AQUA (The Elements Series Book 1)

by Korn, Tracy

  "Hybrid, classification CN—Coder and Navigator. Wild!" he says, beaming.

  "What does a Coder do again?" I ask him. He starts to answer, and Liddick cuts him off.

  "They can predict outcomes mathematically—probabilities…" he says, smiling. I look at him and nod, trying not to laugh.

  "Oh, you feel needed again?" I ask. He tilts his head toward me and arches a dark eyebrow.

  "Jazz, what are you?" Avis asks, leaning over the back of my seat.

  "I don't know, maybe an Empath?" I say, exchanging a glance with Liddick, then raise my wrist. Before I pull up my profile, I catch Vox staring at me from a few rows back, and it hits me. How did she know about Empaths?

  "How did you know about this already? About…Pushers, and Receivers?" I call up to her while everyone is engrossed in their mainframe displays.

  "Maybe I'm just good at getting into places I'm not supposed to be in, and hearing things I'm not supposed to hear," she says, fluttering her eyelashes. I shake my head at her non answer, too nervous about finding out my classification to press her further, then raise my bracelet cuff again and pull up my profile. The blue light scans my eyes, and for a second, I can't see anything. Almost immediately the screen flashes the word Hybrid—Classification ERd-C. I read the explanation below it—I'm…a reader? Wait, and a Coder? I touch the screen again to see if it will tell me more, but nothing happens.

  "It says I'm a Hybrid…Reader and Coder; does that mean I can learn people's language like you did?" I raise my voice over the chatter to Vox, who is immobilized by the blue light in her eyes. When it stops, she squints hard, then reads her screen and smirks.

  "Probably, since I'm a Hybrid, too—Reader and Navigator. We're nearly twins," she says, batting her eyelashes at me again.

  "How did you talk to the Inlanders in the last class? Will you show me?" I ask her, ignoring her sarcasm.

  "I don't know how I did it. I just listened and it was there, but I've pretty much been able to do that since I was a kid. It's not this place or their stupid nannies."

  "Nanites," Avis insists, tossing his hair out of his eyes in exasperation.

  "Whatever," she says, darting a glance at him.

  "Remember that he said it just comes later for some…your subconscious wakes it up when you need it," Liddick says, still not having scanned in.

  "What does yours say? Check it," I urge, and he does, reluctantly.

  "Hybrid—Classification ERd and Coder," he says, nodding. "We're the same, Rip. So, we'll be figuring out how to do it together." He smiles coolly and drapes an arm over my shoulder as I shift back in my seat.

  "Jax—" I say out loud to myself, and look up to see him trying to get my attention. He mouths the word Omnicoder to me and raises his fists in exultation, a huge grin spreading across his face. What's an Omnicoder? I wonder. He points to me and raises his eyebrows in a question.

  "Hybrid—Reader and Coder," I mouth, and he shrugs his shoulders, confused. I repeat the words more slowly, and he shoves out his bottom lip, nodding like he's very impressed, albeit so awkwardly I can't help but laugh.

  As if he's just remembered something he forgot, he starts looking around the room. I'm sure he's trying to find Fraya, and I start to wonder again where Arco and the others are, but Dr. Denison calls everyone to order.

  "And now…" he begins loudly, lowering his voice when everyone's chatter gives way, then starts his sentence over. "And now that you all know your classifications, let's break up into groups and see what you can do."

  CHAPTER 32

  Sorted

  My head is spinning when our bracelet cuffs begin to pulse with colors that correspond to sections of the room.

  "Please make your way to your color," Dr. Denison says, walking with each of the teachers to the center of the floor.

  "Mine is blue," I say, looking up at Liddick. He holds up his bracelet, which is pulsing green. The realization that we're on separate teams hits us at the same time as I feel my stomach drop, then the echo of it from him, which is the strangest sensation ever. He opens his mouth to say something, but Avis slaps him on the back on his way down the steps to the other side of the room.

  "You and me, Jazz," he says, holding up his blue light, and I just have time to make eye contact with him bounding down the stairs before he passes us as a crowd begins gathering behind Liddick.

