Achilles

by Greg Boose

  “Run, run, run!” Jonah dashes over and yanks Christina to her feet. Malix jumps up, firing, shouting. The cadets zigzag toward the bushes and barely leap out of the tree’s path, and then they all skid to a stop, dodging a sweeping line of blue light. Christina and Jonah bump into each other and trip over a downed branch, tangling their limbs.

  Malix makes a break for it—lasers buzzing all around him—and he dives and somersaults into the bushes. Christina pushes off Jonah and scurries after him.

  “Jonah!” Aussie screams. “Come on!”

  Jonah grits his teeth. He hears Manny’s voice telling him to turn off his sheaf. He sees him falling through the trees, the cluster of spikes driving through his back. Then he sees Dr. Z’s face and Professor Eck swinging back and forth, legless, vandalized. He whips his rifle onto his back and feels all of it, the loss of these people and all those who died in the crash, and it all festers together inside him until it runs blazing hot up his spine. He is going to kill Zion. He is going to kill Zion before he dies.

  A blue beam passes over his head, burning his hair, as he crawls toward Aussie’s handgun. He stuffs it into his pocket, takes another deep breath, and then gets up and sprints. A few steps later, a shoelace catches a downed branch, and Jonah falls flat on his stomach. He sits up and yanks hard on the lace, tangling it more.

  “Shit!” he yells.

  A laser buzzes over his left shoulder, and then another cruises over his right. This is it, Jonah thinks as he fumbles with his shoe. Any second, it’s all over. But the next beam goes back over his left shoulder, and the next over his right. Zion, for whatever reason, is letting him live.

  “Come on!” Malix shouts. “What are you waiting for? Come on!”

  “Jonah! Run!” Aussie screams.

  There’s a pause in the fire, and Jonah rips off his shoe and barrels through the bushes, telling himself that Zion just made a huge mistake. Tunick grabs his shoulders and dances. “You made it, smart boy! Now we race. Ready?”

  Jonah sees everyone is there, including a sheet-white Bidson, whose left wrist bubbles with blood. He’s in too much shock to feel the pain, Jonah thinks, but that will change soon.

  A laser punches the left side of a nearby tree, blasting leaves and branches high into the air.

  The kids scatter in every direction. Aussie trips and lets out a blood-curdling scream: “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!”

  “Run like mice.” Tunick laughs. He yanks Aussie to her feet and pushes her through a line of trees. “Come, come, come!”

  They follow Tunick down a steep embankment, Portis leaning on Christina. The lasers finally stop, and once they turn a couple corners, Jonah orders Tunick to slow down so they can bandage Bidson’s wrist. The boy has started to moan incoherently, and he’s stumbling left and right, bouncing off tree trunks and boulders.

  The large demic clumsily sits on a rock and stares under his bushy eyebrows at the shards of bone sticking out of his skin. Christina rips the hem off her shirt and bandages the arm. As she attends to him, Michael staggers away and vomits.

  Malix retraces a dozen steps and crouches behind a boulder to watch through his scope. Behind him, Tunick spits a white seed out of his mouth and tosses two more in from his green hip pack. Immediately, he flexes his arms out wide and whips his head back and forth.

  Aussie sets her hands on Jonah’s chest and discreetly pushes him away from the group. She’s crying. “Up there. I tripped. I tripped and I saw them.”

  “Saw them? Saw whom?”

  “Two adults from the ship. They were dead, Jonah. Their throats. Their throats were cut and…” She begins to shake and cry, and Jonah hugs her close.

  “Who was it?” he whispers, hoping she’s wrong.

  Between huffing sobs, she says, “One was a navigator. A woman with a black braid. I remember her. And the other one was the engineer from my module. The one who helped us get out.”

  Jonah pushes her away. “Garrett? Was he wearing all red? A red jumpsuit?”

  She nods, and he wraps his arms around her again. His chest rises, and he refuses to exhale, holding a huge breath for the engineer, thinking it will somehow bring the man back to life. Garrett’s dead. It washes over him like a cold shower, and then all he can think about is the man’s bright red jumpsuit. How it looked through all those sharp branches when he was trapped in his launch seat, and then how it looked from across the wreckage as he stood with Paul, the white mist gathering at his feet. It takes a second before Jonah realizes that if Garrett’s dead, then Dr. Z is probably dead, too.

