The Perfect Ten Boxed Set

by Dianna Love

  I stepped up. “I’ll go.”

  At the same time, Callan and Mathias said, “No.”

  Then Callan added, “I can’t allow you to help your friend.” His next thought trailed off in his eyes.

  One look at him told me what he was thinking. If I interfered, he’d have no choice but to use deadly force against me. My dying wouldn’t help Tony, or Gabby either, but that didn’t mean I liked the implied threat in Callan’s gaze.

  Gabby moved close to me and whispered, “You think Tony abandoned us?”

  “No.”

  “Strangely, I don’t either.” She glanced around before adding, “But I don’t trust that Etoi not to hurt him if she can catch him alone.”

  I nodded, but I couldn’t stop Mathias and what had grown to be a formidable hunting party of armed warriors.

  When Mathias made a motion with his hand for his hunters to head out, Callan stopped him. “I’ll go with them, Mathias. Take Rayen to see V’ru.”

  “No.” Mathias spoke just as softly, but I heard him. “I can use the exercise and you take her to V’ru. While you’re at it, do me a favor and check on the preparations for the BIRG Day celebration. I know it sounds trivial at this moment, but we promised that to the children and those putting it together don’t want me to see what they are creating.”

  Mathias rubbed his head, giving me the impression he found something tedious about this celebration.

  Callan offered, “Sure you don’t want to delay it until tomorrow?”

  “No. This is the first tradition we’ve upheld here. I’m not much for parties, but I’ll do it for the children. This Tony will be easy to track. Tell them to have the party ready to go as soon as I return.”

  Callan gave him a long, concerned look.

  The grim set of Mathias’s jaw softened. “Remember, our first responsibility after keeping these children safe is to give them hope. No matter what it takes to do that. No matter if celebrating is the last thing we feel like doing, always think of them first.” He offered a tight, half-smile. “The scout may know this land, but the other captive doesn’t. If I find Tony first, I’ll return with him, or his body, in time for the celebration. Find out who she is before I return. I must know.”

  Then he pivoted away and took off running.

  I had to be the she Mathias ordered Callan to find out about. But it was the dire warning in Mathias’s voice that worried me. Something had changed in the way Mathias viewed me and I had no reason to believe it was a positive change.

  Callan snapped around, pointing at Gabby. “You, stay with Jaxxson. A warning. When I’m in the village, he can reach me telepathically if he needs me.”

  So that’s what had been happening when Callan exchanged looks with Mathias and that’s how Callan had heard about the little boy being in distress. I asked Gabby, “You sure you’re okay with Jaxxson?”

  “Yes.”

  I believed her. She didn’t have that empty, don’t-step-too-close look in her face she’d worn when I first met her. Something profound had happened while Gabby had worked with the children and the healer.

  Or because of something Jaxxson had done to her.

  “You.” Callan speared his finger at me.

  How did I end up as ‘you’ again? “Forget my name?”

  He ignored my sarcasm. “The girl is Hy’bridt and the escaped prisoner you call a friend is TecKnati. That leaves the mystery of who you are. I’m tired of guessing. You will answer V’ru’s questions. He can discover who or what you are. Follow me.”

  My heart hammered my chest with two fists. He hadn’t even suggested that I might be MystiK. Not that I wanted to be, but right now that was the only winning side in the war these kids waged with the TecKnatis.

  On the other hand, wasn’t that what I wanted? To find out who I really was? Could this V’ru know my history, know who I was? And where I came from?

  If these children were from the future, maybe V’ru had information on the past.

  On the surface, that sounded somewhat encouraging, until I considered the alternative.

  What if this elite MystiK V’ru decided I had some type of connection to the TecKnati? Callan spoke of him in reverence and Mathias would make his final decision based upon what V’ru alone revealed.

  What would Callan vote to do with me if V’ru declared me the enemy?

  CHAPTER 27

  What had happened to the jungle?