  "Looks like you're up there," I say, tipping my head toward the corner with the green light behind him, then feeling my chest collapse in on itself, "with Jax." Liddick turns around immediately to confirm, then turns back to me. These sub-groups are what Denison said will become our career teams, and I tense at the idea of never seeing my brother once we're at that level. It's bad enough to lose Liddick, the only person who has been able to help me navigate what's been happening the last few days. I almost started feeling normal again.

  "Don't get nervous; we still have four years of training before they send us into the world, you know?"

  "I know—I mean, I remember," I say, smiling a little when I see that Fraya's light is also green as she tugs on Jax's shirt from behind. Liddick turns around again and chuckles, seeing Jax pick her up in a bear hug around the waist. A lighter feeling washes over me when I see this, and I catch myself scanning their crew again for Arco—where is he?

  "Well, that just made his entire week. Looks like your crew is down there," Liddick says, then gestures behind me. I turn and see the blue light beaming down from the ceiling at the bottom of the amphitheater stairs, exactly on the opposite side of the room from the green, which is lofted along the far wall at the top of the stairs. A red light and a yellow light are on opposite walls from each other about halfway down each side of the room, and soon, most students are at their respective stations.

  "Watch out for him," I say in all seriousness to Liddick before turning to head to the blue group. Jax may be older, but he's more impulsive than I am.

  "Watch out for him," Liddick replies with a smirk and a nod toward my group. I turn and find Arco staring up at us, and relief floods over me as I look back at Liddick shaking my head, completely losing the battle with the smile fighting its way across my face.

  "It's not like that. We're just friends," I say, but it falls on deaf ears.

  "Oh, it's like that. You just don't know it yet," he says, making me roll my eyes on my way down to my group.

  I'm happy to see so many familiar faces as I approach: Pitt, Dez, and even Vox—who, while I may not be thrilled to see her in my group, is better off with me than with Jax, who would always be blindsided by her.

  "Jazz!" Myra nearly knocks me over in a running hug.

  "Hey!" I manage, immediately happy to see her.

  "What's your class?" she asks, and I look at her, puzzled for a second before I realize she's talking about my classification.

  "Oh, Hybrid—Reader Empath and Coder. That feels so odd to say out loud…what about you?"

  "Projector Empath, that's deep, isn't it? Now I'll have to be more aware of what waves I'm putting out there," Myra turns a little pink and wraps a long strawberry blonde twist of hair around her finger.

  "You never put out anything but good waves, Myra. Don't even worry about it," I say, trying to keep my attention on her, but I can't seem to focus.

  "Nice to see you again, Myra," Arco says, crossing over to us. She gives him a bear hug as well, which makes him laugh. It's been awhile since I've seen him genuinely laugh like that.

  "Arco! What class are you?" she asks.

  "A mutant, I think," he says with another chuckle as he looks at his bracelet again, which pulses blue. "Hybrid class CN, Coder and Navigator, Latency Receiver Empath," he reads, raising his eyebrows. "Mutant."

  "Latency?" I ask him, but he just shrugs it off.

  "Don't ask me," he says through a smile. "Do you know everyone yet?" he asks Myra, and I look around to see if there's anyone I don't at least recognize.

  "No, but I'm making the rounds. Hey…" she says, leaning in mor
e closely to me, "have you seen Joss? I want to introduce him to someone," she asks, angling her head toward Pitt.

  I shake my head and raise an eyebrow at her, but then see him making his way toward our group. I almost didn't recognize him with his blond hair cut short now—when did that happen?

  "Actually, he's right there," I answer, and her face lights up as she bounces over to Pitt and pulls him by the arm.

  "Myra's making friends," I say, turning to Arco.

  "Looks like she's making more than friends," he adds as she threads her arm through Pitt's and calls after Joss, who tries to look tolerant when he sees them as Myra starts rambling. "Uh oh," he says.

  "What?"

  "I just know that look."

  "What look? Joss's patient look? Yeah, Myra can get on a tear when she's excited," I answer. Arco gives me a sideways look, then shakes his head.

