There was no way he’d manage to get his troupe to the other side of this thing. Not under, over, or through.
25
Evazee sat opposite the passage to Shasta’s room with her knees drawn up, shivering. Her muscles ached from sitting too long, but she couldn’t leave until Kai came out. There was no way of tracking time in this place. All she knew was that he’d been gone a long time. Too long.
Why had he been foolish enough to follow her in the first place? When he finally did come out, she was going to yell at him.
Someone was coming.
Evazee hardly dared breathe. It was Shasta, alone. He waved a hand and four soldiers materialized. Evazee hadn’t even been aware of them waiting silently in the shadows. They conferred quietly with Shasta, and he sent them away, hurrying as if they were on a mission.
Shasta remained standing there, but his attention seemed caught up elsewhere. His grey eyes glowed, faintly luminous in the half-light.
Evazee studied him, absorbing every detail she normally overlooked: the slant of his jaw, the sprinkling of pepper in the silver hair just over his ears. The man was an enigma.
Where was Kai?
Her imagination complied with a myriad of possibilities. All of them made Evazee want to cry. Maybe she should go ask Shasta. Her stomach turned at the thought. Being near him was like stepping into a magnetic field strong enough to melt her mind.
Indecision paralyzed her.
~*~
Kai hadn’t intended to go exploring. He’d decided to wait a while to make sure he and Shasta didn’t bump into each other on his way out, and then he would leave and find his friends. But the sound of footsteps panicked him. He tripped one foot over the other and fell head first into a chute carved out of the same bony substance as the cave walls. He slipped down the worn white surface, clawing at the walls to control his fall but only making his descent faster. Along the way, he twisted around and hit the ground, feet flailing.
He rubbed the tender part of his rear that had broken his fall and wished he had more meat on his bones. The chamber had a perfectly round, dome ceiling. Six pillars that stretched from the floor all the way up through the dome were evenly spaced around the edge of the room. The surface of the walls was divided into rectangular screens that flickered on and off. Hundreds of them.
A circular workstation sat in the centre of the room manned by two operators with earphones. Their backs were to Kai. One guy had flaming red hair. The other man’s was as black as Kai’s. They scanned the images constantly, stopping to confer in hushed voices. With a few clicks, the redhead zoomed in on a place Kai didn’t recognize, while the other man wrote notes.
Kai sank down low, trying to make sure his bones didn’t creak. He slipped in behind a pillar and studied the screen in front of him. Most of the images made no sense. A sparkling expanse of rocky ground, dotted with small mounds. A village on stilts lit in purple mushroom light. The more he looked, the more he recognized. Tau’s temple, the graveyard where they’d first arrived, the streets of Stone City. Even the testing arches that he’d gone to with Bree.
The operators were focussed, completely absorbed in what they were doing. Kai tiptoed across to the next pillar. Images washed over him, turning his stomach. These were not from this visit, but from the time the bus hit him. Bree’s empty shack. The slums outside the OS. The desert where he’d lost Bree. Lost her in more ways than one. It all gave him a watery feeling in his belly. Every inch of this place was under surveillance. Everything that moved or breathed was under careful scrutiny.
A wave of dizziness sucked air from his lungs and he hung onto the pillar to stop himself from toppling over. Now the operators were arguing. As their excitement grew, their voices grew louder, too.
Kai risked a glance. The screen causing all the upheaval was milky white.
“I’m telling you now, that is something we need to investigate.” The redhead who sat closest to Kai was also red in the face and spoke with such force that spit flew.
“And I’m telling you that it’s a monitor malfunction. We need to get Technical in to see to it.”
Green glowed around both of the operator’s heads, but there wasn’t even a smidge of green on the monitor. It was in perfect working order. Redhead had his vote.
“Have a look around. Every single screen is working. Why would that one continually fail? Only that one? You can’t answer me, can you? Besides, look carefully. That is not a broken screen. That is a shield. Someone is hiding something.” The redhead spoke slowly.
“That’s rubbish and you know it. We see everything.”
“He sees everything.”
“It’s the same thing, really. Come on. There are three more sections to get through before our shift ends. Flag the area and come back to it.”
“I don’t agree. I’m going to check it out quick. I’ll use the spirit cuttings and be back before you miss me.”
“You’re just lazy. You know that?”
Red patted his pockets. “I’ve left my navigator somewhere. Can I use yours?”
Black Hair stared at him as if he’d lost his mind, but he dug into a pocket and handed over a device. Kai squinted as he saw the device change hands. It was the same as the one he’d brought along from Torn’s office, the one he’d strapped to his chest and forgotten about.
Red clicked on the milky screen and numbers appeared in the centre of it. He activated the navigator and entered the numbers into the central section before slipping it back into its harness and fastening it around his body.
“I still think you’re wasting our time.”
“I know. You keep saying so.” Red left, and his co-worker muttered under his breath.
Kai forced himself to wait for a full minute before following. He was just about to slip through the door when Red came back.
“The way is blocked,” Red said. “The web is almost right up to the door at the moment. I can’t get through without protective gear.”
“I won’t say I told you so, but I really did.”
