AER (The Elements Series Book 3)

by Tracy Korn

  "Crite, can we gooooooo now?" Vox asks. "We'll figure it out. You act like you haven't basically been living on a different planet for the past few months. We've just got horses, wagons, and old men who walk funny to deal with now. That's it. No shark people, no bugs as big as us with pincer claws, no mineral rain, so relax," she adds, cocking a burgundy eyebrow, then tucking a few stray hairs back into one of her multiple lines of braids.

  Calyx walks around to each one of us and squares our shoulders. "Oriah, are you connected to all six?" she asks, letting her eyes wander to Fraya, Myra, Arco, Vox, and Lyden before she returns them to me.

  "Yes, they're synced. Everyone looks good. The interface seats are online now too," the girl on the other side of the console circle says, but I can't see her.

  "Good," Calyx answers, then returns her attention to us. "All right, take one of the seats in front of the console stations. You may feel some initial heat or gravitational pull from the virtuo-cine layers building that color column in the middle, but just focus your eyes on the Platform level scene, all right? It will keep the nausea at bay when the lock sequence starts," she says, then walks with us to the slim, reclining seats that remind me of the ones in the med-bay back at Gaia Sur. I climb into one of the dark chairs, and it immediately forms to me as two rounded, metal wands appear at my temples. The chair props me up just enough to look into the bottom layer of the enormous column of rotating light and color in front of me, but I can't make out what's actually happening beyond the small movements of cattle moving behind wagons. Farther out from these, several small buildings take shape at the base of mountains in the terrain. There's no water anywhere…I think randomly, then feel my heart start to pound.

  CHAPTER 19

  The Tunnels

  Liddick

  "Here," Cal says, rushing over to Azeris and Dez with a larger flame now in the palm of his hand. Dell pulls up another, and so does Zoe.

  "Try to stay calm. Just breathe, you're going to be all right," Jack says, aligning his eyes with Dez's. "Just keep blinking until the tears stop. Keep breathing."

  Dez takes a deep breath, then another before she calms down. "What's wrong with me? It didn't rain anymore…the treatments were supposed to help reverse whatever damage it did, right? What's happening?" she sputters.

  "It's hard to tell…can you still see?"

  "Yes, that keeps getting better. It just burns now."

  "Might just be the healing process. The black discoloration is still receding, and as long as you can see, I'm not terribly worried. We'll take a closer look when we get to Azeris's hab, all right? Just try to stay calm," Jack says, then nods to Dez.

  "We have to find my brother," she says in a small, cracking voice.

  "We will. We're going to find him right now."

  The tunnels are dry, and the red light bouncing off the hard-packed earth makes me feel like we're walking through the intestines of some enormous animal out here. Don't tweak…I think, trying not to imagine the walls flexing like whatever swallowed us is breathing on the outside. Stop, damnit! I tell myself, then spit out more of the sand in between my teeth. I blow out a breath just as Azeris falls back to walk next to me.

  "How are you holding up?" he asks, studying me from the shadows of the light in front of us. "Can you pull up your fire at will yet?"

  I hold out my hand and try to concentrate on making it itch, but only a few puffed sparks ignite before they disappear into the blackness pushing in on us.

  "Why didn't you need a treatment?" I ask.

  "Omniclass nanites—Jack dosed me at the Phase Two station right after we broke him out."

  "So, those are what? Adaptable to whatever?"

  Azeris laughs. "They're not going to let me breathe like a fish or anything. Don't get antsy."

  I start to bark something back at him, but it's suddenly too much effort. The air is heavy and too warm.

  "What do you think happened to him—to Tieg?" I ask before I realize it's out loud. "That thing…took him."

  Azeris grips my shoulder as we push through the earth intestines. "We just keep moving forward. That's all we can do. Jack says it's not far to the surface once we're in these tunnels. Keep it together," he says. I think of my brother, Liam. Keep it together until we get home…holding our cut eyebrows together while the blood ran down my cheek. He was laughing like it was the stupidest thing in the world.

  I pull out of my distraction when the walls, the ceiling, the ground under my feet starts to rumble with a low, guttural sound that rattles my teeth.