  “What should we do?”

  Jonah puts his lips next to her ear. He knows this news could incite a whole new panic. As long as they were simply missing, the adults were just a moment away from restoring order, from telling everyone it was all going to be okay. “Don’t tell anyone yet. Let’s wait until everyone’s calm or back at the wreckage.”

  “Okay.”

  “Let’s move,” Malix calls over his shoulder. “This is taking way too long, guys.”

  Tunick bounces over to Jonah and says, “This way, smart boy. Follow my exact steps. Winner gets chocolate and the energizer. Yes, yes.”

  Bidson is on his feet, his knees buckling, his bandaged wrist hanging over Christina’s shoulder, the other bobbing overhead. Jonah looks him up and down and doesn’t think he’ll make it. Not very far, anyway, and not without Dr. Z. Portis sets a hand on Michael’s shoulder, and together they hobble ahead.

  “How far are we from your place, Tunick?” Jonah asks, sighing.

  “So close. Sooooooo close. You’re going to love it.”

  Jonah looks down at his one bare foot and wiggles his toes. Another thing the moon has taken. Vespa, he thinks. Please come back. Not to take over, but to give him the strength he needs to keep his head up.

  “Please. Let’s just go,” Bidson groans. His thick right arm swings back and forth above his pale face.

  Tunick skips along the base of the rocky embankment and everyone follows. Jonah ducks under Bidson’s arm, giving Christina a break. He needs to think. If two of the adults were found dead up there, Jonah wonders, where are the other bodies? Did Aussie just not see them? Why did Zion let him live when the others were shot so ruthlessly? And what did that girl whisper in Portis’s ear?

  “Portis?” Jonah asks.

  The cadet just mumbles, leaning hard on Michael.

  “What did that girl say to you up there?”

  He doesn’t respond. No one does.

  When Tunick gets to a line of trees with trunks no thicker than Jonah’s thumbs, he pushes them aside like curtains. Beyond is a narrow valley between two cliffs. Tunick demands they flatten their backs against the right wall and shuffle along the stone. “I have traps. Traps, traps, traps. Traps for the splitters.”

  “What’s a splitter?” Jonah asks as he maneuvers a barely conscious Bidson against the wall.

  “Splitters are not the smart kids like you. They turned their backs on the verve. Now follow me ever so carefully.” Jonah just shakes his head. It’s impossible to figure out what this guy is talking about half the time.

  After several more steps, Tunick cautiously jumps over a line of high grass in the middle of the valley and presses his back against the left wall. Aussie follows, then Michael and Portis somehow make it across. Jonah and Christina drag Bidson right through the grass to the other wall. There’s an audible click as they cross, and Jonah braces himself for a log of spikes or poison darts to shoot out of the shadows, but nothing happens. Tunick shrugs and keeps going. Malix is always ten steps behind, his eye glued to his scope. Finally, Tunick holds up a finger, stopping everyone. Then he lifts his leg and releases a roaring burst of gas.

  Aussie turns her face away in disgust. “Are you crazy? That was so loud.”

  Tunick’s giggling stops just long enough so he can whisper, “’Twas a verver, ’twas a verver. Nothing I could do. You’ll understand soon, soon, soon. I’m sorry. Try not to smell it. It’
s for the best, I assure you.”

  “Then move,” Christina whispers. “Let’s not just stop and stand in it. Come on!”

  Malix catches up and shines his rifle light into Tunick’s face. “Seriously. Go. We need to find cover.”

  “But we’re here and I won and I win all the chocolate.” Tunick ducks down and digs his fingers into a crack in the wall. It takes a few seconds before an outline of a boulder becomes apparent. Then Tunick groans and laughs. “Ohhhhh. I just smelled it, and now I fear I might just die. Hold your breath, kiddies. That’s a really sour verver. Ooh wee!”

  “Just hurry the hell up, you stupid asshole!” Malix hisses.

  In an instant, Tunick has Malix’s throat in his hand. He grinds the cadet’s skull into the wall and then presses his forehead to Malix’s. Malix tries to kick him, but Tunick pins both his thighs down with one leg, and with his other hand, he holds the barrel of Malix’s rifle firmly against the wall.

  White spittle covers Malix’s face as Tunick says in as clear a voice as they’ve heard from him all day, “Have some manners, kid. You’re about to enter another man’s home.”