“You just said it, and anyway, it doesn’t mean that the screen’s broken. I just couldn’t go check it out. I’ll try later once the web has moved on.”
“Whatever. You can do it on your own time. We need to finish. No more wasting office time.”
Red got back into his seat, and they both rolled to the right and started working through the next area.
Kai slipped to the next pillar, staying neatly behind their backs. The images flashing down from this section were all completely foreign—areas he’d never been to. All but one of the screens.
Kai stepped away from the pillar, closer to the screen to get a better look. Brio Talee, the spirit cuttings. The black, oozing web grew before his eyes and pulsed along the bridge where the screen was focussed. It was moving twice as fast as when Kai had been through. What a mess.
Kai slipped back to the section, monitoring where his friends were right now. A girl caught his attention. She was a stranger to him, sleeping curled up in a hollowed-out hole in the rock of the underground cave. Her face contracted in a frown, and she thrashed in her sleep. Whatever she was dreaming was messing with her.
Kai rubbed his eyes to clear them. Was that dark mist coming off her? He shut his eyes tight and opened them wide again, but it was still there. It hovered over her for a brief moment, but then something shifted, and the mist was sucked into the rock. Kai stepped closer, not quite trusting his eyes. The air around her was clean again. Maybe he’d imagined it.
Another image caught his attention. A worship service at Tau’s temple. The people were lost in the proceedings, and the preacher had whipped them up into a frenzy. Most of them had their eyes closed, stamping their feet as they shouted out loud. It was there, too. The black mist, pouring off the crowd, oozing out of their pores. It hovered over them in a thick cloud. Two long pipes stretched out over the crowd from the top of the platform. Fans started up and the mist was drawn up into the pipes and sucked away.
Kai checked another screen. It appeared to be a room inside Stone City—Kai recognised the cold walls. A sign on the wall displayed the counselling hours. Beneath it stood a spindly desk with a snooty lady presiding over it. She was dressed in the same cream jumpsuit that they all wore, but she had a way about her that made the jumpsuit look like it was tailored just for her.
A girl Kai’s age sat opposite, her feet crossed at her ankles, eyes downcast to her hands on her lap.
There was no sound, but as Kai focussed, he could see the smart lady speaking sternly to the younger one. She didn’t dare raise her eyes but kept her head down. Kai watched a single tear roll down her cheek. As it hit her arm, a small puff of dark mist left her and collected over her head like a tarnished halo. Just as he expected, it was sucked up through the air vents in the wall. The dark mist was being harvested.
~*~
Evazee felt the tension might split her in two. She just didn’t want to be alone anymore. She didn’t want to carry the weight of whatever might be happening to Kai by herself. Sticking to the edges of the crowd, she made her way back to where they’d all entered. Hunting through the crowds, Evazee’s heart raced and her mouth went dry. Where were her friends?
A small hand slipped into hers.
“Peta! You found me. I was dead worried I wouldn’t find any of you. Where are the others?”
Peta’s nose wrinkled, “Zulu is back there where there’s no mushroom light. I don’t like this place. Can we go now?”
“Take me to him.”
Peta sighed, grabbed Evazee’s hand, and hauled her along. Off in the distance, officials shouted directions, moving through the crowds and sorting people into groups of who-knows-what.
Peta led her down a side-passage. Part of the wall detached itself, and Evazee bit back a yelp. It was Zulu. He blended into the shadows so well that when he moved, it looked as if the wall itself had come to life. Ruaan and Zap sat in the shadows behind him, blinking like owls. Wads of chewed-up bark stuck out of their ears. Zap grinned at her, pointing to his ears and showing her a thumbs-up
The pressure of the morning weighed down on Evazee, and the words popped out. “I’ve lost Kai. He’s in the main cave. I’ve been waiting for him to come out, but he hasn’t. He should have come out by now. What do we do?”
Zulu scanned the crowd. The officials were getting closer to their hiding place. The whole open area had gone from a chaotic melee of random drifters to organised groups herded in different directions. If they tried to cross the field now, they would be spotted in seconds.
“I think we may have lost our opportunity to get to him. The way has closed.”
“What are you saying?”
“Look for yourself. If we cross now, we’ll be scanned and grouped along with them all.”
“Well, what do you suggest?”
“I don’t know. But we can’t stay here. Look.”
Soldiers branched off, hunting for stragglers. The tunnel they were in would be checked, and they’d be found.
“We’ve got to get out of here. Come.”
Zulu led the way down the passage that Elden had used to get Evazee out. Evazee’s belly pinched at the thought of Elden. It was wrong to have left him behind. She drew the bad feeling around herself like a coat.
Zulu reached the air vent that had taken them to the surface and climbed up to open the lid. He grunted and huffed, trying to budge the flap before slipping back down to the ground.
“They’ve sealed up the tunnel. We can’t get out.”
~*~
Kai stayed hidden behind the pillar for what seemed like an eternity. He absorbed the images on the screens, each one landing a punch to his bruised heart. This was all so messed up. He homed in on a screen showing the Resonance Pools. Surely, that was not a wicked place also?
