Achilles

by Greg Boose

  Jonah staggers to his feet. “What exact symbol were you looking for?”

  “Looks like an octopus with a box on its head.” Hess sighs. “The times we’ve used that one, the portal sucked one of us up and then let them somehow float over the moon, showing them things we would never have found on our own. Locations of food and shelter and other things.”

  “We can always use more food,” the boy says.

  The three of them circle the room, and that’s when Jonah spots a hollow diamond with a single square inside, just like the one Kip focused on. It’s near the opening. He checks the opposite walls like before, but to his chagrin, they’re not there. He scans the ceiling. Not there, either. No pattern. No formula. As the other two argue over a couple of flower-like shapes near the top of one of the walls, Jonah walks into the middle and looks down at the floor, and it’s then he spots Malix’s worst nightmare: three circles inside a C. It’s not carved as deeply as the other symbols, which is why he didn’t see it earlier. He places a shaking hand over it and hesitates. There has to be a reason Tunick carved them into those adults Malix and Sean found.

  Hess and the boy continue to discuss the flower-like shapes while Jonah stares at the symbol below his hand. Do the three circles represent something? Maybe they’re Achilles, Peleus, and Thetis? Maybe they’re for three people? Jonah then thinks about his dad, his mom, and himself, the three members of his family. But what does the ‘C’ mean? It could be a curved hand, about to crush the circles. He stands up straight and scans the walls, finding the same shallow symbol carved three more times. It’s the only pattern he sees.

  “Just try it and see what happens,” Hess whispers to the boy who scratches at the flower above his head.

  Whatever happens, happens, Jonah tells himself. He’s going to die soon anyway. He drops his hand to the floor and digs his fingers into the three circles. Sure enough, they pulse and then begin to rotate within the C.

  Hess shoves the boy out of the way and jumps to press the flower on the eastern wall. Jonah backs away from the moving circles on the ground and then casually walks toward the entrance, his heart pounding in his throat. He digs his fingers into the three circles, watches them move, and then he walks to one on the next wall, touching it, starting it.

  “What are you doing?” the boy asks him.

  “You figure something out?” Hess asks.

  “Um,” Jonah says, touching another one of the symbols. Once it activates, he marches right toward Hess, shrugging his shoulders. “I don’t think so. What are you guys trying?”

  The two turn to look up at the flower as Jonah reaches the last C with circles. As soon as he touches it, the circles rotate and then glow green. He spins around to see that all the circles he’s touched in the room are now glowing green. He runs into the middle of the room and waits.

  “Hey!” Hess shouts. “What’s happening?”

  The long white object running along the base of the pyramid comes to life. The milky material begins flowing clockwise, and a faint white energy field appears at the ceiling.

  “What’d you do?” the boy yells at Jonah. “Which one was it?”

  “I don’t know exactly,” Jonah says. He doesn’t know if they believe him, but it doesn’t matter; the portal is working. If only he knew what he was going to do next.

  Hess runs her hands through her hair. “What do we do?”

  The boy pushes past her in anger. “I knew we should have brought Lark! Now it’s all screwed up!” He aims his gun at Jonah’s face. “What did you push? Which ones? Tell me.”

  Jonah puts his hands in the air. He wants that gun so badly it takes everything for him not to reach for it. “I haven’t touched a thing. I swear.”

  The white object speeds up. An eerie glow floats off its milky material and then disappears. There’s a new energy in the room, and the walls begin to bend inward at the top. Red dust clouds the ceiling, mixing with the white force field.

  “Screw it. You’re going in, then,” the boy growls at Jonah. “You’re taking the plunge.”

  “Just wait,” Hess yells above the noise of the room. “Let’s think about it for a second. We can’t waste it on him if it’s a good one. What if he… Like the time with Ronald? We’ll miss our chance.”

  “Well, but what if it’s like the time with the twins?”

  Hess drops her head and nods. She then raises her gun at Jonah. “See you on the other side, kid.”

  Jonah looks over his shoulder at the speeding white object. A voice inside his head tells him the symbol was the wrong one to touch, it tells him to leave, to not let them put him on that thing. But there’s nowhere to run.