  Christina untangles herself from Bidson and aims her rifle at Tunick. “Let him go, or I’ll blow your head off. I’m sick your shit.”

  Tunick rolls his forehead along Malix’s and looks hard at Christina. Jonah struggles to keep Bidson up against the wall, fearing he’ll land in a trap if he hits the ground.

  “Enough, Tunick,” Jonah says. “He didn’t mean anything by it. Christina, stand down. Everyone just—”

  In a flash, Tunick drops his hand from Malix’s neck and snatches the rifle out of Christina’s hands. He flicks the weapon upward, and the belt sails over the girl’s head so she’s no longer attached to it. Then he rips the rifle away from Malix and aims both at the group of kids.

  Malix puts his hands up. “Whoa. I’m sorry, man. Tunick, I’m just tired. Listen. I’m tired and Bidson and Portis are dying. Everything’s fucked up. Just relax.”

  Tunick’s face twitches wildly, and then he hops up and down, grinning. “Smart boy, smart boy. Give me your gun right now, or I’ll kill you all right here.”

  Jonah whips his eyes to Malix and Christina, who both shake their heads, but Aussie and Michael nod emphatically. He’s suddenly aware of the handgun in his pocket, and after another second, he holds Bidson steady with one hand and pulls the rifle over his head with the other.

  “Always the smart one,” Tunick says, crunching on the white seeds in his mouth. “That’s why I chose you. Now you and the rude one.” He aims the barrel at Malix. “Put your fingers on the right side of that boulder and pull, pull, pull. Let’s go inside and eat and talk and verve.”

  “What’s ‘verve’?” Michael says.

  “You’ll find out soon.” Tunick smiles.

  Malix sighs at Jonah, and then the two of them swivel the large stone away from the wall. It’s pitch black behind it.

  “Now go inside, and wipe your feet. I just cleaned up. Move all the way inside to the back. Make room, make room, make room.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The first inside, Malix yanks Jonah to his feet by the back of his collar, and then he shoves the First Year to stand at the other side of the opening. Jonah squares his feet and prepares himself. In his mind, he can hear the deep hoarse voice of the academy’s Second Officer, Carlos Dravo: “The farther away you are taken from your point of capture, the more likely you are to never see your mommies and daddies again! Is that understood? And if you are taken into a dark room or pushed inside an unmarked vehicle, and you are not taken to a government-issued holding facility or a marked military vehicle, expect your captor to try to kill you! If you want to survive that situation, if you ever want to see anything you love ever again, then you will get the drop on that captor and turn the tables! As soon as possible! Is that understood?”

  “Yes, sir,” Jonah mumbles in the darkness.

  “Shut up!” Malix whispers.

  Between Malix and Jonah, there’s a faint half-circle of Peleus light on the dirt floor. The rest of the cave is a cold, foul-smelling blackness, and it’s impossible to know its size. Jonah steadies his breath and stares at the moonlight, waiting for Tunick to crawl through. Outside, up on the opposite cliff, a hard wind blasts the trees this way and that way, and the half-circle of light appears and disappears, flashing like a broken light bulb in an abandoned building.

  The two cadets watch silently as Michael drags Portis through. Soon, Aussie coughs her way inside. When he hears Tunick graciously asking Christina to enter his home, that he would be “most honored,” Jonah slides the handgun out of his pocket.

  “Malix?” Christina whispers as she crawls through the flashing half-circle of light. “Where are you? Jonah?”

  Malix and Jonah don’t answer, and no one else speaks up. It’s as if they all have their own survival plan, even Aussie, who coughs far inside the cave. The longer he’s in the space, the more the smells separate themselves. Jonah tries to ignore the overwhelming stench of blood.

  Outside, Tunick asks, “What’s your name, big boy?”

  Jonah waits for Bidson to answer, but there’s just silence. Another one, gone. It’s becoming almost routine. A sharp pain appears behind Jonah’s eyes, and a headache comes on fast.

  “Boy, boy, boy. You don’t look so hot,” Tunick continues. “You stay here and be my lookout. Good, good. You’re a good fella.”

