by Nic Plume
"Maybe," Tonee nodded in acknowledgement, "but we would have liked the opportunity to decide that ourselves," he paused for just a fraction, "and the knowledge that you trust us with that decision."
Taylor flinched at his words.
"And what if we hadn’t believed you?" Tonee continued. "Nothing would have changed. Things would have played out the same way." He paused again. "Other than knowing that we weren’t watching you slip away."
Taylor’s eyes tightened. His gaze switched between focusing on Tonee’s face and staring through his chest as Tonee’s words, and the emotions behind them, settled on him. The words were painful, but Tonee was right, and Taylor needed to hear it. Although Kaydeen wouldn’t have chosen this time or place to confront him with it. While he said the encounter with Juvak in the mine had been the only reason for his withdrawal, Kaydeen knew better. She’d sensed the dark abyss in Taylor. He might have intended to pretend he was broken, but it probably hadn’t taken much effort to bring despair to the forefront. And she wasn’t sure how much it would take before he was toeing that edge again.
Tonee studied Taylor in silence, and for a moment Kaydeen thought he would leave it be. But then, Tonee went on the attack.
"When were you going to tell us?" He spoke quietly at first. "Or would you have told us at all if your arrest hadn’t forced you to?"
Taylor’s head snapped up. "Of course. I hadn’t—"
"Oh, really?" Tonee drew out the words. "You don’t think it might be advantageous for the rest of us to know a little detail like the possibility of Juvak hunting us before we head out? It’s not like we’re in Traverse territory, or anything."
"Juvak isn’t Traverse."
Taylor’s quick reply took Tonee aback. But not for long.
"Of course. That explains it all." Tonee’s words dripped with sarcasm. "Or is there something else we don’t know about?"
"Tonee," Salayla admonished.
"I’m not done giving him a piece of my mind, yet." Tonee waved her off.
"That’s not helping," Kaydeen put in.
"What?" Tonee looked at her. "You prefer I just punch him?"
"That wouldn’t improve the situation either,” Salayla said.
"Well, it might improve my mood."
"Really?" Taylor frowned at him.
"Well, no," Tonee replied, "but it would get rid of my steam."
"All right." Taylor stood, shrugged off his pack, and spread his arms by his side. "Then punch me."
Tonee pushed off the wall.
"Guys." Kaydeen spread her arms to keep them apart. "This is neither the time nor place."
"Gentlemen," Salayla said, reaching for the teenagers, "back up, please."
She grabbed Leer by the elbow and pulled him toward the exit, motioning for Mica and Nitus to follow.
Tonee pushed Kaydeen’s hand out of the way.
"He said I can punch him."
Kaydeen stepped in front of him. "And I’m saying you shouldn’t."
"Oh, come on." Tonee grabbed her by her upper arms and lifted her to his eye level. "He’s going to dodge, anyway," he whispered as he set her aside.
Before she could block him again, he had crossed the runnel of water between the two men.
Taylor still hadn’t moved.
Time seemed to slow as Tonee’s right hook rushed toward Taylor’s head. Kaydeen’s mind screamed at Taylor to move, already. With the size and layout of the tunnel, he was quickly running out of options to avoid the blow.
Taylor’s lack of movement surprised Tonee as much as Kaydeen, as was evidenced by his partial exclamation of "Fu…" as he barreled into him.
He punched the air above Taylor’s head, stumbled, and landed hard on his knees.
"You fucking bastard," Tonee spat as he unfurled himself from around Taylor.
Taylor, laying on his back, halfway up the arch of the tunnel, looked up at him. "You missed."
"And you didn’t fucking dodge."
"Then you would’ve definitely missed."
"Duh. I could’ve broken your fucking jaw."
"I doubt it. Not punching me like that."
Kaydeen exhaled in relief. Idiots.
Tonee sat back on his haunches. "Don’t do that again."
"Not dodge?" Taylor asked as he sat up.
"That, too." Tonee grabbed Taylor’s outstretched hand as he rocked back to his feet and stood.