  “Go!” the boy shouts. He moves to the left, and Hess breaks off to the right. There’s no way to escape their lines of fire. If Jonah attacks him, she has a direct shot, and vice versa.

  “What happened with the twins?” Jonah asks, trying to buy some time. He hopes the room will crack open and a new way out will appear.

  “They walked back into our camp a day later,” Hess mumbles. “Inside out.”

  “We had to kill them,” the boy says.

  The walls above them continue to bend inward. Red dust settles over all their heads and shoulders. Jonah imagines what he would look like with his skin missing, his muscles exposed.

  “Turn around!” the boy shouts. “You ruined it. After all this time trying to find another one…and you ruined it somehow. You have three seconds. One.”

  Jonah turns and walks toward the wall. His eyes scan every symbol, looking for a sign. He tries to summon another vision from the verve, but none comes. He stops just steps from the white object speeding near his feet.

  “Two.”

  He looks over his shoulder. He looks for Dr. Z. He looks for Tunick. He looks for his dad. He looks for someone, anyone to stop this. Somewhere Kip could be lying in a cave, his body flipped inside out, blood pooling all around him.

  There’s shuffling behind him, and the boy’s voice comes closer. “Three.”

  Jonah ignores him and bends down to pick up a fist-sized rock. He tosses it onto the object, and the rock goes shooting along the base of the room like a ball on a roulette wheel.

  “I said…” The boy’s hand reaches Jonah’s shoulder and tries to shove him forward, but Jonah’s snatches his wrist and yanks the boy onto his back. The gun fires. The ground spits dirt next to Jonah’s foot. Hess shouts something. There’s another gunshot. And then Jonah pivots and whips the boy over his shoulder, tossing him onto the white object. With a howl, he sails down the room, and just before he reaches the end, the rock Jonah tossed a few seconds earlier drops from the ceiling, causing Hess to turn around. It’s all Jonah needs. He dives for her torso, plowing her into the ground just as the boy meets the final few inches of the object. He disappears without a sound. The portal has its body. Within seconds, the force field covering the opening pops and disappears.

  “No!” Hess screams under his weight. Jonah locks her neck into his armpit and straightens her arm, then slams her elbow over his thigh. She howls and the gun skids away. A moment later, it’s safely in his hand.

  “Get up,” he demands. “Now.”

  “You probably killed him,” she says.

  “He killed himself.”

  “If that’s what you need to tell yourself.”

  “I don’t care about that kid, just like you don’t care about me and my friends. Now, it’s time we visit Tunick,” Jonah says. He aims the gun at her flat nose. “Take me there. Now.”

  “Only Lark knows where he is. I swear. Only Lark knows.”

  “Then take me to Lark! I’m sick of this shit!”

  Hess turns and walks outside, and Jonah follows safely, but closely behind, knowing she could have traps set like Tunick. Silently, they push through the narrow space between the porcupine trees and edge around the bloody clearing. Then they’re in the jungle, tramping through sludge, scaling boulders, climbing hills. Jonah keeps the gun on her back the whole
time, more alert than he’s ever been in his whole life. When he meets Lark, he’s going to punch him in the face for everyone who’s died. And then he’s going to demand that he take Jonah straight to Tunick.

  A wide, shallow stream appears, and they stop to rest. Jonah leans back and examines the bottom of his bare foot, how tough the skin has already gotten. He unties his other shoe and tosses it into the middle of the stream, where it stands straight up on a submerged rock.

  On the other side of the bank, Jonah spots a tall flowering plant with circular leaves. The vervoluptis. He launches himself over the stream, all the while keeping the gun trained on Hess, who stands up to watch. The plant rips from the ground easily, but as he examines it, he can’t find any seeds. He fumbles through its thick roots, but there’s nothing there either.

  “It’s a dud, huh?” Hess says. “Sometimes they’re empty.”

  In anger, he breaks the thick stem over his knee, and that’s when he sees a short row of white seeds lining the inside of the stalk.

  “Well, good for you,” she mumbles.

  He shucks them into his pocket and jumps back to the other side. Jonah doesn’t know what he plans on doing with the verve but thinks it’s a good idea to have them.