  Seconds feel like hours as they wait for Tunick to appear. Sweat beads on his wrists and palms, pools on his lower back. His headache worsens. Malix doesn’t know he has the handgun, Jonah realizes. He considers leaning forward and letting the Third Year feel the cold, hard metal, but it’s too late. Tunick mumbles something just outside the cave opening. Then dirt crunches, and there’s the grunt of someone lowering himself to the ground. The leaves flit wildly on the trees above the valley, and the moonlight at the cadets’ feet disappears completely. Jonah sees movement and hears labored breathing below, and once there’s a flash of light and he can locate Tunick’s head, he sets the gun against his skull and barks, “Don’t move!”

  Malix jumps on top of Tunick, and there’s an immediate struggle. Tunick spins away from the gun and Jonah drops to his knees to secure the rifles, but he can’t find them.

  Christina shouts, “Get him, Malix! Kill him, kill him!”

  Jonah sweeps his hands over the cold dirt floor as Malix turns Tunick over and punches him twice in the face. Malix shouts, “Come on, Jonah!”

  The moonlight flashes briefly and Christina jumps on top of Malix, and then Jonah dives into the fray. He twists the barrel of the handgun through Malix’s strong arms until it meets Tunick’s head. But something is wrong. His dreadlocks are missing. The grunts leaving his mouth are boyish, and when Jonah’s other hand finds Tunick’s throat, the man’s long beard is gone, too.

  A spotlight then enters the cave from the outside. Under Christina, Jonah, and Malix is a whimpering and bloody Hopper, his long black bangs hanging limply over the barrel of the gun.

  “I can’t breathe,” Hopper wheezes.

  The three cadets roll off the hacker, completely stunned, as Tunick shines the rifle lights around the cave. The kids’ shadows loom against the opposite wall.

  “Ah, ah, ah. No wrestling without me.” Tunick laughs. “That’s really not very nice to attack Hoppy Happy like that. The poor boy is scared and cold and just wants to sleep.” His voice turns angry. “Now, smart boy, slide your little blue gun out here, and then everyone get against the wall, your backs to me.”

  “Just shoot him,” Christina whispers out of the side of her mouth. “Shoot him, Jonah.”

  “Do it,” Malix adds.

  “Tunick, they want him to shoot you,” Hopper calls. Malix slams a fist down on the hacker’s chest, and Hopper groans and rolls away.

  “Your name is Jonah, right, smart boy?” Tunick yells inside.

  “Yeah,” Jonah says after a beat. His head throbs
, and there’s a needling sensation in his eyes.

  “Shoot him, Jonah,” Christina whispers as the demics creep toward the opposite wall. “Remember what Vespa said.”

  Tunick’s voice booms inside. “Jonah Monah, if you want to know what happened on Thetis and what happened to all those people on your ship and why I’ve chosen you, you, you, then you better not shoot me. You have to be curious.”

  Jonah rubs his thumb over the gun’s pebbled handle. How many times did Aussie fire it? How many bullets are left? He wobbles out of the light and asks, “Who was the girl we saw in the jungle before you showed up? The small girl with the long black hair?”

  “Who? Her? She’s a nobody, Jonah Monah. I’ll tell you all about her when I get inside, but she’s an absolute nobody. A nuisance. A splitter.”

  Malix creeps out of the light, toward the western wall.

  “Just tell us from out there!” Michael yells from the back of the cave. “I don’t know why you want to hurt us. We’re just kids, Tunick! We’re innocent and we just want to be sa—”

  “NOBODY’S INNOCENT! And how dare you tell me what to do inside my own home, little boy! I’ve been on this moon for over a year, and you’ve been here for what? Three days? Now, get back into the light where I can see you, or I’m going to shoot the redhead.”

  Jonah turns to see Aussie shaking against the back wall. All around her are symbols like the ones inside the sphere: hollow diamonds with squares, interlocking circles, three dots inside Cs. Hundreds of them. He also sees a childish drawing of a bat-like creature standing at the bottom of a deep pit, its head and wings sharp and robotic. The angle of the light changes, and he sees that above Aussie’s head, hanging on a taut black vine, are thick, fatty bits of animal flesh. The sight makes him nauseous, and his headache intensifies. If he can just make his way to the wall and touch the symbols and trigger something, maybe they can still get out of this.

  “Malix,” Jonah groans through the pain. He stumbles back into Tunick’s light. “The symbols on the wall. We can escape.”