AER (The Elements Series Book 3)

by Tracy Korn

  Is he the Glyph? Her Glyph? Is it saying something to her that we can't hear? What if it's not him? I think toward Lyden.

  She's not taking off her glove…I think it will be all right. She can't upload the patch without skin-to-skin contact for at least five seconds, he answers.

  "He's going to break her arm!" A woman's voice cries out from somewhere in the back of the room, and after a few seconds, everyone is whispering.

  "Injuns don't have regular bones. She'll turn 'em to water or something, don't fret," another man from nearby says in a comforting voice.

  She can't get hurt in here, can she? He—I mean, it can't really hurt her, can it? I think again toward Lyden.

  This is the Platform layer—there aren't any baselines in place for pain or fear or anything, so there's no off switch. Whatever happens in here will feel just like it's happening in reality.

  So, you're saying yes? We have to stop this! She thinks this is all pretend like a regular virtuo-cine!

  "We need an official over here! Faye!" the short, skinny man calls to the bartender, who glares at him like she's trying to burn a whole through his long, pock-marked forehead. The woman rolls her eyes and whips the white towel she was using to dry glasses over her shoulder, then lifts the hinged bar and walks toward Vox's table.

  "Injun's got marks all up and down her arms too, Danvers. Like maps," the skinny man says, noticing the skin exposed between the cuff of Vox's sleeve and the edge of her glove. "But don't look like them's powdered none," he adds. "Got you some wolf-eyes too, don'cha, injun girl? You turn into a wolf at night, don'cha?"

  Vox narrows her eyes and almost whispers.

  "You can find out by drooling one more word…then I'll have a reason to come rip your throat out tonight while you sleep," she answers, then growls low in her throat, curling her lip again like she did at Fraya a few minutes ago, and like she did at Sarin when we were in line to get inoculations at the Gaia medical bay. The man flinches, then laughs, but he doesn't say another word. She turns her attention back to the round, ham-handed man across from her.

  The man folds his thick fingers around Vox's small, gloved hand, which nearly disappears in his grip. She doesn't show any pain, but I can feel the anxiousness radiating from her.

  He's hurting her—he's crushing her hand, I think toward Lyden.

  "Look, how about you just keep the horse and we walk out of here…just pretend none of this ever happened?" I say, moving toward the table. Vox glares at me, then lets her eyes soften.

  Nice to know you care, sand dollar. Now go take some bets, she thinks. I catch my mouth before it falls open.

  The bartender next to the table now takes the white towel from her shoulder and lays it over the man's hand and the tips of Vox's fingers, which are all I can see of hers.

  "All righty then, on the count of…Carboderm's safe ongoing port-cloud resources," the woman says.

  "What? What did you just say?" I almost shout.

  "I said, on the count of three, I'll pull the towel back," the bartender says, sneering at me. "Stalling ain't gonna help you, honey," she adds, I turn around and grip Arco's shirt.

  "That's not what she said. She said, 'Carboderm's safe, ongoing port-cloud resources.' That has to be part of the coded message. She's the Glyph—my Glyph!" I whisper.

  "One!" the bartender says. Arco nods, then scans the room and swears under his breath as she keeps counting. "Two!"

  "OK, listen. I'm going to move behind her and get in her way. With any luck, she'll trip over me and then you can hold onto her arm for five seconds as you help her up. If that doesn't work, you need to be in the wings to try again. Bump into her," Arco says, then nods at me before pushing his way through the now dense crowd.

  "Three!" the bartender says, then whips the white towel into the air. Cheers and whistles start in every direction, and it's hard to see what's happening with everyone now on their feet. I weave through the people pushing in around the table, and am not sure if the tightening in my chest is because of everyone closing in, or if it's really coming from Vox.

  Are you OK? Vox! I think, but she doesn't reply. Her lips are pressed together, and her arm is bent back so far it's nearly parallel to the floor. My stomach jumps into my throat. Vox!

  I stop cold in my steps when I see this, and for a split second, Vox's lip curls again. She tilts her head, cracking her neck, and all of a sudden her arm starts to straighten. The fat man doesn't say anything at first, but then he starts pushing air through his teeth.