  Tony kept taking in this forest, trying to figure out where that TeK scout was going. This place was just as funky looking, but not as dense as the jungle Tony had traveled through right after being dumped out of the pod. He doubted the thickly wooded, tree-looking growths that towered overhead, or the more open terrain at the base of the trees offered any more safety.

  ‘Specially for a Camden-raised dude.

  Eyeing the red moon through the canopy of branches, he used that marker to keep track of his direction since leaving the village. That moon kept sliding down.

  What happened in this place when the moon set?

  He swatted low-hanging branches that smelled like petro-chemicals out of the way and kept that scout, Phen, in sight. The Tek guy wound through knee-high, berry-covered bushes and trees with twisted limbs. If you could call these things he ran past trees.

  Trees were supposed to have brown or gray bark, not chartreuse stripes and tubular leaves. Not puffy and corkscrew shaped things in shades of black, pink and purple.

  Tony stumbled over jagged breaks in the ground that could be roots and pushed through a clump of spiky bushes that looked like the barbed wire on top of prison fences. Sweat stung his eyes, streamed down his neck and soaked his shirt.

  Where was this scout goin’? Why hadn’t he headed the other way through the jungle? Didn’t he want to snag a pod, or transender as Mathias had called it, and fly home? The guy moved through this big-ass forest as though he had a specific direction in mind, but kept lookin’ around as if he watched for someone. Or wanted to avoid someone. Who?

  Don’t let there be any other crazies out here running loose.

  What if this guy stayed somewhere in this place, like in a guard shack, and was heading there instead of back to a transender pod?

  Don’t think that way.

  This whole place was jacked-up crazy enough.

  Tony had never touched anything that could screw with his brain, but just this once, he almost wished he was trippin’ on acid. That’d mean there was an end to this nightmare. But no, he was lucid and breathin’ hard from more exercise than a Jersey boy needed to work on computers. The muggy air he slogged through reminded him of a heat wave in Camden last summer.

  Xena is cut out for this native crap. Not me.

  But Tony wouldn’t admit that to anyone.

  Once he found a way home, he’d prove who’d had the skills for gettin’ away from here.

  The scout slowed down just before the woods thinned ahead.

  Tony hurried, closing the distance to fifteen feet and tucking in behind a sprawling tree. He scanned the wide-open space beyond the tree line.

  No towering pod, transender or other transport unit out there. Crapola. This might’ve been a big mistake.

  Phen stood in knee-high, weedy grass, clearly looking for something, then must have found it. He ran two steps and shoved his hand into a...pink flower!

  Tony had no time to yell a warning.

  But even though the flower looked just like the one that had attacked him earlier, it made no threatening move toward Phen.

  In fact, in the next five seconds, a holographic screen appeared chest high in the air near the scout who stood up, withdrawing his hand from the flower.

  The screen lit up and a hot feminine voice announced, “One hour, twenty-eight minutes left to request transender return from Sphere.”

  Tony’s heart rate soared. There was a time limit for calling up a transender. He had to find Gabby and Rayen fast.

  Lifting his hand, Phen placed his right palm against t
he translucent screen. A red line streaked around the outline of his hand then started blinking until it turned bright green. The minute that happened, the scout yanked his hand back and the woman said, “Request acknowledged.”

  Then the screen vanished without a sound.

  When Phen hurried toward the open space, Tony took off right behind him. Cobra dude was going nowhere until he told Tony how to get out of this hellhole.

  A high-pitched whining started.

  He knew that sound and increased his speed.

  Bursting from the trees, he noticed a gigantic burned croggle–had Rayen fought that?–lying dead fifty yards away, and closed to within three steps behind Phen who’d been jogging along. Phen must have heard Tony’s footsteps. He cast a ragged glance over his shoulder. “What the–”

  Phen kicked up his speed.

  You don’t grow up on the streets of south Jersey and not be fast in a sprint.

  Tony raced ahead, cringing as the whining grew louder.

  On the far side of the clearing, dirt and other particles spun an orange-red tornado in one spot. The whirling image of a huge bullet-shaped metallic object started taking shape.