A familiar figure walked across in front of the Resonance Pool, where the camera was focussed. Kai did a double take. Was that Elden? He leaned in closer, almost squinting. The guy on the screen turned briefly, and there was no doubt.
“Elden!”
Silence hung in the room, thick enough to choke on.
The chairs squeaked in tune, as the two guys operating the control panel swivelled and stared at him.
They spoke at the same time. “Who are you?”
“What are you doing here?”
Kai stepped out from behind the pillar, fishing for something appropriate to say. His eyes locked on the greyed-out screen.
“I’m here from maintenance. To see to that screen.” He pointed, feeling his ears go hot. He grinned at them, trying to look professional and harmless all at once.
“Nice try. I’m calling security,” said the black-haired man.
The redhead motioned for him to put the phone down. “Don’t worry. He doesn’t look dangerous. I’ll walk him out myself.”
“Fine. Suit yourself. You just want to get out of working. Leave me here all by myself. As long as you know that you’ll be staying on to work late if we don’t get through.”
Redhead lifted a flap to get out of the circular desk and sauntered over to Kai. He frowned. “I’m not going to handcuff you or anything, so behave yourself. OK?”
Kai shrugged and nodded. “Where are you taking me?”
Up close, the guy looked younger than Kai had originally thought. As he stepped closer, Kai’s Affinity kicked in so strongly that it caught his breath. Red lit up like he’d fallen into a vat of radioactive sludge.
“Come on. This way.” He led Kai back to the section of the room where Kai had been hiding out. He touched the wall between two screens, and a rectangular portion of the wall shifted forward and slid sideways to reveal a staircase leading downwards. “We have a holding room. Someone’s going to have to figure out what to do with you. But it’s not going to be me.”
Kai followed, examining the guy’s green-lit head and chest. They’d reached the middle step when the doorway above shut once more with a whoosh and a click.
“Tell me, is it true that you aren’t here because of your loyalty to Shasta, but your reason for signing up was more of a, let’s say... personal reason?”
The effect of his words on his captor was astounding. The poor boy nearly choked on his tongue.
“What are you saying? Why would you say that?”
“Wait...give me a moment.” Kai felt for the knowing. An image flashed through him. A small boy riding high on a strong man’s shoulders. The feeling between them was so foreign to Kai that he knew it could only be one thing. Family. “You’re looking for your dad, aren’t you?”
Red’s face morphed from red to death-white. “How did you know that? You can’t breathe a word. You can’t even think it around Shasta. He’ll know. Why are you here, anyway?”
“It’s a long story. I don’t want to bore you.”
“Oh, don’t worry. Boring is my middle name.”
26
By the time Red ushered Kai into the holding room, they were chatting like old friends at a school reunion. It didn’t take much to get Red talking, though it seemed it would take some low-grade miracle to get him to stop.
The holding room was little more than another small cave, a bench for sitting carved out of the same stone that formed the walls. Concealed black light lit the room to a mere shade above complete darkness. Kai had no desire to sit and wait to be rescued in this box of a room. He studied Red, wondering if he could nail the psychology of the guy. He didn’t exactly seem like the most confident of people.
Kai settled down on the rock bench, keeping his demeanour relaxed. “I’m listening.”
“Things at home were different without Dad. I felt so empty. They recruited from school and I was never really interested, but when my dad got sick, I thought maybe I could help him somehow.”
“With the Affinity power that you’d be trained in?”
“Something like that.” Red scuffed the floor with his foot. “What’s your power?”
“I see things that are broken, and I know how to fix them.”
“So that’s how you knew about me?”
“Pretty much.”
“Makes me feel naked. Whoa. What does it look like?”
“Green. Lots of green. Listen, I overheard your argument about the screens.”
“Yeah, we’ve been working together for ages, but do you think he’ll ever believe me about anything? Nope. He always knows better.”
“Well, I believe you.”
Red pursed his lips, “Did you use your power to look at the screen by any chance?”
“Maybe.”
“And?”
“There’s nothing wrong with that screen. Absolutely Nothing. You glow greener than that screen. I want to know what’s going on.”
“Wow, I didn’t think I was that bad off.” Red crossed his arms over his chest.
Kai could have kicked himself for getting it wrong. More than anything he needed this guy to be on his side. He needed an ally.
“Oh, trust me. You’re not. I’ve seen some real radioactive folk. Lit up like Christmas trees, I tell you.”
Red nodded stoically. Disaster seemed to be averted for now at least. “I have to get back upstairs. Otherwise, I’ll be working for hours after the end of my shift. Will you be OK here?”
“Just a question. Is there some logic to how the screens are set up?”
“Pretty simple, really. It’s all divided up into sections. Each section has a different purpose to fulfil in the Big Plan.”
“Shasta’s plan?”
“Oh no. This is way bigger than anything he could dream up.” Red’s eyes rolled as if trying to see the full Big Plan in all its glory. “He’s just responsible for one section of it. Basically, the screens on one side show different sections of the real world, while each screen directly opposite shows the spiritual realm. It’s pretty easy to see what’s going on. I must get back.”
Resonance Page 20