I wrap my fingers as tightly as I can around the metal Y-shaped bars, which are warm and heavy in my palm. I know you didn't fall. I know you wouldn't leave me out here. I know you're coming to the mountain…I think, trying to hold him in my mind as the NET suddenly vibrates the bones in my hand and wrist, the current of it running all the way up into my skull before it subsides. There is no vision of Liddick like I had of Vox when she had the NET, so I put it inside the chest panel of my dive suit in the same place she kept it. It hums again, but I still don't see anything. "OK, let's go," I say, clearing my throat and resolving not to spend one more second afraid.

  ***

  We move through the long corridor, and for a second it feels like we're back in the passageways of Gaia Sur—the same lightly colored, rounded corners where the walls meet the ceiling and floor, the same seamless, opaque doors, and any doubt I may have still had about Gaia's…no, about the State's agenda evaporates. It's really true. Our whole lives have just been a game to them. I feel my heartbeat jump when I realize this is almost exactly what Liddick said too. I know you're coming. Just get to the mountain…I think, hoping he can hear me even if he can't reply.

  "Wait, this way!" Dell stops our group and looks at the walls, then nods to himself. He starts counting something in the flooring as he takes backward steps, then drops to his knees and drives the tip of his machete between the squares of two tiles. The illumination of one tile flickers, then goes out when Dell lifts one of the corners with the leverage from his blade. "We need to get to the labs first," he says.

  "We don't have time for that!" Vox protests.

  "I'm not leaving people behind again! The guards here are droid clones. If you can m
ake it through the Rush, you can handle a few of them without me if you have to—I'll catch up," he says, slipping through the opening as Cal moves to follow him.

  "I have to help him—after everything I doubted…" he trails off, looking at Zoe. "Can you take point?" he asks. Zoe nods after a second, and I see the smile start in the corner of her mouth as she raises an eyebrow at him.

  "You mean I get to scrap without you two frogs underfoot for once?" she asks. Cal grins at her. "Well…then get!" she adds, jerking her chin at the displaced flooring and throwing out an arm like she's trying to shoo him off. He nods to her with a wide smile that tacks dimples on each side of his mouth, then disappears after Dell. Her shoulders rise as she takes a slow, deep breath before she turns around to face us. "All right, then," Zoe says, rubbing her freckled nose with the back of her hand just before unsheathing her machete. "Let's go start a fight."

  CHAPTER 52

  The Bridge

  Vox leads the way down several flights of stairs to rooms that look exactly like the ones I saw in the message my father and Liam sent during my advising session with Ms. Plume…the message showing the water filling in Lyden's enclosure, his gills appearing, and Arwyn lighting on fire, but not burning.

  We pass lab after lab, some with the same transparent cube enclosures, standing pillar consoles, and seated console stations like the ones in the Boundaries room back at Gaia Sur. We walk a few more lengths of the corridor before Vox stops at a door panel, and a green holographic keypad appears. She punches in a code, which makes the readout scramble until the door slides open.

  The room is white-walled, and looks like a mini amphitheater with two giant metal cubes where a stage would be. Three curved rows of seated panel stations that remind me of the ones on the Leviathan's navigation deck rise to the back wall on either side of the stairs, and a series of waist-high white pillars stand in an arc along the upper level back wall.

  "Where is everyone? Lyden and Arwyn are supposed to be in here," Arco says, crossing behind one of the white pillars on the upper level next to the door. He taps the air above it until a green holographic screen appears like a little table, then chuffs a laugh. "These are programmed like the stations in the Boundaries room back at Gaia Sur," he says, then eyes the huge metal cubes at the front of the room and continues tapping the screen. I jump when the door behind us suddenly slides open again.

  "Whoa, stop," Liam says, charging into the room wearing a silver, shimmering jumpsuit like our blue ones from Gaia Sur. "What did you press? Never mind—look out," he adds, catching his breath as he takes over the console where Arco is standing.

  "Liam?" Arco asks, then shakes his head.

  "The one and only—well, not technically, but I can't fix that yet. Are you spliced? Crite, I got here just in time…" Liam says, typing something onto the screen. "You almost lowered those walls…how did you even—? Never mind. Are you spliced?" he exhales, then looks up at us with the same intense blue gaze as Liddick. My heart drops into my stomach when I see the matching white scar running through his left eyebrow, but after a second, my eyes are pulled to a ring of light that appears on the floor between the two metal cubes. Liam nods to us. "So? Port-Carnate splice? Do you have one yet?" he asks Arco again, who shakes his head absently while looking at the cubes.

  "What? No? Why can't the walls—" he starts, but Liam cuts him off.

  "Then get in the coding field down there. Hurry up, we don't have a lot of time," he says impatiently.

  Arco looks at me and raises his eyebrows, then starts for the circle, but I grab his sleeve.

  "Wait! What about the nanites?" I ask, remembering how they almost killed Liddick when he tried to port-carnate transfer before we left Gaia, and my chest tightens at the thought of him again. Liam blows out a breath as he continues typing.

  "Your repair-class nanites from Gaia Sur are dormant because you're out of range, and the stabilizer-class nanites are standard…neither of them will interfere with a transfer. The tunnel shark nanites Azeris said you had should be dormant by now, but if they show up in the scan, I'll purge them," Liam answers. "Let's go—get in the coding field!"

  "Hang on!" I say, gripping Arco's arm again as he tries to walk toward the glowing circle. "Liam, listen, we have Vishan treatments now too…our DNA has been adjusted so we could come through the Rush," I add all in the same breath.