  "What the hell is that?" I ask Azeris once the rumbling subsides. His hard face is dirty, but his normally relaxed dark eyes are wide and afraid now.

  "Tunnel Shark!" Dell calls back to us. "Get up here with us!"

  "No, no, no…" Dez starts to cry again, then shrieks as the pain of whatever her tears are doing now registers.

  "Calm down—you're gonna be fine. We're all gonna be fine," Zoe says, but I feel her fear pushing out too just as she's trying to seem so together.

  Just watch the Platform…keep watching the Platform…I hear in my head.

  What? The platform of what? The ground? Jazz? But she doesn't reply. It's not her…I'm losing my mind down here.

  The ground rumbles again, and for a second I feel the rain pouring down. For a second, Jazz is bleeding in my arms in the sand, the tunnel shark is growling low and loud, and the thick sound of it fills my chest and suffocates me. Little breaths, Rip! Just take little breaths!

  "Hey! Let's move!" Azeris yells, grabbing my arm and pulling me forward. I stumble, but at least I pull out of the flashback.

  Get it together. Stop tweaking, I think. Over and over again.

  "It's not in this tunnel—maybe one or two over, it's all right. Just try not to make noise and we'll skirt it," Cal says quietly as we close the distance between us. Dez covers her mouth with her hands and nods. Zoe's red fire light reflects in her icy blue eyes and makes them almost seem to glow. I nod at her when she looks up at me.

  "It's not going to be like before. We're not going through that again. We're going to get out, OK? We're going to get out of here," I tell myself just as much as I'm telling her.

  "Just be still a second," Dell whispers as a low rumble shakes everything around us again, but it's not as violent as before. "It's pushing on. Feel it?"

  We all nod, and Dez closes her eyes for a long time. Tears fall over her cheeks and shine in the firelight. My stomach drops in relief. Hers, mine…everyone's.

  "All right, let's move now. We need to find a way up," Cal says. We start moving forward again, and I feel every pebble of earth move under my feet. I hear every exhale, every choked-back sob. I hear the hiss of the fire in Cal's palm, and the heavy, damp air pours into my lungs. Our shadows bounce off the walls around us in erratic, sharp angles so that it looks like there are more of us than there actually are, and suddenly, it's hard to breathe.

  Just watch the Platform…keep watching the Platform…I hear in my head. Again. It's her. It has to be her. What platform? Jazz? She doesn't answer, but a platform is something on the ground, so I watch the ground. One step, then another, and after a few more, the suffocating feeling recedes. I take a shallow breath, then another until I put myself entirely back in my skin. One step, then another. Just watch the ground.

  "Here!" Zoe whisper-yells to us. "This one goes up!" She points to a split in the tunnels, one going up at our left, and one turning right that leads down.

  "How do we know where he went? How do we know where it took Tieg?" Dez asks. Her eyes are wide and panicked again, and the shine on her face makes it clear that she hasn't stopped crying. Her fear hits me hard and square in the center of my chest, then just sits there like a boulder. Being a Reader Empath rots sometimes.

  No one answers her, but that doesn't mean no one knows the answer. Jack and Azeris exchange glances.

  "He's strong. He could have wrestled loose and pushed on toward the Badlands. That's up…" Zoe says, slippin
g an arm around Dez's shoulders. "He was on-fire mad last I saw him too, so I don't think that antlion had much of a chance."

  "But what if that rumbling just now was…" Dez starts, but can't bring herself to finish the thought. I swallow hard, not wanting to think about it either, no matter that Tieg is a chutz.

  "We can't leave him," Zoe says. "You of all people know that," she adds, angling her head at Dell. He pulls in a deep breath.

  "We won't," he says after a second. "I'll go that way and circle back to the Phase Two building—if a shark took him, that's where it's heading. I need to get the rest of the captives out of there anyway. We can lead them back to the Vishan for now, until we get word," he says, then turns to Jack.

  "I can only reach you if you have the NET…unless they have other equipment in their tunnels?"

  "Just the NET," Cal answers, then nods. "I'll go with him." He and Dell turn to Zoe, but Dez grips her arm like she'll fall a thousand feet if she lets go.