Kaydeen grasped the side of Taylor’s shoulder, slipping her hand under the loose sleeve of his shirt, and Skimmed him. True Readings were best, of course, but the four had built a deep enough connection that Salayla and Kaydeen could get a general feeling of their teammates’ emotional status without having to enter their minds. That is, if Taylor wasn’t actively shutting them out.
"I’m all right." Taylor waved her off but didn’t avoid her studying gaze, or her touch—external or internal.
The teetering insecurity she had seen in his gaze earlier was gone, and the edge of his abyss, not even in the same solar system as the rest of his mind.
"Very graceful," Salayla commented as she walked up to Tonee.
Tonee shrugged. "Gotta do what I gotta do."
"Eloquence incarnate." Salayla slid her fingers up his arm and wrapped them around his bicep below his rolled-up sleeve.
He followed her motion and then looked at her. "Bite me."
Salayla held his gaze. "Promises, promises." She winked. "Are you finished?"
Tonee looked at her hand still touching his arm. "You tell me."
She smiled and then looked at Kaydeen. "Taylor?"
"Not yet," he replied and turned toward the boys. "Mica, what happened the first time you tried to free us?"
Mica flinched at Taylor’s words. The guilt of not being able to get them out of the transport was written all over the boy’s face. Taylor needed to work on his delivery. Even an unintended slap in the face stung.
Taylor’s gaze sliced to Salayla, who was rolling her eyes and shaking her head at him, and then amended, "How did you get out of the transport, and how did you know where to find us?"
Mica swallowed his guilt. "I was in the transport until they took you to the mine. I hid in a storage locker and waited for a while. When it was quiet again, I tried to get out, but something blocked the locker door and I couldn’t open it."
"Probably a good thing," Tonee said. "‘Cause after his little commotion," he nodded toward Taylor, "they kept a guard on us." He snickered. "The guard was probably leaning against the locker when you tried to open it."
"Oh." Mica’s eyes widened at the realization of how close he’d come to getting caught.
"You rode the transport all the way to the mine?" Salayla asked, cutting off Taylor’s next question.
Taylor looked at her in calm indulgence. His expression hadn’t changed much, at least not to outsiders, but his body language spoke volumes. Their silent exchange went over the teens’ heads but not over Tonee’s, who met Kaydeen’s gaze with a smile. They hadn’t had much to be happy about, but seeing the team’s chemistry return was something.
"Yeah," Mica answered, "I waited for a good twenty minutes after the transport stopped and fell silent before I tried the door again."
Twenty minutes? Kaydeen looked at him in alarm. She was sure it hadn’t taken twenty minutes for Juvak to hand them over and collect his money. But she didn’t interrupt.
"And then?" Salayla prodded.
"That’s when Leer’s dad found me."
"Leer’s dad?" Tonee asked at the same time as Taylor’s gaze snapped to the bigger boy. "What was he doing in the transport?"
"I don’t know." Mica shrugged. "He didn’t say."
"So, he was aware of the transport," Taylor frowned, "yet, he didn’t believe you’d seen us?" When Mica shrugged again, he asked, "What does he look like?"
"Why?" Leer stepped forward. "What’s that got to do with anything?"
Taylor tilted his head. "Wondering if we saw him."
"You accusing my dad of
being Traverse?" Leer’s nostrils flared.
"Juvak’s not Traverse," Taylor said. "But if your dad was using his position to collect intel for the Resistance, we might have come in contact with him."
Leer shut his mouth since he couldn’t argue with Taylor’s logic. Although, if he’d known that the only people they’d come in contact with had actively participated in their capture and enslavement, he probably wouldn’t have given in as quickly.
"So, what does he look like?" Taylor reposed the question to no one in particular, but it was Mica who answered.
"I don’t know. He’s old, has light-colored hair and a tan, and always has tools on him."
"Do you have a pic?" Taylor looked at Leer, who shook his head. "I did, on my comm they made me destroy."
"We didn’t destroy them," Mica retorted, "we hid them. We can go back and get it."
"That won’t help. I wiped it," Leer added quickly.
"You did?" Tonee asked. "When did you have time for that?"
