by Chloe Garner
Too many people, too many bodies, all peering at her.
All careless what happened to her.
Another floor, another group of Band Rung.
By the third floor, word wasn’t running ahead of them quite so quickly, and some of the Band Rung were surprised to see her.
By the fourth, no one was waiting for her, and at the fifth, Still Water ducked abruptly into an empty side room.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“What?” Olivia answered. Still Water dipped her face down to look Olivia in the eye from a distance of maybe two inches. Strange, she didn’t have breath. The vents to her lungs were down on her chest, so she didn’t breathe on Olivia as she looked.
Olivia blinked quickly.
“What?” she asked again, remembering herself. “Is he going to be okay?”
“You’re… strange,” Still Water said.
“I’m afraid,” Olivia said, temper flaring. “They’re going to kill me.”
“Not while I have you,” Still Water said.
“Is he going to be okay?” Olivia asked, her voice rising. She turned her head away, trying to get herself under control again.
“Breath of Air understands the way of things,” Still Water said. Olivia shuddered.
“I don’t want him to die for me,” she said.
“I didn’t say he was going to die,” Still Water said. “He knows how to travel with the wind and when to turn. He can take care of himself.”
Olivia looked at her, still too close, still trying to read Olivia’s face.
“What do we do now?” Olivia asked.
“Hide,” Still Water said. “We still have friends who will shelter you…”
“Why?” Olivia asked. “Why would anyone risk their lives for me?”
“Because you represent perhaps our last opportunity to avoid war,” Still Water said. “If it’s possible, it will be possible because of you.”
And Cassie.
They didn’t want to get on Cassie’s bad side.
Well, that was at least rational.
“Where?” Olivia asked.
“Move as quickly as you can,” Still Water said. “We can travel up unimpeded for a time, but then we’re going to have disappear where we want them to look.”
Olivia nodded dumbly, not sure what it meant.
“Okay.”
It meant she was going climbing again, she realized, and she turned her face away again. Still Water didn’t have the same power to her that Breath of Air did. Her arms weren’t quite as long, and she was much more slight. Climbing around the outside of the building was going to be a lot different, and while Breath of Air had been terrifying, Olivia had never physically felt like she was going to fall.
She didn’t have that same sense of physical confidence with Still Water.
Still Water didn’t seem to have any hesitation moving on, though, dragging Olivia ever upward through the city, past gaping Band Rung. Up through another hole in the floor, then a sharp turn, coming face to face with another big Band Rung.
“Go,” Still Water breathed, letting go of Olivia and turning away. Just a moment and she was gone, and Olivia was standing next to the strange Band Rung in a doorway just off of a hallway.
“Come,” he said, wrapping his arm around hers the way Olivia had seen Still Water and Breath of Air do. They moved very, very quickly, faster than Olivia’s feet could keep up, and they came to a window. He went through it without changing his motion at all, just bending and stretching and then they were out in pinking sunset, climbing up the stone. All he had her by was her arm, and Olivia flapped against the rock, trying to keep her feet between herself and the wall, trying to control her body with one arm, while the Band Rung moved inexorably upward.
They went around for a long way, circling most of the city to the sunrise wall, then went in through another window, through a door, down a hallway at a speed that had Olivia bouncing on one foot, then soaring for a long time before the other foot came down, and finally into a small internal room. The light was fading and he put her down on the floor.
“Stay,” he said, leaving.
Olivia tucked her feet in, understanding.
He was going to go back where they’d been.
The room would be dark all night.
So long as no one came by to light a torch too nearby, she was hidden for the night.
She hoped that Breath of Air was okay.
He’d risked a lot to get her out.
And it still wasn’t over.
*********
Jesse stood, looking up at the traffic light as it blinked.
Red.
Red.
Red.
They’d out-thought him.
Him.
They knew he was here, and they’d planted an entire false trail for him to follow.
To here.
They knew he was here.
He watched the light blink, letting the realizations come to him as they would. They were all there, intact, angry, but if he let them all in at once, he might do something rash.
So he let them come, one by one.
Red.
Red.
Red.
*********
“You know where Olivia is?” Slav asked. “Celeste is gonna drive me crazy if I don’t get her a better answer.”
“I didn’t know she was missing,” Troy said without looking up.
*********
Sunrise.
Olivia woke, though she couldn’t remember falling asleep. She’d jolted and shivered at every voice, every footstep, but no one had ever gone past the doorway, and there hadn’t been any light all night.
She stood, leaning against the wall and watching the doorway out of the corner of her eye, just waiting for the Band Rung to inevitably come through. Friend or foe, she wouldn’t know. Wouldn’t know until it was too late, unless it was Still Water herself. Olivia had given up hope of Breath of Air coming for her. It wasn’t going to happen, and hoping it would was just setting herself up for disappointment. Disappointment was too weak an idea. It would have paralyzed her, if she’d been hoping for it.