  "I know, Vox already told us—that strand came from here, so it's in the database already. I'll strip it in the transfer before you get to Admin City…trust me, I've done my homework. Now, please get into the field!" Liam says through his teeth to Arco, who nods at me.

  "It's all right. I'll be all right," he says, gripping my hand before he makes his way down the stairs to the circle, which glows brighter and starts to hum when he crosses into it. Liam pushes another button combination on the holographic screen, and Arco immediately doubles over gripping his knees.

  "Whoa…" Jax says at my shoulder as everyone else exchanges worried glances.

  "Hang on!" I try to shout above the low hum that sounds like it's coming from the inside of my head, then remember the feeling of my stomach being pulled away from the rest of my body when I was being rigged for port-carnate…when I thought I was just helping Liddick launch the piggy-back code before we left Gaia. The NET starts to vibrate over the ache in my chest at the memory, and I hold my breath as it passes.

  "All right! You're good—next!" Liam says as the circle light dims and Arco stumbles out of it. I rush under his arm to help him stand.

  "Are you OK?" I ask, but he's already nodding.

  "Just dizzy," he exhales, wrapping his arm around my shoulder as he straightens and presses his thumb and forefinger against his eyes.

  "Here, sit down," I say, leading him to a seated console panels like the ones in the Leviathan. Jax moves into the circle next, then Fraya, then I stop noticing—I stop breathing when I see Azeris come through the doorway with my father.

  He's older than I remember, and of course he would be. It's been five years, but he looks like he's aged twenty. His dark, curly hair is streaked with gray, and his narrowed brown eyes that are just like Jax's are edged in lines. His heavy brows dart together when he sees me, and it feels like my chest is going to explode.

  "Jazwyn…" he says, but my name sounds like it's made of air. He meets me at the bottom of the steps, then moves his hands over my face.

  "Dad!" Jax calls as he makes his way to us, stumbling out of the circle after his splicing.

  "Jaxon!" our dad shouts, gripping the back of Jax's neck and pulling him into a hug with us, and for this one second everything else is quiet. I make it quiet. I force out the scramble of everyone's emotions swirling around me, especially the doubt that keeps trying to pull me into it like a black hole. I force out Liam's hurried, shouted commands, and I grip the white fabric of my father's jumpsuit, which is thick and smooth under my fingertips. I grip his arms to make sure he won't disappear, and he doesn't.

  "They told us you died at the hydrogen plant in an explosion," Jax says into our father's shoulder, and he pulls us in even more.

  "I'm sorry. I couldn't stop them until now," he says. "I promise I'll tell you everything, but right now Arwyn and Lyden—" he starts, but is cut off by Zoe rushing past us on the stairs to jump into Azeris's arms.

  He presses his cheek into her shoulder, lifting her off her feet and holding her there in total stillness for what seems like several minutes before he puts her down and brings both hands to her dirt-smeared, freckled face, then pushes the hair out of her eyes.

  "You look just like your mother…" he says in a rough voice. Zoe curls her fingers around his wrists, and his eyes catch her gold adjoining As bracelet. He swallows hard as his jaw tightens, "Crite, just like her." Azeris looks up hopefully. "Is she…?" he starts to ask, but abandons the question when Zoe shakes her head after a second more. He nods quickly and presses his lips into a hard line as Liam clears his throat.

  "Everyone is spliced. We don't h
ave a lot of time since they expedited the Phase Three transfer—did you jam the doors?" Liam asks my father from the pillar console.

  "I could only program a seize code in the time we had, we might be cutting it close," he answers, and Liam blows out a relieved breath. "Did you launch the reroute coordinates?" my father asks, and Liam nods.

  "I did it as soon as I heard about the expedited transport—should be at least five percent encoded by now," he answers, then turns to Azeris. "How close is Liddick now?" he asks.

  The temperature in the room falls when Azeris just takes a deep breath, but I shake my head, refusing to let in any doubt.

  "His channel frequency is offline, but that could be interference from the environment," Azeris answers after a long pause. "He knows where to go…I coded the path from the edge of the Woods all the way to this room, and he knows the bridge plan," he adds.

  "What exactly is the bridge plan again?" Tieg asks, crossing to one of the seated consoles to put his arm around Dez, whose tears have started all over again. My father sighs as he turns to face the rest of our group, all of us now mixed throughout the rows.

  "The quick version is that we couldn't get through the firewall to cancel Lyden's and Arwyn's port-carnate transfer to Phase Three, but we found a way to reroute it to different coordinates in Admin City," he starts to answer, then nods to the metal cubes behind us. "Liam and Azeris built a data bridge that connects those hubs with Phase Three. I encrypted it so no one can use it to follow us," he says. "Rheen and Styx won't know where we land once we transfer."

  "What's their reroute status?" Azeris asks, looking over at Liam.

  "Twelve percent—almost there," he answers, glancing at his screen. Azeris nods.

  "Wait, so they're in here?" Arco raises his eyebrows at the metal cubes and straightens in his seat.

  "Yes, but we can't lower those walls until the new coordinates are at least 15 percent encoded, or the magnetic field down here could alter them," my father answers. "It won't be long now. As soon as Lyden and Arwyn transfer, we'll follow, and our contacts from Admin City will help us enter the virtuo-cine network. We'll destroy the Gaia mainframes from the inside…including the one for this facility."