"It only takes a few commands." Leer shrugged. "I’m sure yours wipe as quickly."
"Yeah, but ours are military-grade with special features to keep sensitive data out of enemy hands. Civilian models are set up to avoid easy data wipes so they don’t happen by accident."
"The Resistance has sensitive data."
"On your comm?" Taylor asked.
"Maybe," Leer snapped at Taylor. "But if you hadn’t gotten yourself arrested, we wouldn’t have this discussion, ‘cause I wouldn’t have had to leave my comm behind."
"Whoa, buddy," Tonee soothed. "Shit can happen to anybody."
"Yeah, more so to the people hanging around him," Leer spat, indicating Taylor with a curt nod.
His venomous tone took Kaydeen aback, but his comment’s insinuation threw her. If she didn’t know better, she would say his tone was for effect, to distract from the idea he was sowing. But that wasn’t something a hormone-driven, emotional teenager reacting to disliked stimuli in a stressful environment would come up with on the spur of the moment.
"Son," Tonee started.
"Don’t ‘son’ me," Leer snapped at him. "You’re not my dad." He paused before adding in a calmer tone, "Who, by the way, is not your enemy."
"Nobody said he was," Tonee replied.
"He did." Leer jutted his chin at Taylor. "At least, he insinuated it," he amended before Tonee could argue the point further.
Taylor’s expression, unlike Tonee’s, showed no reaction, positive or negative, to Leer’s outburst. But his gaze stayed on the teen, studying, evaluating. As did Salayla’s. She seemed as perplexed as Kaydeen by Leer’s minefield of confounding behavior. Mica stared at his friend, while Nitus openly gaped, so Leer’s reaction had surprised them, too. Maybe it was the stress of their situation, but Kaydeen doubted it was that simple.
Tonee fell silent. There was no sense in continuing the argument. Doing so would only increase its volatility. He held Leer’s gaze a moment longer, then turned to his teammates as if dismissing the boy. Kaydeen expected another outburst, but the teen’s ire had dissolved as quickly as it had exploded. Tonee’s words and actions didn’t produce the same reaction as Taylor’s.
Tonee looked at Salayla and Kaydeen before settling on Taylor. With the discussion and its value having reached a dead end, it was time to move on. Taylor agreed with a nod, grabbed his pack, and headed to the tunnel’s exit. As the others filed out behind him, Kaydeen noticed Leer’s gaze glued to Taylor’s back. It wasn’t threatening or vengeful, but speculating, with calculating eyes so much more mature than the teenager smiling at her an instant later. He played the awkwardness well, and were her memory any less immaculate, it might have worked in making her doubt her impression. As it was, it succeeded in raising her conviction that he was far more than he let on.
18
The Fields
The blocks of color, as seen from the mountain trail, were large swathes of plants separated by lanes between two and five meters wide. Some of the lanes were paved, but most were compacted dirt. The plants were in full bloom, displaying an array of purples, greens, and blues topped with yellow, red, and orange flowers. Each field was a mass of the same plant arranged in rows for easy tending and harvest. Most were tall enough to impede their view in any direction but along the lanes. Taylor, who was in the lead with Mica, kept them off the cleared areas and skimming the edges of the fields, weaving in and out of the plant rows as the footing allowed.
About an hour into their march, Salayla passed Kaydeen and Nitus to walk beside Taylor. "Mica, would you and Nitus please walk with Leer? I would like to speak with Taylor."
The two dropped back behind Kaydeen and fell in with Leer and Tonee, who was bringing up the rear as usual. As they approached, Tonee slowed for a few paces until a good five meters of separation turned them into two distinct groups.
"Leer finds issue with you." Salayla spoke in Trade.
"I’ve noticed," Taylor replied without taking his gaze off their surroundings.
"He seems content for us to think your behavior incenses him. However, I don’t believe that’s his true sentiment."
He glanced at her, then looked at the ground in front of them before returning to his vigilance. "Have you tried Reading him?"
"And how would I justify that request?" She raised her eyebrows at him.
"What about that little hands-on thing you and Kay keep doing?"
Salayla laughed. "So, you have noticed."