  The spinning stopped at once. There stood the pod again.

  Busting a gut, Tony growled and powered forward with everything he had. He went airborne, body tackling Phen, taking them both down hard and rolling.

  Just like back home when an a-hole kid had pushed over Tony’s little brother and tried to run.

  Sucking gulps of thick air, Tony jumped on Phen’s back while he was still face down, shoving his knee hard and wrenching one of the guy’s arms behind his back. He saw the rest of the guy’s cobra tattoo that wrapped around a triangular shape like an A with three circles worked into the design and a small barcode beneath it.

  “Let me go!” Phen yelled, pounding the dirt.

  “Not gonna happen until you tell me what I want to know. Asked you nice back in that hut. Not askin’ this time.”

  “I’ve only got minutes to embark since the transender is here. Or it returns without me.”

  Good to know. But even better was the panic in Phen’s voice.

  Tony growled, “Then time’s of the essence, right, buddy? Stop wasting seconds. What happens if you don’t get inside in time?”

  Phen slapped his free hand on the ground again. “You can’t make it work.”

  “Pay attention, dweeb. I’m not a MystiK and I can sit here for hours. Won’t take the others long to figure out we’ve both escaped. They’ll be here soon.” And Tony had to have information before that happened.

  “Okay. I’ll tell. I’ll tell.”

  Tony loosened his grip, but only a bit.

  Phen continued, “Doesn’t matter anyhow since you can’t travel without an authorized scout. Once a transender is called up, you have to get inside in three minutes or it’ll leave without you.”

  Tony leaned down close. “Letting you go depends on how well you convince me that you’re tellin’ the truth. I’ll know the second you start lyin’. One lie and you’re stayin’ here with me. Understand?”

  “Yes. Just hurry. What do you want?”

  Nothing like fear to loosen a tongue. Another Jersey lesson learned early and well. Tony started firing questions. “Saw you call it up with your hand on a screen. I’m guessin’ it works for more than one hand print.”

  Phen expelled a pained noise as if he’d made a grave error by allowing Tony to see him activate the holographic panel, but he kept answering as fast as he could spit the words out. “My palm print calls up the transender that brought me here. No one can call that one but me during a moon cycle.”

  “What?”

  “Transenders can only travel to and from this Sphere while the red moon is in view overhead. Once the moon sets, the lunar surface energy diminishes to the point that it’s too dangerous to risk coming or going.” Phen continued without needing a nudge. “Human molecules have to be suspended while the unit transcends from one dimension to another. We still have a few flaws that haven’t been worked out yet.”

  Oh, man, why can’t I have an hour with this guy? Tony asked, “What happens if you miss this transender?”

  “You can’t do that to me,” Phen pleaded in a voice pitched high with hysteria. “Transenders are reprogrammed daily. I can’t call up another one once I’ve activated this one. And if the MystiKs find me again they’ll torture then kill me.”

  “Then talk faster. What happens if a MystiK takes a transender without an escort?” If Tony had something to offer Mathias that his group could use to escape here he might be willing to let him, Rayen and Gabby leave.

  “Not possible,” Phen whined, stomping on Tony’s hope. “The palm screen is programmed not to work for a MystiK. Even if they could call a transender, they’d die of asphyxiation once the transender returned if they didn’t have the daily exit code entered as a secondary security.”

  That’s no use. If he, Gabby and Rayen found a way to the transender that brought them, would a return trip suffocate all of them? But he doubted this guy’d know that answer.

  Phen drew a quick breath. “I’ve got to go in the next thirty seconds. Have to take this one. Let me go...or be responsible for my death.”

  Decision made. Tony had no reason to cause Phen’s death and he wouldn’t trust Zilya not to kill this guy.

  Getting up, he helped Phen off the ground for the second time today and told him. “You better hope I find a way home. If not, I’m goin’ to be your worst enemy if you come back and hurt any of those kids.”

