by Gwynn White
Fire and blue sunlight singed deep into the ground beside her. Cullen gasped and spun his rifle at the elevated position of their attacker. "Taking fire," he shouted to Torek. He shielded himself between the bush and Ehli as Torek retreated to their position, rifle ready, gaze scanning.
Another blue bulb rose under the cover of thick bush branches, lighting the foliage. This time it revealed the shape of a white tiger. The shimmering blue across its body concentrated in a crackle of angry light at the end of its tail. What is that?
Cullen, Torek, and Huls locked their aim on the glowing tiger.
Fire! Ehli thought, and then, as though the spreading of light infected the undergrowth, new bulbs of blue lit up and linked into the glowing torsos of a dozen more tigers. The bulbs beaming at the end of their tails swung out and whipped forward in a uniform attack—all arced toward her.
Emmit's stomach leapt and floated as Sprinkles jumped from the train and into the jungle with the snap-quick urgency of a fired bullet. Adi's grip on Emmit's gut squeezed out the remainder of his breath. They were five or six strides into the jungle before Emmit could tap Adi's hand and say, "Can't breathe."
Mom ran behind Torek a few meters to his left, their path carving a narrow passage between trees, just as Sprinkles's path did.
A bush blade smacked his ear, and he ducked to rest his face tighter against the musty smell of Sprinkles's neck fur. He couldn't believe how close his refuge was to the hot breath passing over a wolverine's sharp teeth.
As they soared through the underbrush, he sensed a new scent—musty like Sprinkles, but lighter, sweeter—one that pricked Sprinkles's nerves to alert status and slowed his steps. He wanted Emmit and Adi to get off. It would be too dangerous for them to come with him. Sprinkles stopped beside the cover of an old tree with white patches of missing bark that rose high into the canopy.
Emmit tapped Adi's leg. "We need to get off." He had barely placed one foot on the ground before Sprinkles took off and ripped through the roots of thin bushes.
"Where's he going?" Adi asked, crouched behind Emmit, one hand on the tree for balance.
"Hunting."
"Hunting what?"
Emmit shook his head. You don't want to know. Sprinkles wanted them to stay put until he was done, but something else pulled at him. Something... like memory—memory of this exact side of the ravine, of this view over the dirty river, and the trees like tent poles that rose up from the muddy darkness of its gentle current.
On the other side of the ravine, just as the hill rose to a steep incline, moss covered a patch of eroded soil exposing tree roots. The moss hid a hole. And inside that hole was their escape. The prey that Sprinkles had left them to chase down was more than he could handle without risk of failure, and he'd be okay if Emmit found a more secure hiding place.
How can I know this? I've never been before, have I?
Emmit had no idea anymore. The foundation of self in his memories was now a shifting illusion that could not be trusted, as though the ground behind him were crumbling into an abyss and if he didn't run, he'd fall with it.
He snapped his fingers and pointed Adi down the hill, then took his first step away from the stealthy pursuit of madness.
Maybe into madness was a better descriptor. Either way, with each step, Emmit felt like he had no choice, and was far from the clarity and safety he hadn't longed for so fervently since his father died.
The syncing of glowing blue bulbs in a path toward Ehli met a resistance in her mind, a will and root deeper than she'd ever felt. She fed off this power, and shouted that hers was far greater. A split second passed between the whipped tails and this new understanding, and in its wake was a fireworks display that shot blue tracers high, wide, and short. Tufts of dirt shot up, and the air filled with the scent of burning wood and leaves.
Cullen and Torek dove for cover. When the blue tail bolts ceased, they rose and opened fire. Brush and branches wilted under the blue lasers beaming from their rifles. The tigers scattered, their blue aura fading as they too disappeared into the parting and shredding underbrush.
Cullen paused his shooting, then Torek as well. The jungle reeked of the bitter gas from the levitor rifles. "What kind of trap—"
"Let's go," Huls said, interrupting Cullen with a hand swiped to their right.