  "So, Vox was right about you being an Empath, then. And you're sure that's what you are?" he asks, then turns away from Myra's introductions and faces me.

  "That's what my bracelet says," I answer, narrowing my eyes at his odd question. "Vox thought I could only receive, but now I guess we're the same, though none of whatever we're supposed to be able to do seems to work in this room."

  "What do you mean?"

  "What the teacher was talking about…being able to talk without talking? Liddick and I have gotten pretty good at that, but it won't work in this room. I can't seem to connect with anyone else like that, so I don't know if it's a thing all Empaths can do, or just the two of us," I say. Arco's eyebrows dig together for an instant before he rolls his eyes, then shakes his head in dismissal. "What's that for?" I ask.

  "You're the Empath, Jazz. You tell me," he says over his shoulder as he joins the rest of the group a few feet from us.

  "I said it didn't work in here!" I call after him, but he just shrugs and tosses up his hands to each side. I blow out a breath and turn to check one more time on Jax, who spies me and waves, a huge smile on his face as he drapes his arm over Fraya's shoulder. Liddick stands next to him leaning against the wall with his ankles crossed and his hands pushed into his pockets. He sends me a nod, and I smile back at him before taking those last few steps to close the gap between myself and my group.

  Avis has managed to take engage Pitt in some kind of debate as Myra and Dez stand off to the side. I wonder if she's an Empath like Myra and me, or if Pitt is, for that matter, and walk over to them.

  "Pitt, right? And you're Dez?" I ask. They both smile, Dez more broadly than Pitt, and I make a conscious effort not to look at their wedge of teeth. That will just never be normal to me no matter how many times I see it.

  "I'm sorry, I thought you had already met them," Myra says, her beaming face dimming a little.

  "I did, but just for a second," I say, "it's OK."

  "Right, and you're…Jazz?" Dez replies, her blonde hair spilling over her shoulder as she tilts her head toward me.

  "Right," I say, smiling back.

  Pitt nods to Avis as he walks toward Arco, then turns to Dez and me. "So they're going to teach us how to be superheroes or something now, huh?" he asks, then grumbles and raises his eyebrows in disdain, which completely surprises me.

  "You're going to be great, stop worrying," Myra says, her face lighting again.

  "Why is Omnicoder such a stretch for you to believe? You've always been good at figuring out solutions to problems," Dez hooks her arm in her brother's, but he just huffs out an exhale through his nose like a horse. That's when it hits me that if he were an animal, he'd definitely be a huge, black horse with radioactive green eyes. A giggle bubbles up before I can catch it, and Dez, looking a little confused, but relieved, laughs too. Even Pitt's mouth quirks for a second before he squashes it.

  The odd horse thought makes it apparent that Vox is somewhere behind me, but since I don't feel the tingle at the back of my neck that I usually do when she tries to put a thought in my head, I can't help turning to confirm. She's actually several feet away talking with Joss, but then looks up at me and smiles to one side before excusing herself to come over. She only gets a few steps before she's stopped in her tracks by a sudden haze of light in front of her, which fades to reveal a group of people near the center of the floor—a group of our teachers, only, there are several of each of them. Four Dr. Denisons, four Reynolts, Mahgis, and Strykers, but still only one Tark. Once the light fades, a set of them approaches each color group.

  Our whole group comes together to look at each other in the seconds we can manage to tear our eyes away from the spectacle of them all walking our way, and when our set of teachers reaches us, we are stone silent. Dr. Denison—or, a Dr. Denison is the first to speak.

  "Go ahead," he says, holding out his arm. "Touch it." But no one moves. "It's OK. It's real. I'm real. We all are."

  Myra lets go of Pitt's arm and moves toward Denison, extending her fingers to brush over his wrist, then pulls her hand back quickly.

  "He is," she says, looking around at everyone. A few others follow her lead, but no one dares to utter anything more than a few gasps of realization.

  "Each duplicate instructor is a temporary copy. We have short term, intermediate term, and long term options in cloning here at Gaia Sur. There are no permanent options as of yet, though this is a point of political contention at the State right now, as some of you may know. This set of teachers," he says, extending his arms to encompass the group standing next to him, "are clones. The other groups are clones as well, and we will all expire in approximately six hours—we're short term."