  "I'm coming with you…"

  "Dez, minnow, you have to stay with us. We need to get you out of here," Jack says. "It's what your brother would want."

  "No! I'm not leaving him in here! I'm not losing him too!" she shouts, and tears stream down her cheeks again. She presses the heels of her hands into her eyes. If Tieg is gone, she'll have lost both her brothers to Gaia and this nightmare.

  "We need to take care of your eyes…I don't know if the damage will be permanent until we get topside and I can take a look with the proper equipment."

  Dez slumps against the hard, red wall, pieces of dry rubble earth spilling to the ground at her back. Zoe stoops next to her and grips her arms.

  "Listen…I'm gonna stay with you, all right? Your brother is a big growling thing down here all on his own, and these two frogs are gonna be just fine without me bossing them up and down these tunnels, wise? But we gotta make some moves now, and so do they."

  Dez looks up at Zoe and blinks back her tears. In the small fire Zoe holds at her chest, I can see that the black under and around Dez's eyes is almost completely gone. She nods quickly, then starts crying heavy, silent sobs. Her head falls against Zoe's shoulder as she helps her get to her feet. Zoe smooths Dez's long blonde hair. The ache in my chest turns hot and sinks into my stomach. We need to get out of here.

  Zoe walks Dez over to Jack, who puts his arm around her and starts telling her something while Zoe turns back to Dell and Cal.

  "I'll tell Veece…" Cal starts, then trails off. Zoe's eyes fill with tears, but she violently blinks them back and sucks in a hard breath, then clears her throat.

  "Don't tell him a thing except he better keep Calliope out of my belongings," she answers with a hard look. "And that includes him."

  Cal smiles and nods, then takes off his tunnel shark tooth necklace and puts it over Zoe's head.

  "I want this back," Cal says. Zoe wipes the tears the instant they touch her cheeks and blinks like she's trying to gain altitude with her eyelashes. She hugs him, slapping his back like they're old military buddies…and I suppose they are.

  "That'll be just fine. Gonna get me one of my own anyway," she says through a sniffle. "Go on then."

  "Zo…when you get topside…" Dell starts, then clears his throat. "If there's time, let my Ma know what happened. Let her know I'm coming back—that we're bringing the others back."

  Zoe nods and presses her lips into a line to stop them from quivering. Dell picks her up in a hug, then sets her back down, but he doesn't let go for a few seconds more. When he does, she slaps his shoulders a few times and nods again.

  "I'll see ya'll soon," she says, rolling her lips in and biting down as she nods again. She puts her hands on her hips and sniffs one more time. "Well, get on! It's a long way back."

  Cal and Dell half smile at her before they turn, and Dell gives her one last wink as they disappear down the bend of the tunnel to our right. Dez throws herself into Zoe's arms, and her composure cracks into a thousand pieces just a second before she buries her face in Dez's hair.

  CHAPTER 20

  Dustbowl

  Jazz

  Everything is heavy at first. I let my head fall back against the chair that has moulded to me and remember that this is exactly how I felt in the med-bay after my first port-call with Ms. Plume back at Gaia Sur…when I saw the glitches in my neural channel, the flashing pictures of my dad and Liam trying to help Lyden and Arwyn in the Phase Two labs. I had to tell Arco everything, but there was just no time. I feel like there's no time now, either, but I don't know why.

  "It will feel like you're about to fall asleep. Don't worry, that's normal," Calyx says.

  "Virtuo-cines don't…do this…" Myra protests, slurring her words.

  "They're diluted in a way…flattened, remember? You don't get the potency of the background—er, Platform layer because everything else is added on top of it. It's like you're looking into a bright light through lots of filters," Eco explains.

  "So…no filters…?" Fraya asks, nearly asleep. I don't think I can keep my eyes open anymore either.

  "No filters," Tark says from somewhere far away. "You'll be wide awake in…"

  And that's the last I hear of him. That's the last I hear of any of them back in the Boneyard. I open my eyes, but the sun—the sun?—is too bright, so I have to squint. I hold my hand up to shadow them and try to look around.