They were going to come for her.
And she wouldn’t know.
She was moving before she even made up her mind.
Some of the walls below the holes were just rough, but some of them had actual jutting rocks. Olivia wandered, pressing against walls and hiding through doors every time she heard someone go by, but they were stirred up about something, and moving quickly, usually away from her.
She found the first passage to the floor above, but the wall was nowhere near featured enough for her to attempt it, so she went on, still flitting from doorway to doorway, still peeking everywhere she went.
The second wall had bigger gashes in it and several places where the stone hadn’t cut away cleanly. She peered up through the hole, then scrambled up the wall in three attempts. Her work slacks weren’t up for it, and they caught, tearing at the knee, but she made it high enough to pull herself up through the hole in the floor and keep going.
Floor by floor, close brush by close brush, she kept going up.
She knew.
She knew where she was going.
Eight floors up, she went to stand underneath a final hole in the ceiling where bright daylight poured down on her. The voices were far behind her, just the vague idea of people talking. She hadn’t had to skitter past someone in a room in three floors.
There was only one path up, from here. She looked out a window at the other formations of the city, other towers, other shapes. Mostly, it had a pyramid feel to it, from the inside, but there was so much going on outside. Gathering light, she guessed.
Pretty shapes.
Something you really wanted to see from the very top.
She’d been worried that she wouldn’t be able to climb here, but this wall had almost enough slope to it that she could stand on it without holding the wall with her hands. She scuttled up, grabbing the lip o
f the hole and pulling herself up.
She was exhausted.
She did cardio four days a week at the gym, and a kick-boxing class two days a week. She didn’t ever put on weight, for all of it, but she was fit. The straight-up climbs, the bad and very limited sleep, plus the stress, though, left her laying on the floor of that final, open-air level for a full minute.
She was exhausted, but she knew.
Finally she lifted her head, seeing a shimmer at the edge of the roof.
“It’s the kind of thing you have to come see from right here,” she said. “They say the view is amazing.”
Troy materialized out of the shimmer, invisible and visible, his own form, but energetic, the early-morning sunlight pouring through him like he was made of honey.
“Olivia,” he breathed, the sound of your imagination. She smiled, victorious for just a moment, closing her eyes.
“You want to see,” she said. “I should have known it the moment we climbed that cliff. This is where you’d be. This is where to come, to see everything.”
“I come here in the mornings,” he said, his voice clearer, now, but still soft, distant, humming almost. “And sometimes during the days. It’s beautiful.”
She stood, going to stand where he’d been.
There was no wall, up here. Nothing between her and the spread of the world below, orange-gold stone down to vivid, deep green trees, out to the volcanic black rock that formed the cliffs and cobalt blue ocean on three sides.
“It is,” she said as he slid up next to her. It was a different motion, nothing mechanical to it at all.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“I’m looking for you,” she answered simply. “Cassie thought you were here, and… she needed me to help.”
He laughed, the sound of happy waves on the ocean, all energy, all light. She could have put her hand right through him.
“Cassie,” he said. “The worlds she could go to. The things she could see. She never told me. I knew, but I never knew. Not like this.”
Olivia sneaked a glance over at him.
The complexion suited him, sun-touched and happy. If she imagined it just right, he was standing next to her in a tee shirt and cargo shorts. And flip flops.
He was so happy.
“You need to come home,” she said.
He laughed.
“Why?” he asked. “I can see everything. It’s amazing, out here.”
“You know this is only half of you,” she said. “You know that, right?”
His head swung to look at her, a spray of energy coming off of him like a cresting wave.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“You have a physical form, still,” she said. “It’s back on earth, trying to save the base.”
He shifted his shoulders, turning to look at the horizon again.
“I hope he does a good job,” he said. “He wouldn’t want me to give this up. It’s everything we ever wanted.”
She looked at his face. The distance of it. The joy.
“Tell me what you’ve seen,” she said.
He flashed a grin, shifting again, like kicking at a stone on the ground she couldn’t see, then he looked out at the sea.
“There aren’t words. You just have to go. I’ve seen people… and places… The ones here are interesting. There are wars going on all around them, but no one cares about this little island… they don’t even know it’s a paradise out here that the monkey-people are building…”
“They’re called Band Rung,” Olivia said. He sighed, more energy kicking up around him.
“They’re clever,” he said. “Building their own paradises all around the world, in the middle of places that no one would ever want to live. And they’re pretty, too. Pretty markings, move like water made of muscles.”
Olivia snorted, taking one small step back away from the edge.
“They’ve been carrying me around for two days,” she said. “That’s exactly how they feel, too.”
He looked back at her.
“You came looking for me,” he said. “That’s a big deal for you. Is it that bad, back there?”
She shook her head.
“No,” she said. “You’re just… You’re cold and empty and you’re doing a good job, but… You aren’t going to have any friends anymore, and I don’t think you even care.”