  Of all the things Tony expected Phen to say, “Thanks,” had not been on the list.

  A whirring noise started again.

  Phen rushed to the transender and put his hands on the side. He swung his head around and yelled, “Same person has to palm the outside of the transender to open it.”

  Freebie intel. Sweet.

  Two of the tall panels covering the exterior slid apart.

  Phen dove inside as the panels snapped shut and the pod started spinning...then poof, it vanished.

  Dusting off as much of the red clay as possible, Tony strode back to the trees to find that flower. When he did, he couldn’t convince himself to stick his hand down into those pink petals. But the longer he studied the plant, the more he became convinced it was one heck of a reproduction.

  Nothing moved. No breathing in and out like the killer flower had done. But now that he thought about it, there had been other big-ass pink flowers around. While hiking through the jungle, Rayen had told him about watching for the flower breathing.

  This one acted dead as a corpse.

  Good camouflage for a TecKnati transender call panel.

  As much as hesitating put him at risk of being discovered, Tony couldn’t go back without knowing for sure that he could find this panel again. When he convinced himself to walk all the way up to the plant, and after he’d left his phone several yards away, he thought he’d beaten his nerves. But his fingers shook like old Mr. Belokov waiting for Sol’s bar to open. When Tony stuck his arm toward the pink petals they might as well have been shark jaws.

  Sweat broke out on his forehead. He leaned over, looking inside the opening that was wide enough for two arms. But he couldn’t see all the way to the bottom of the dark hole.

  Just do it.

  But Phen and these crazy MystiKs were from another world even if Phen had called it Earth.

  Time was of the essence.

  Ah, hell. Tony took one for the team and jabbed his hand down into the hole. His fingers reached tentatively further...more...until he touched a round knob. Okay, good sign. Breathing hard, he pushed the knob.

  Nothing happened.

  Curling his fingers around it, he tried twisting one way then the other.

  That’s when the knob turned and he heard a loud click.

  A holographic screen came alive just out from his left shoulder and that killer female voice announced, “One hour, twenty minutes left to request t
ransender return from Sphere.”

  So this place was a Sphere? More to figure out later. His ticket home was callin’.

  Looking around to assure no one was sneaking up on him, Tony lifted his hand to the screen. The same red line traced around his palm, blinking, then stayed solid red.

  The female voice came on again. “Request denied.”

  Compatibility bitch!

  Tony knew, now, that this was not the same location where he, Rayen and Gabby had exited the transender. Would this work for Rayen if Tony could find a similar holographic screen near where the three of them had arrived in this place? Rayen’s hand had started the computer freaking out back at the lab. So maybe that’s what was needed here.

  He wouldn’t find out if he didn’t get back to the village and figure out a way to break out the other two in the next eighty minutes. Based on what Phen had said, if they didn’t find their original pod they might not be able to return at all. And they couldn’t get the transender activated unless they found the right panel.

  Damn.

  Blowing out a breath and cracking his knuckles, Tony looked skyward until he had a bead on the moon position that he’d noted on the way here. Using that, he started double-timing it back to the village.

  Now all he had to do was find his way without getting lost. Not get killed or eaten by vines. Not become dinner for some weird-ass animal. Not get stopped or caught by some of the village gang.

  If he managed all that, and survived, he still had to pass through the skin-peeling fog around the village.

  And he’d thought growin’ up in Jersey was rough.

  Tony found a stick that had a velvet-like bark and started thrashing his way back. He kept checking the moon through the speckled leaves and could swear that orb had picked up speed on its downward slide to the horizon.

  Unless the moon was moving around, it should stay on his left all the way back. Simple astronomy.

  Between keeping up with the moon’s movement and trying to find his way back, he started sensing he was lost. His cell phone was stuck on the time displayed when he’d entered this place. Who knew technology could backfire? His best guess was that he’d been walkin’ for about fifteen, maybe twenty minutes. That meant he had somewhere around an hour to find Rayen and Gabby, figure a way out of the village and call up the transender.