  They reenter the jungle, and after a dozen steps, he hears voices deep in the trees. Hess tenses and then steps on a small branch, snapping it loudly. “You make another sound and I’ll shoot you,” he whispers. He forces her to pick up the pace, circling to the right as a harsh female voice complains about something. Through some bushes, Jonah sees a few pairs of bare feet, and then two small pairs of mismatched shoes. Hess ducks and tries to sneak away, but Jonah grabs her upper arm and tightens his grip.

  He shuffles himself and Hess to the left until he can see all their faces. He’s so stunned that he nearly falls backward into a row of thorns; with two older girls and one huge boy are Vespa and Brooklyn.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Vespa looks like she has just rolled out of a boxing ring; she’s bloody and pale, stretching her jaw back and forth. A deep yellow bruise covers her swollen cheek. She takes a half step forward and stumbles, and the boy—a huge truck of a kid with the sides of his head shaved—catches her around the waist and ducks his head under her arm. Jonah holds his breath and moves closer, pulling Hess along with him. He can’t believe she’s here.

  “Whoa there,” the boy says to Vespa. He has the pointed face of a wolf, with deep-set eyes and a long, flat chin. Two ropes encircle his neck, buoyed with gems and black and white rocks. A large brown pouch sticks to his massive back.

  “I’m fine,” Vespa groans, pushing the hand off her waist. “Seriously. Get off.”

  “What’s he doing? What happened?” Brooklyn spins in her giant white T-shirt. There’s a huge bloodstain on its front, and it splatters up and over her shoulders. Jonah takes another few steps forward, but then stops when he sees how Brooklyn moves toward Vespa with her hands out in front of her. She doesn’t seem to be hurt. It’s not her blood.

  “I’m just feeling a little woozy,” Vespa announces as she grabs one of Brooklyn’s outstretched hands and pulls her into a hug. They hold each other closely, but it’s an awkward exchange where Brooklyn steps on Vespa’s feet and doesn’t seem to know where to lay her head. Jonah watches to see if they whisper in each other’s ears, if they have a plan, but they separate without so much as a mumble.

  “I’ll go look for them,” one of the older girls says.

  “Be quick,” the other responds. She’s tall, with narrow shoulders and a braid of long brown hair. A thick band of purple runs from temple to temple, over her eyes and nose like a superhero’s mask. A long wooden spear leans in her hand, its shaft lined with sharp shards of amber-colored stone. Like the others, she’s dressed in dirty rags. She turns and gently pushes Vespa toward the boy, and he directs her into the shade and out of Jonah’s sight. “See what else you can do for her,” she says to him. “And keep asking her about the energizer.”

  There’s something familiar about her voice, Jonah thinks.

  The other girl, a stoic and muscular young woman, with dark skin and a cloud of black hair, takes Brooklyn’s open hand and leads her after Vespa. The demic stumbles into the shade.

  Sweat covers Jonah’s gun. It suddenly feels too light, or simply not enough. He releases Hess and picks up the first thing he sees: a flat white rock the size of his forearm. It’s heavy in his hand, even in this gravity. He just hopes it’s enough to take out the huge wolf boy. Jonah points the gun at Hess and demands that she stay there, and then he creeps forward, light on his feet. The trees ahead look perfect for climbing. Perhaps he can get the drop on them.

  He moves to a nearby tree, and then another, all the while keeping Hess in his periphery. What happened to the girls? Where did all that blood on Brooklyn’s shirt come from? Finally, from about twenty feet away, he finds Vespa lying on the ground, chewing on a thick root. He didn’t realize until that moment how much he actually missed her.

  “So you’re Jonah, then?” a voice comes from his right. He turns to see the girl with the purple mask and spear, and his brain fires with options: shoot, throw the rock at her and run to Vespa and Brooklyn, play dumb, play coy, surrender, or fight. In the end, Jonah points both the gun and rock aggressively at her and sneers.

  “Who the hell are you?” he asks.

  “I’m Lark.”

  He pauses; he figured Lark was a boy. Then he aims the gun at her face. “Let them go. Vespa and Brooklyn. Right now. Or you’ll be sorry.”