He pressed his lips, the act of empathy for a friend-of-a-friend, and shifted once more.
“Probably doesn’t need them,” he said. “I liked all of them, but the job was always enough.”
Olivia frowned.
Felt like berating him, but that wasn’t going to accomplish anything.
She needed him to stay until Cassie came, so that Cassie could convince him to come back.
“I don’t even know how to go back,” he said, looking at the sky now. “Don’t know where back is. Just forward. I hit the water, and there’s just another place to go.”
“Don’t you get lonely?” Olivia asked, sitting down. She couldn’t take the sense of instability in her knees anymore. Any second they were going to give and she was going to fall, and Troy was either just going to stand here and watch, or he’d fly down with her, to watch her break, down there on the ground.
He looked down at her.
“Too busy,” he said. “I do wonder, though. Were you going to forgive me?”
“I already had,” she said, sad. “I love you.”
He nodded, shifting.
“I can go anywhere. See everything. No gravity, no food, no job. Just… go.”
“It does sound like what you’ve always wanted,” she said, regretting it immediately, but just wanting him to keep talking to her. “I didn’t come because it’s bad. I came…” Because Cassie told her he needed her. “I came because I’m never going to be with him, if he doesn’t have you, too. I know that this is a big part of who you are. This…” She spread her hands, lacking words.
“Seeing,” he said.
“Seeing,” she echoed. “And I know that what you’ve got right this second… You can’t ever have that, if you’re inside a body.”
“No,” he agreed. “I can’t believe you found me. Do you know how many places I could have been? I can almost be everywhere at once.”
She swallowed.
“It’s the place to be if you want to see it,” she said. She’d been lucky, but she’d known to look. He’d probably been here a dozen times since they’d arrived on the planet, and they’d never looked here.
He laughed again.
“I wish you could see it the way I do.”
She looked at the hole in the floor.
How was Cassie supposed to find her? She hadn’t exactly left a note.
All of the gear was still down in the darkness.
She looked up at the sun. She shouldn’t stay up here for too much longer herself. She was sensitive to the sun and while she was willing to risk a burn to save Troy, it sapped at her, too. Made her lethargic and short-tempered. And she hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since midday yesterday.
She looked at him again.
“I want you to come back,” she said. His feet weren’t on the ground anymore. It was absentminded; he stood like he was on the ground, but his attention was somewhere else, and he was drifting.
“Why?” he asked. “I was a mistake the minute you told me you were interested, and we both know it.”
It wasn’t unfriendly. Actually, it was chilling, the way he said it so casually. She shook her head.
“See, I don’t like you. You’re dangerous and reckless and careless and you’d get me killed. Like Cassie’s about to do. And I don’t like him. He’s… cold. I need both of you together to be the man that I’m in love with.”
He shifted back and forth, hard to see.
“You found it easy to break up with me a couple of times, already,” he said. “Just stick to your guns. You’ll figure it out.”
“Troy,” she said, someth
ing in her tone grabbing both his attention and hers. “You love your job. You love the people around you. You love your life, especially now that you can go out wandering the universe with Cassie. Please. Come home.”
“You’d just get angry that I want to go out again,” he said. “This is for the best.”
“I’d rather have you around part of the time than not at all,” she said.
“Don’t think you could see it Rutger, with you not looking at her and all, but that was the truth,” Cassie said. Olivia’s head snapped and the woman winked, taking a step forward. “Breath of Air is fine. He said you’d be worried.”
Troy spun in the air, looking like a genie for a moment.
“Cassie,” he said. “She said you were around.”
“I’m here to take you home,” Cassie said. He laughed, his feet almost a yard away from the rooftop, drifting further away, even as he kept his eyes level with them.
“I’m glad to see you too,” he said. “I told Olivia. I don’t have a way to get home.”
“You do,” Cassie said. “I’m going to hand-carry you.”
“Why would I?” Troy asked. “I’m even freer than you. You’d never go back to being human.”
Cassie paused. Olivia couldn’t read her well enough to tell if that was hesitation or just humor.
“I wouldn’t,” Cassie said. “But I didn’t leave behind people who need me. I can help them more now than I could before.”
“You left me,” Troy said. That was bitterness.
“Troy,” Cassie said. He looked out over his shoulder again.
“I’m not sad,” he said. “I don’t even remember how to be sad. But you can’t tell me that you didn’t leave anyone behind when you decided to be Palta for the rest of your life. And you didn’t think twice.”
“You’re not me,” Cassie said. “Every time they gave me a chance to jump, I took it. You stayed behind and you made sure that everything stayed together.”
“And now I can do both,” Troy said. “I can make sure that everything stays together, and I can be out here… Cassie, you never told me.”
“I wasn’t allowed.”
“It was us,” Troy said. “You didn’t even try.”
“It would have been unkind,” Cassie said.
“You want me to volunteer to never be able to do this again, because other people need me,” Troy said.