  "Danvers!"

  "She's winning!"

  "Get'cher hands out—bets are placed!"

  The fat man makes a fist with his other hand and holds it in the air like he's going to punch an invisible enemy at his side. His face and neck turn red again like he's slowly coming to a boil, and I suppose in a way, that's exactly what's happening.

  "Vox! Crite! She's beating him!" I hear Fraya from somewhere behind me.

  "Jazz!" Arco calls, and I remember what I'm supposed to be doing. The bartender!

  I tear my eyes away from the arm wrestling match and scan for Arco. He's along the back wall about five feet behind the bartender, who is still close enough to the table that trying to approach her now would be too obvious. Arco nods at me and starts moving to the front of the gathered crowd. I nod back and make my way to him, the whole time trying to figure out how to get my hand on the bartender if Arco misses. He said I could try to help her up? But what if she doesn't fall? I could just walk straight over to her and grab her, couldn't I? This doesn't have to be pretty, I think.

  "Injun…witch!!" the man arm wrestling Vox says, spraying spittle through his teeth with the last word.

  "She beat him! Pay up! Pay up!"

  "Let's go! We need to get out of here," Lyden says, grabbing Vox's arm, but she snakes out of his grip. "Vox!" he yells as she disappears into the crowd. I see flashes of her pink dress just long enough for them to disappear again.

  "Jazz!" Arco calls, ripping my attention back to him and the bartender. He's pinned against the wall, his eyes wide. "I can't get there!" he says, pushing forward just to be pinned again by the chaos of people swarming, and now starting to throw punches.

  I run toward the bartender, who is heading back toward the bar.

  "She witched my hand! I can't move my hand!" the fat man yells.

  "Get her!"

  "Jazz! Now!" Arco calls, just before someone punches him in the stomach.

  "Arco!" I can't see him anymore after he falls, but I stop scanning for him when someone grabs my arms and starts pulling me toward the bar. It's the skinny man with the long, pock-marked face and the greasy dark hair. His breath smells like onions, and his teeth—what's left of them—are yellow and broken. He laughs in my face through a twisted grin, and I don't think. I just raise my knee as hard as I can and hit him in the groin. When he doubles over, I do it again, this time, connecting with his nose. He falls to the ground and is immediately swept away in the flood of people. The bartender…I think, then turn frantically back to where I saw her last. My heart sinks into my stomach when I don't see her, but then her thick arm reaches for the neck of a bottle behind the bar. I pull off my gloves and gather up these stupid skirts, then jump over the counter, rushing toward her. I grab her wrist and hold on as tightly as I can, shutting my eyes and counting to five. She starts struggling, but I refuse to loosen my grip. One…Two…

  Jazwyn! Look out! I hear in my head, and open my eyes just in time to see the bartender raising the bottle she'd grabbed now in her other hand. I catch her other wrist.

  "Three! Four! Five!" I shout out loud. She stops struggling and stares at me blankly, like I've just unplugged her. A second later, everyone in the saloon stops fighting. They freeze in place, and I let go of the bartender's wrists.

  "What happened?" Fraya calls out from across the room, her arms folded around Myra.

  "She found the Glyph. It was the bartender," Lyden says, then blows out a breath.

  "Is ever
yone all right?" Myra says, looking around, but no one else is talking or moving.

  Arco…I think, then turn to the wall where I saw him last. He looks a little green, but he stands upright and meets my eyes, then nods. I look around for Vox, but don't see her before I hear a whistle from outside.

  We rush through the door to find her untying Lyden's horse from the post and tossing a pouch of what sounds like money into one of the saddle bags.

  "What happened? How did you do that in there?" I ask, out of breath as the adrenaline hits my veins and makes my whole body shake. She raises a gloved hand and wiggles her fingers.

  "Pressure. Took me a while to find the exact point on his meat paw since he was a bloated walrus, but…"

  "So you pinched him? That's what took him down?"