  “Don’t tell me how sorry I’ll be. That’s for me to decide.” Lark steps closer and a large silver circle swings on a rope around her neck. The metal is like nothing Jonah has seen before; it’s a greenish brown and practically glows, reflecting the white sunlight directly into Jonah’s eyes. Lark smiles and places her empty hand on her hip. Jonah isn’t fooled by her friendliness and takes a step to the side, the gun and rock tight in his hands. She mimics his moves and says, “We’ve been keeping our eye out for you, you know that? We knew you were in the area, but we’re surprised to see you’re not still with Tunick, verving your brains out.”

  “Vespa!” Jonah shouts over his shoulder. “You okay?”

  Her voice is weak, but spirited. “Jonah? Jonah! Where are you?”

  Brooklyn shouts, “Really? That you, Jonah?”

  “The question is, are you okay, Jonah? I mean, look at those eyes of yours,” Lark says, slightly dropping the top of her spear toward him. Her other hand remains casually on her hip. Where has he heard this woman’s voice before?

  He doesn’t like the way her spear leans and her eyes squint, but what’s more, he hasn’t forgotten that Lark was the one who voted to let Tunick hunt them all down like animals. Jonah stares at the girl so hard he thinks he’s going to trigger another attack in his eyes, and then he makes his way toward Vespa with the gun always aimed at Lark. “Stay away from me. You come near me and I’ll kill you, I swear. Tunick was killing people, and you left us up there to die.”

  Lark stomps through the grass, always giving Jonah a little distance. “I know it looks like that, but it’s more complicated. We had our reasons.” Then, in a lower voice, she says, “We were selfish. And we’re trying to make up for it now. I actually tried to make up for it the first night you were here, but things didn’t work out.”

  Jonah ignores her. He pushes through a bush of star-shaped flowers. The wolf boy and the tall black girl are on their feet, crude weapons in hand, but Brooklyn stumbles past them with her eyes shut, hands out. “Jonah?”

  “I’m right here,” he says. “Straight ahead. Open your eyes. What’s going on?”

  Brooklyn extends her arms and keeps moving forward. Tiny lacerations frame her face and a long gash runs along her left bicep, all of which shine in some kind of thick pink goop. Jonah jogs into her embrace, picks her up with one arm, and hugs her tightly. She smells terrible, like rotten fish and vomit. Lark stops advancing, and in Brooklyn’s
ears, Jonah whispers, “You okay? They friends or foes?”

  “I don’t know. They’ve been trying to help us.”

  Hess casually appears from the left and receives an evil stare from Lark. Jonah sets Brooklyn down and then crouches in front of her face. “What’s wrong with your eyes? What happened? They do something to you?”

  The small demic sets her trembling fingers on her eyelids and then painfully pulls them apart. Her eyes open and Jonah feels as if he’s been punched in the gut. He falls to his knees and drops the rock from his hand. Vespa says something and so does the wolf boy, but Jonah only hears a hollow echoing in his ears. Maybe it’s the verve, Jonah thinks. Maybe it’s still in his system, messing with his mind. He blinks hard and counts to five, but when he looks back up at Brooklyn, he’s horrified to see that the whites of her eyes are a deep, deep blue, and the corneas and pupils are also completely gone. They’re just two blue marbles.

  Brooklyn stumbles forward and wraps her arms around his neck. Jonah’s brain goes blank, and he crouches there, frozen in shock. His heartbeat pounds in his skull. No. It can’t be. She has it, too?

  Vespa sits up and says, “It happened last night. About ten hours ago. She has the same thing you do. She told me the moment we left you all on the beach.”

  “They found it right after the wormhole,” Brooklyn whispers. “I didn’t tell anybody. I should have told you. I’m sorry.”

  Jonah sits and squeezes Brooklyn’s bronze hand. He struggles to hold back a tear as he stares at his future self in the eyes, and he doesn’t know what to say. What have others said to him? He can’t remember. Behind Brooklyn, the boy shrugs off the handmade pouch and opens it up.

  “We’re trying different things to see if we can help her.” He carefully brings out several folded leaves tied neatly with thin vines, and he smells each one before unfolding a dark red leaf. Inside is a neon yellow powder that looks like pollen. Jonah gets a whiff of it and knows immediately it’s from the nose of a snout.