"Crap." Cullen tapped his wristcom. "My wristcom's busted. I hit it—"
"You're kidding," Torek said.
"What was that?" Ehli asked.
Huls took a flat circle device out of his vest and held it over his own wristcom. "This compass will direct you to Fel Or'an, but stay close anyway."
"Maras," Cullen told her. "Native tigers with EMP powers."
Huls tossed the compass to Cullen. "Let's go."
Ehli ran with them again, heart thumping with twice the force as when they'd first entered the jungle. EMP powers? How did they all miss? She was sure their tails had had her in their sights. Whatever had happened in her mind, and the root of power that had tapped into her soul, was now as absent as the garden of light that had risen with lethal fury.
Now she was left with the weakness of her legs to push her at a pace meant for soldiers with knowledge of the terrain, and sharp turns her dizzy head struggled to navigate around.
Her foot slipped on the decline in the ground. She set her hand on the rough bark of a tree to stop herself.
"You did well."
She yanked her hand off the tree and jumped back as if it had spoken.
"I got ya," Cullen said, wrapping an arm around her waist and pushing her on down a gradient lined by tree roots and black mud. "We have to keep moving."
Ehli wanted to believe he had said she'd done, but she knew it wasn't him. The voice was too intimate to have been spoken out loud. The words moved her as if born from within.
Is this what Ocia meant about using my mind?
They cut a path parallel to the river now, close enough to smell its mixture of mud and moss—close enough for her to dive in if she needed.
Something splashed into the river a ways behind her. She turned to see her son wading across more than fifty meters upriver, just as Adi jumped in to join him.
Her group slowed, and Cullen turned to look. He pointed. "Emmit."
"Emmit!" Ehli shouted over him.
He slowed his stroke and looked up toward her voice.
She waved, ducking so he could see her better under the branch hanging out over the river.
He spotted her and waved back, then, kicking against the current, pointed up at the bank on the other side. He drifted down river and returned to his strokes as Adi followed with frantic strokes.
"Ocia, where are you?" Huls said. "Does anyone else have a signal?"
"Where's Nassib?" Ehli turned to see Huls scanning the jungle behind them.
"Nassib?" Huls asked, and she suspected the question was for his mic.
"I'm going for my son." Ehli dove for the water before Cullen could stop her. The surface broke warm, and cooled off as she descended into its depth. She squinted into the darkness and cringed against the grains that scratched under her eyelids. She kicked and dragged a hand out into the current. A flash of violet swept her from blindness into a quiet room with her seated at a table.
Steam rose from a porcelain mug of black coffee within reach of her hand. She wore a pearl white blouse, its sleeves hanging over her wrists. On one, she wore a gold com—like one she'd seen on a commissioner who'd visited the prison.
Hers was the only table in the small office. In the hall outside, a man walked by in a white coat with a spatter of blood near his side pocket. He didn't look up from his tablet as he passed her doorway. Worry and scorn held his gaze to the screen.
Where am I?
Ehli slid her thumb and finger over the mug's warm surface. Shouldn't her hands be wet? They were dry as mid-day.
A woman entered the room, also dressed in an open white coat. Its own spatter of blood—worse than the man previous—sprayed up over bo
th sides, darker on her velvet toned undershirt. She offered a smile at eye contact. Tired, yet relieved. "Mrs. Orson. Thank you for waiting."
Mrs.? What is this place? She strained against the absent memory of how she'd arrived. Of when she arrived. "Who are you?"
The woman, pretty and fit, with soft skin undamaged by years exposed to Setuk's sand and wind, sat in the chair across from Ehli. She pinched her fingers and retracted a glowing red line that she set on the table between them. From its base rose a picture of her husband. He was still clean shaved. His glasses were wire thin, but styled differently, and with a more noticeable hint of gray in the sides of his close-cut black hair.
"He's here," the woman said.
"What?"
"He's been here all along." She snapped the two dots together, erasing the image from between them. "I didn't know about you until about a week ago." She rose and put the tiny image device on her wristcom. "If I had, I would have tried harder not to fall in love with him."