  "I have a talent for finding the nerve in people, sand dollar," she says with a smirk as she bats her yellow-green snake eyes at me, then turns to Lyden and jerks a thumb at the horse behind her. "So…will the saddle change sizes too if I turn this horse into a dragon right now?"

  CHAPTER 23

  Higher Ground

  Liddick

  The rumbling isn't as strong or as violent as it was the last time we faced a tunnel shark, so it must be far away, or it must be something else all together.

  "Stay quiet," Zoe whispers, pulling Dez's arm to move away from the black hole tunnel behind us. She points toward the slits of light near the top of the hole we're in. "Get as close as you can to the wall there."

  I grip the handle of my machete and nod to Dez like I think the look on my face will actually keep her in place instead of laughing out loud at me, but to my surprise, she nods quickly in compliance. Azeris moves in closely behind me.

  "You sure it's a shark?" he whispers to Zoe. "That pincer bug is still roaming around down there somewhere, no?"

  "Could be that, but the rumble is sudden, then stops, just like it did a minute ago. Antlions tend to skitter more."

  "The antlion is what took Tieg. Tieg!" Dez yells down the tunnel. She starts to yell again, but Jack manages to close his hand over her mouth in time to muffle her.

  "Stop…stop!" Jack says firmly close to her ear as her screams are muted against his hand, but it's too late. The rumbling gets stronger, louder. More loose dirt falls from the ceiling, and a cloud of dust fills the small hole we're in. I try to swallow several times to keep from coughing, but I can't hold out more than a few seconds. Neither can anyone else.

  "We may have to do this blind—just keep your blades up; we have the high ground, and as long as we hold it, we won't need to back up none, wise?" Zoe says all at once.

  "Just be still. Everyone just be still. Both the tunnel sharks and the antlions are drawn mostly to movement," Jack says, still holding a hand over Dez's mouth. Her unnatural blue eyes are wide and nearly translucent again as she grips his dirt smeared wrist, her knuckles already white.

  The sun must be low now since the light coming through the slits pushes several feet into the tunnel, making the dust float and dance in the air.

  "Ten minutes…we just need to hold up here maybe ten more minutes," Azeris says, apparently noticing the same thing I just did with the light. The tunnel rumbles again, this time louder and more violently, but it doesn't stop like it did before. The pulse in my fingers pounds against my machete handle, but I can't loosen my grip even a little.

  "Be still…be still…" Zoe chants under her breath, and based on the flames jumping from the back of her collar again, she's telling herself just as much as she's telling us.

  "It's not stopping," I say, looking at Azeris. One…two… I hear in my head, but it can't be coming from him. Then suddenly, Three! Four! Five! Instinctively, I slash my machete into the dark in front of me, and fall backward when I make contact with something dense. A high-pitched whine like air leaking from a balloon keens just a few feet in front of me.

  "No!" Dez shouts clearly just before light floods our hole, and in it, just for an instant, dozens of round black eyes on an angular field of mud gray flash in front of me. One huge pincer snaps closed inches from my face, and I fall backward just as Zoe lowers her machete faster than I've ever seen her or any of the other Badlanders do it in training. It's suddenly dark again, and all I can hear is more high-pitched squealing in the struggle. Something hot passes over my leg, but all I can think to do is kick and kick and kick until finally, the struggling stops. The burning gets worse, but I can't see anything through the dust, which is red in the backlight of our flames. I cough, displacing some of the dust in front of me.

  "Where is she?" Zoe says in a panic.

  "She pushed up through the hatch; I tried to catch her leg, but she slipped through…she's topside," Jack says, coughing.

  "What?" I ask, squinting hard until I see an antlion body in the distance.

  "Dez!" Zoe shouts, and then everything registers.

  "No…no…" Jack says, scurrying over to peer through the slit just below the ceiling hatch. "She's not there. I don't see her, but the sun is down. It's just the haze now…she must have run for the trees," he says, scrambling for words.

  "We can go…we can go in the haze…" Zoe states more than asks.

  "Look out," I say, making my way to the hatch. I take a shallow breath, then push my hand into the air on the other side and wait for the scalding pain to start. It doesn't come. "I'm all right…it doesn't burn," I nod to Jack.