"I wasn’t supposed to?"
"Of course, you were." She grinned. "We wondered how long it would take."
"How long have you been doing it?" He looked from Salayla to Kaydeen suspiciously.
"Since you joined us in the cell."
"Ah, well, it took me a few months then." He seemed relieved.
"You do have some valid excuses."
"Have you been using it on Tonee?"
"Regularly," Salayla readily admitted. "Witnessing your plight and subsequent decline took a toll on him."
She didn’t voice how much worse it had been in the last few weeks. She didn’t have to.
"My choice was valid."
"For your state of mind at the time, probably," Salayla conceded. "But I agree with Tonee." She paused. "Now that you have your full facilities back, so should you."
Taylor inhaled deeply.
"But this is neither the time nor the place to debate this point," she conciliated before he could reply, "and it isn’t what I intended to discuss with you."
He studied her, clearly not ready to concede, but he did yield to her decision to drop the argument—at least for now.
"So, Leer doesn’t like me." Taylor paused. "That’s his prerogative."
"That’s what he wants us to think."
"Are you saying he does like me but hides it behind animosity?"
"No. I’m saying that he’s sending mixed signals. He also seems to have expectations of you. Sometimes you meet them, other times you don’t."
"And he gets pissed at me when I don’t?"
"Quite the opposite." She paused to let her words sink in. "It’s like he has a previously-formed opinion of you and is trying to decide if it’s correct. However, I’m uncertain if that opinion is positive or negative, or which he would prefer."
"Previously formed? I’ve never met him before."
"Understood. However, memories are frail and malleable. At least in most people." She glanced at Kaydeen and smiled. "You have lived in so many places already, you cannot expect to remember every friend or animosity you have made. And he might not have been the person you interacted with, but a bystander or a relation of said person."
He looked at her doubtfully.
"You told us yourself that the earliest memory you have in your own point of view is from when you were nine."
He nodded. "The shuttle trip to the spaceliner that took us to Mom’s next job. I slept through the takeoff and was so confused when I woke, I couldn’t remember where we were or what we were doing. Mom
had to jog my memory on almost everything." He shook his head at the memory.
"You know," Kaydeen put in, "a takeoff in a shuttle with malfunctioning dampeners and shielding wouldn’t affect a human’s psyche like that, even a child’s."
It had been the explanation Taylor’s mom had given him at the time. Taylor had believed her until he had gone through the combat medic course at the Academy. "Yeah, I know."
He’d been disappointed to realize that his mother had been wrong, but she had no formal medical training, so her explanation could be justified as a layman’s way to ease a child’s panicked confusion. At least, that was what the teammates had reasoned at the time. It didn’t explain what had caused nine-year-old Taylor’s confusion and memory lapse, but with the Academy’s isolation they’d been unable to perform a thorough enough data search to find a plausible cause.
"The point I’m trying to convey," Salayla continued, "is that for reasons I cannot discern, he tries to convince himself that you aren’t worth his respect or liking, and he exerts himself to find faults in everything you do."
"Well," Taylor snorted, "those shouldn’t be too hard for him to find, as you pointed out."
Salayla frowned at his deflection. "What does your Gift tell you?"
"My Gift?"
"Yes," she nodded. "Intuition, sixth sense, gut feeling—call it as you choose, but it is a Gift, nevertheless."
The corners of his mouth lifted at her reply. "Leer is no threat." He paused as his gaze turned internal and then added in a more subdued tone, "At least, not yet."
"What does that mean?" Kaydeen asked.
Taylor looked back at her. "He wants to hate me, but he doesn’t." He shrugged.
"Yet, you’re not concerned."
"Worrying wouldn’t change anything. He’s not affecting the team’s cohesion or its safety. Until he does, it’s so much dust in space."
"And if he does?"
"Then he’ll find himself outclassed. You three will take him down in a heartbeat."
Taylor’s voice and demeanor had changed. He’d become a wall of smooth polycarbonate that sealed him in and locked them out. Salayla had noticed, too, and reached out a hand to touch him. But he turned to look at Tonee. "Let’s speed up and cut some distance."