Fall in love? Ehli thought.
The woman slowly shook her head. A haunting empathy colored her gaze as it rested on Ehli. "Don't let him trick you... or your son. He only cares about himself." She extended her hand, palm up for Ehli to take.
Ehli did, and at their touch, her body immersed in water and darkness. Her outstretched hand, which a blink before had been dry and squeezing the woman's hand, gripped the slimy curve of an underwater root. She tugged, and the earth holding it offered support. She pulled closer to the bank and lifted her head out of the water. The trickle of resettled water and flowing current met her opened ears. She propped her feet on the bank and turned toward the splashing behind her.
Cullen swam for her position.
Torek and Huls ran along the river's edge on the course they had before she'd diverted to this side, though each glanced over to keep an eye on her and Cullen. Not too far down was a fallen tree, submerged in the river, which could be used as a bridge to get to her side.
Ehli wiped her face on her shoulder, then searched for another root above her. She found one, tested its hold, and used it to climb onto the ledge. She slid on her stomach and swung her legs up to ground.
Emmit and Adi were gone, hidden by the outgrowth of trees and underbrush skirting the riverbank. She'd wait until Cullen reached her side, and then she'd run after them.
But what was with the dream she'd had in the water? Hello?
Is this from you Ocia? She thought, wondering if he was watching her from the woods.
Had the tigers turned tail, or were they watching too, observing the strange woman who deflected their shots with a concerted thought?
"Your arrival is the climax of our treatments," Ocia had said.
Cullen stroked forward to grab ahold of a root, and then pulled up as water sluiced over his suit and rifle and back into the river. His eyes were all business, and locked to a pinprick on anything that'd dare threaten their world. He wiped water from his face. "You okay?"
Ehli didn't know which thought to tie to his question. Physically... maybe. Mentally? Syk's no. She decided on, "Help me get my son."
He conceded, reaching out to help her up. "I'm here to help you too, when you ask."
She took just enough of his help to stand, then let go and jogged onto the first path she found between trees. His offer of help was an invasion past the wall she was trying to build. She left him in the murmur of their steps swishing through plants and snapping tiny branches in their way.
By the time they arrived at where she thought Emmit had been—the tree stacked terrain and its full skirt of lively greens all looked the same—he was gone without a trace. It was just the two of them. No sound of brushing leaves or footsteps to indicate anyone else was behind Cullen, or that her son or anyone else was nearby. Only insects and birds. And more insects and birds.
Cullen had his rifle back out, and searched the trees around them. His stare hung on details that made her question if his mind was elsewhere.
She wanted to say, you don't know the half of it. In their brief time together, he had not shown this side. He'd seemed vulnerable. Sure, the maras had almost killed them, and who knows where they were now, but this seemed rooted in something more. "Are you okay?" she asked him.
He glanced back at her, seemed to think for a second, then looked her in the eyes again, searching. "Have you met Willo yet?"
Willo? Her mind flashed back to the hallucination she'd had in the water. Was that Willo?
"You have, haven't you?" Cullen glanced behind her and around, then back. "What did she tell you?"
12
Ehli didn't answer him. She just looked off into the jungle.
"She spoke to me, too." Cullen swatted a bug from his ear. "In the train."
Ehli was still enough for him to question if she was breathing. What did Willo say to her? "Ocia gave us a hint, but she seems willing to tell us the whole truth," he continued.
"About what?"
"His experiments. On more than just you and your son. Willo is one of you."
"Of...what do you mean?"
"Telepaths." He surprised himself by saying it.
"Telepaths?" Ehli shook her head and looked away. "I. In the water. But that." She shook her head again. "I can't hear or speak telepathically."
Are you sure? he thought.
She just stared back at him. "Are you trying to tell me something?"
He shrugged. "I was. I don't know. She spoke to me. My ear piece was in, but it was clearer than that. Clearer than if she were right here." He pointed a finger between his eyes. "She said the man we're going to see at Fel Or'an...." Cullen paused at the memory of Ocia's request that he not tell Ehli. Her husband. She thinks he's dead. Is that a secret she needs to know now? That I need to tell her?