  "That means you…die? Where are the real teachers? And what happens to all the memories and information when the clones expire?" Avis asks, his mouth wide with excitement. I close my eyes in a long blink at his abruptness, but that's Avis.

  "The originals are monitoring all four groups from observation stations under the floor of this room, and our experiences and memories are all uploaded to the primes in real time via neural uplink. Regarding the expiration of clones, our matter simply breaks down into smaller and smaller synthetic carbon molecules until they dissipate back into the port-cloud," Denison answers. "I'm sure you all have several questions about this process, but for today, we are going to talk about you and your abilities. Each day you spend at Gaia will provide multiple opportunities to familiarize yourself with the array of technological advancements and differences from your home territories, and your bracelet cuffs can provide direct access to tutoring scenarios if you would like to expedite your learning. These scenarios are largely self-directed because we believe the process of organic discovery is less jarring for our new cohorts than direct instruction of what's to come," Denison concludes, air quoting the last several words.

  "Watching your teachers replicate before your eyes isn't less jarring, let me tell you," Vox says, and I feel a pang of embarrassment.

  "Actually, Miss Dyer—it is Miss Dyer?" he says, checking a digital reader on the inside of his palm. "Yes. The anticipation of such an event and the potential paranoia it might engender often wreaks greater havoc on the psyche than more abrupt introductions. Not to mention, periodic surprises help hone your senses, which is critical for the training you will be receiving here at Gaia Sur," Denison's face is calm, almost placid, but his intense blue eyes are fixed on Vox, and she seems caught in the web of them.

  "So all of those teachers will really disintegrate after this class?" Avis asks, gratefully, albeit tactlessly, shifting the subject back to the macabre, and I'm suddenly relieved that whatever abilities we have seem to be muted. If the tension I've already been feeling so far in here were amplified, it would probably be overwhelming.

  "Dissipate, but essentially, yes," Denison replies.

  "Does it hurt them—er, you?" Myra asks in a thin, almost pleading voice.

  "No, our consciousness shuts down first, so essentially, we fall asleep, and within about ten minutes, we just disappear," he answers. "Are there any other initial questions before we begin assigni
ng you mentors?"

  "This is what must have happened at our interviews," I whisper to Arco. "Styx, Rheen, and Plume were clones. That's how they could be with all of us at the same time."

  He nods, but keeps his eyes on Denison and the other clones.

  "Miss Ripley?" Denison looks directly at me. "Do you have a question?" My heart leaps into my throat at the sound of my name, my attention ripping away from Arco.

  "No, I mean, not really—I mean, yes. Is that how we all had the same people in our interviews at the same time before we got here? Mr. Styx, and the others?" I ask, not so much afraid of the answer, but for some reason, afraid to ask the question.

  "Indeed. What an astute observation," he says, and despite whatever Empath ability I supposedly have currently being suppressed, I get a distinctly vacant vibe from him when he answers me. "If that's all, Ms. Reynolt?" Denison takes a step back and passes the floor to her.

  "I will be mentoring the pure Empaths and Hybrid Readers on board," she says with a broad smile, her green eyes twinkling.

  "And I'll work with the Navigators," Dr. Denison says, his short, white hair shifting with his shallow bow to the group. Then, for the first time, I hear Mr. Stryker speak. His voice is quiet, but steady, and his silver-streaked dark hair falls in messy waves at his collar.

  "I'll be working with the Omnicoders and the Coder-Navigator Hybrids. Looking around, I see that I know a few of you already," he says, his large, brown eyes smiling.

  "Any remaining Empath Hybrids will work with me, whether those are Empath Coders or Empath Navigators," Dame Mahgi nods to our group with a brief smile. I nod in reply, but only because I'm not sure what else to do until Dr. Denison extends a hand to the door behind us, and I realize we're about to find out.

  "If there is nothing else," he says to the group, "shall we board the Leviathan?"

  CHAPTER 33

  The Leviathan