  It's warm, and the air is dusty on my lips and tongue. I close my mouth the second I realize it's open. Old, wooden buildings line a wide, dirt street to my left, and horses are hitched to long wooden beams that are driven into the ground in front of almost every building. Three women in long dresses walk past me and go into a building just ahead. The door has gold lettering painted in an arc near the top when they open it. It says, Mitchell Textiles, and underneath, Est. 1871.

  I look down at my feet, but I can't see them under the long folds of light blue, draping fabric, which spills over the beams of the wooden porch that wraps around the length of the building. I'm wearing a dress? To my left, a wagon moves past, led by two horses, and music is coming from another building across the street. I spin around, but I don't see anyone from my group. I turn forward again in a hurry and run right into someone.

  "I'm sorry, sorry…I just…" I start, trying to look up to see who it is, but the sun is too bright. All I can see is a big, brown hat and a glare of white until the person steps to the side and blocks the sun. "Arco…" I breathe. He loosens his grip on my arms, which I didn't even notice until now.

  "Are you OK?" he asks, and I squint again for a second when the sun glints off the metal corner pieces of his collar in a blinding, momentary flash. His white shirt is pulled tight under a linen vest with two small, black buttons holding it closed in the front. An old-time gun hangs around his hips in a leather holster, which looks to be cut from the same piece as the leather coverings over his brown pants. I'm blinded again when he takes a step toward me and catches the sun on the metal tips of his Old West boots, which are otherwise dark brown and dusty.

  "Crite, you're a giant fish lure!" I say, which makes him laugh.

  "Jazz! It's a Western like before the floods. Look at my umbrella!" Myra says, opening and twirling a delicate yellow umbrella that wouldn't stop even one drop of rain. It matches her long yellow dress, which seems to be cut like mine. I grip either side of the fabric around my hips and notice that my hands are covered in lacy white gloves. The sleeves of this dress are the same light blue as the rest of it, and the sudden itching under my chin tells me there must be a lace collar too.

  "You look beautiful," Arco says quietly, which startles me enough that I look up at him. The sun shoots out in beams behind his head like he's some kind of holy person, and I can't help but laugh a little. "That's funny?" he asks through a spreading smile.

  "No…" I laugh. "I mean, you look like a cowboy Jesus…because, um, with the sun just there, and the…" I trail off and blow out a breath. When I look up at him again, I notice the ragged cut on his cheek is gone
, and so is the cut through his bottom lip. His hazel eyes are green and gold just like they were next to the moon pool the first time he kissed me, and I can see one of his light brown curls peeking out under the brim of his wide-billed hat.

  "Cowboy Jesus, huh?" he says, raising his eyebrows, then looks to the side with a nod. "Not exactly what I was going for, but all right." He smiles—really smiles like before everything turned into a terrible nightmare.

  "What in the actual hell is this pink scourge?" Vox says, the urgency in her voice making me spin around again. She's gripping her dress and making a face like she's just stumbled over a dead seal.

  "Is that…a bonnet!?" I say before I can stop myself, then cover my mouth with my hands before I flood this entire walkway with laughter. Vox's normally hardline, diamond and arrow tattoos that run down the bridge of her nose seem lighter somehow, and I take a step closer. "And powder. Stop. The. World. You look like a girl, Vox Dyer."

  "Stow it, sand dollar. I can still gut you like a fish even in…aw crite—" she says, lifting her skirts above her knees to reveal several more layers of white, crinkling fabric.

  "Petticoats!" Fraya gasps, and Myra almost explodes with excitement. Vox rolls her eyes and rips the bonnet off her head, but her cornrow burgundy braids are gone, replaced with waves and curls that fall loose and wrap delicately under her ears.

  "Wow…you, um, clean up OK," Arco says, raising an eyebrow.

  "Yeah. Well, you missed your chance, cowboy Jesus," Vox says, not missing a beat. We all laugh.

  "Everyone all right? Lyden says, dressed much like Arco, only he doesn't have the same leather coverings over his legs, and his hat is black, like his vest. He's leading a horse behind him. An actual horse.