  "OK…" he says, then pushes the hatch up, slowly at first to let the light pours in again. I let it hit my arm, then blow out a breath when it still doesn't melt my skin off.

  "It's safe. Come on," I say, then climb out of the hole and scan the horizon for Dez.

  ***

  We head for the tree line to our left, the rolling sand going in every other direction until it disappears into the flickering lights of the Fringe quadrant in the distance. I see the Skyboard North mountain wedged far out on the horizon, which means Seaboard North is about halfway between here and there. Intermittent flickers of light arc in a line just about where Seaboard should be, and I know they must be the beach fires of the Fisher clan. I'm home…I think, letting myself think it for one second, and then just one more before I turn away from the thought, crumpling up the vision and the feeling like a wad of paper and shoving it down into my stomach.

  "This way!" Azeris's calls, snatching my attention back. Branches scrape my face in the soft light, and I don't even know how I got over the rest of the sand to the tree line so fast.

  "Where is she? She's not right—she can't be alone up here," Jack says, looking around in every direction.

  When we push through the other side of the tree line, a few men with spare part appendages circle a barrel fire on the corner closest to us. The light glints off their metal hand bones and wrist tendons. One of them wears a tool belt that sags at his hips, pulling down his dirty long sleeved shirt, just like the one the Badlanders in the Vishan tunnels wore. These are their people. I could walk up to anyone here and ask them if they knew Dell…Calliope…

  The cracked pavement gives way to huge dirt potholes, some filled with mud puddles skinned with the rainbow effect of spilled oil. No one looks at us so much as they look through us, and I remember everything about this place now. I could disappear, be invisible, because everyone is a ghost anyway.

  "What happened?" Zoe says, but just barely. She's stopped in her steps, her eyes glinting in the firelight with tears.

  "It's been six years, Zo. But not everything has changed," Azeris says, and suddenly Zoe blinks several times, then shakes her head.

  "We need to find Dez. She won't last a second here."

  "Would she really have known to run to the tree line? Has she ever been to the Badlands?"

  "No, she's never left the Skyboard mountain," I say, then look hard at Azeris. "Wait…that's where she's heading."

  He takes a slow breath and lowers his chin. "We don't have a lot of time." And I know what he's trying to say. What he's trying to make me consider and decide.
Like this whole thing is up to me? I'm supposed to choose to go after Dez or push on to his hab to find Jazz? I narrow my eyes at him, but can't think of anything to say. It is my choice…and the rage that rises up like lava in my chest at how stupid and irresponsible Dez is almost burns me down from the inside.

  "She's not right," Jack says in a quiet voice, as if reading my mind, and I wonder for a second if he actually can or if I'm just radiating that much hate. "She's been through a lot, Liddick…she's afraid, and her mind isn't working right."

  I blow out a breath, then startle as an old woman cackles so hard she works herself into a coughing fit several feet away. I look straight at her as she adjusts the eyepatch over her dirty face, then pulls the remains of a dark patchwork shawl over her hunched shoulders. She glares at me with her good eye and goes back through the door of her dilapidated brick apartment building.

  "I'll find her. I'll meet you back at Azeris's hab before daylight—as long as we're inside, we're all right? As long as we're out of the sun?" I ask. Jack nods.

  "Good, then I'll go with you," Zoe says, taking a step toward me, but I hold up a hand.

  "No, go home," I say before I realize the impact it probably has on her. She swallows hard a few times before she nods.

  "You have about 12 hours before sunrise," Azeris says, gripping my shoulder. "Still know the way to my hab? Got your bearings?"

  A fight breaks out across the alley just as I'm about to answer, then ends as quickly as it starts.

  "Enough of them," I say. "I'll find the rest."

  CHAPTER 24

  One Down

  Jazz

  We all stare for a second, fully expecting Lyden's horse to transform into a dragon right there. Vox rolls her snake eyes at us and snorts.

  "I mean, I was just trying to involve you in the process here," she says. "I don't need a saddle for a dragon."