"He doesn't deserve the right to tell her," Willo 'pathed.
"What?" Ehli asked. "What man?"
Cullen took a breath. "Willo is almost certainly not lying about being a telepath. But I don't know if that's the only truth she told me. And I don't know if spreading potential lies will do you and I more harm than good."
"Cullen." She gripped his wrist, tense under the weight of his rifle. "I'm tired of all the secrets. The last six years in prison, I've been told nothing except what Ocia told me, which, considering our circumstance, feels like very little. Share what you know, and let's work together to figure out what is truth from lie."
He considered the risk and reward, deciding that an ally he could bounce ideas off was an invaluable addition to their survival. "Okay, but this might be a little harder to believe than me calling you a telepath."
Ehli chuckled. "Try me."
Cullen prepared himself. "Your husband." She didn't blink. "I think he's alive."
She inhaled a deep breath as anger and tears welled in her eyes. "Willo told you this?"
"No. She never mentioned his name."
"Then who?"
"Ocia. He... before we left. He told me not to tell you."
She kept shaking her head. "No. That's impossible. Why would that even come up?"
"He's the one running the experiments at Fel Or'an, where we're going." Her face puckered harder in anger. "He told me not to tell you or Emmit, and it sounded like this was meant to be a good surprise. But Willo told me maybe we can't trust him, so I thought I should bring it up."
Ehli shook her head. "No. He can't be alive. I saw the explosion. Took eight months to grow my eyebrows back. My hearing and sense of smell have never been the same." Her words ran together, nearly too quick to decipher. If he was alive, could she trust him? Her head spun at the thought.
"Easy," he said, hoping to calm her down.
"How can I?" She took a breath. "If he's alive, either he or someone else crafted quite the trick—one that has caused..." she growled and turned, ripping a stalk branch from a plant. "Emmit and I have suffered." She turned back, thin branch gripped in her fist. "If this is true, Ocia knew and didn't tell us... because he wanted to surprise us with Sc
haefer telling us in person?"
"It didn't sound like Ocia was lying about this. But Willo said not to trust them. I'm not sure whom to believe."
She bent over and rested her elbows on her knees, heaving as though prepping to vomit.
Cullen slid to her side and helped her keep her balance. "You're not in this alone." He searched the jungle along the riverbank where they'd come from, thinking Torek and maybe Huls should have been here by now. Did they give up on us? Nassib and Jolnes weren't across the river either. Everyone was gone, and he started to wonder if it might be on purpose. Ocia needs my memories to get to Vijil. He wouldn't let me die in here, would he?
"Thank you," Ehli spat into the grass, then wiped her mouth as she rose back to standing.
"Schaefer and Ocia want one of us to pull your memories, making you expendable," Willo 'pathed.
Is that true? he thought to himself.
"It is. But I'd rather get your help willingly, since I wouldn't piss on either of them if they were engulfed in flames."
"Is she talking to you right now?" Ehli asked.
He exhaled. "Yeah," he said, glancing to his side for a route from their position. They shouldn't stay in one place for too long, in case any maras were onto them. His earpiece had lost its signal after the mara attack, so he couldn't comm back to Torek and see where they were. He took it out and tossed the broken tech on the ground. "We should keep moving. Are you okay?"
She nodded, and he led them into a narrow gap between trees.
"What'd she say?" Ehli asked.
The gradient incline got his heart beating again. "That they want her, you or Emmit to pull my memories of Vijil."
Ehli caught a branch swinging back, blocking it from hitting her face. "And if Willo's telling the truth, then it sounds like they might not be interested in keeping you involved in that plan?"
"Yeah. If she's telling the truth."
"Since she's spoken to you, have you... have you day-dreamed of being elsewhere?"
"Elsewhere?" He grabbed a tree to help make a long stride over a slick incline, then reached back to help Ehli up after him. "What do you mean?"