by White, Gwynn
"Do you think you're ready?" a low female voice said.
He turned in his seat, but there was no one there. Ehli was sitting, head resting against the cushion of her neuronet station, eyes closed.
Dr. Sara sat next to her, reading her tablet. She looked up at Cullen's sudden turn. "You okay?"
Ocia was in the front cabin chatting in low tones with Huls, and Torek's eyes were affixed to his screen.
There was no one else here who could have said it. "Yeah." He went back to his screen map. "Thought I heard something."
"You did."
Again, the same strange voice.
Who is this?
"You can call me Willo."
This was too weird. He glanced around again. Dr. Sara flicked another upward glance, but Cullen just finished his short circuit of the cabin.
How are you doing this? Cullen didn't know if this was how insanity started. Sudden, and completely convincing.
"I'm the girl with answers, if you want them."
Answers sound good. How about, how're you speaking in my mind?
"I am the failed experiment the man you're going to wishes he could bury."
Cullen had to play back her words in his mind.
What does that mean? What experiment?
"Telepathy."
Cullen laughed. More like a squawk.
"Something funny?" Torek asked.
Cullen shook him off.
"Be careful... there's a price for our ability. We're kind of unpredictable."
Why is she telling me this? Then he realized she'd probably heard that, and it terrified him—the invasion of his natural mental barriers, removing even protection of his thoughts. What else could someone with that ability do? His nerves electrified with the need to get up. He stood, but had nowhere to go.
"I'm telling you because I'm curious about how being the only person in your life to tell you the truth might change the outcome of your visit."
"Something wrong?" Torek asked.
Dr. Sara was watching too.
...only person in your life to tell you the truth, she'd said. Cullen studied his friend. Why would she say that? Did Torek lie to me? Is he lying still?
"He is."
About what?
"They need you, but he knows far more about Ocia and Schaefer's plans than he's told you."
Torek glanced back at the screen Cullen had been working on, and then back to Cullen. "What's going on Cul?"
"Tell him, and they'll send you back. They don't know I'm this strong."
"Nothing." Cullen stretched his shoulders back. "Just needed to stretch. You learn anything on those vids?"
"Yeah." Torek shrugged. "Mostly studying the map. This jungle is packed tight. We'll have to keep close."
Cullen nodded, and stepped to where he could see into the front car, where Ocia and Huls were busy on their action screens. Why are you warning me? he thought back to Willo.
"I'll need to know whose side you're on. Consider this my introduction."
Cullen couldn't say he was glad to meet her, but if this was the beginning of getting the full story, then he guessed it was better than not.
"Gotta go," she said. "I have others to talk to."
10
Willo.... The word floated into Emmit's subconscious without invite or a trace of where it'd come from. He looked up from the holo screen and its image of geometric shapes with drawn measurements of diameter and proximity to various other shapes. The math program—Coda 5.2—was one more version advanced from the last one Ocia had used in the neuronet sessions he'd set up for Emmit on Setuk, which then played out in his dreams, and sometimes drove him to repeat the formulas using a stick in the dirt when no one was looking. Now, he mostly had nothing to fear about going through the math problems in the open, using the holographic sheet lit up on the table in the rear car of the train. Mostly because getting caught using math wasn't his biggest fear. It did help calm his mind, though, and helped him not circle over and over on the questions Adi had brought up: how can I ride a wolverine? How am I able to engineer a new p-drive? How can I hear people's thoughts, but only sometimes?
And then Willo entered his head. Was it a piece of a longer word? The end of one? Why did I hear that? Did they want me to hear that?
He exhaled and closed his eyes, then reached his mind out to somehow encapsulate the activity of all three train cars. The sensation of his brain expanding matched his mental image of pinching a circle and stretching it into an oval, and it could all be in his head, but he had to try regardless. The voices are not just my imagination.
Willo, he thought, and waited for someone to respond.
He waited.
Adi watched him from his seat at the booth. Behind him, fat green branches smacked the windows like wet clothes splatting on the ground. Ocia had warned them that their progress into Jehu Jungle would be a slow trip as the train cut its path through the newly-grown vegetation. "Hey, Em." Adi's eyes flicked away, toward the front of the train, and then he returned to watching the jungle as though pretending he hadn't just spoken.
Three seconds later, Ocia appeared in the doorway from the middle car.
"Hi Ocia." Emmit tried hard to maintain having no idea of anything amiss. Did he say Willo?
"How're you doing with that new level?" Ocia asked, glancing down at the hologram, though that surely wasn't why he'd come in. He was trying to play it nonchalant, but the timing relative to Emmit's mental reaching out could not be ignored as pure coincidence.
"Fine," Emmit said. "It's a little harder, but I'm figuring it out."
"Will I get to work on that stuff too?" Adi asked, suddenly bashful when Ocia turned to him. "When you've made me like him?"
"Of course. We'll get you caught up in no time." He shared his smile with Emmit. "Then the two of you can compete on who advances to the next level first."
"Oh, you better watch out, Em," Adi said. "I'm gonna waste you."
Emmit managed a grin for his friend, but deep down he either didn't believe Adi would ever reach what Emmit had going on mentally, or he feared that if he did, then both of them would be lost too far to be saved.
Ocia crossed the room to sit at one of the chairs at Emmit's table. He checked the holo and the upward-pointing vertex shown on the chart. Above it was a question about the parabola of the functions f(x) and g(x). Below were multiple choice answers.
"What'dya think?" Ocia asked.
"Well," Emmit said, focusing back on the algebra problem, "the slope...."
"I mean, all this," Ocia said, raising his hands at the world around them. "And that," he said, pointing at the hologram. "We're finally able to progress with your training without having to hide in my lab. I expect an opening of the floodgates beyond what I've already seen from you."
Adi watched them with a jealousy that strained against their friendship.
Emmit looked back to Ocia, holding thoughts of Willo and how not to lose his best friend in this opening-of-the-floodgates opportunity. For now, he'd play along. "Yes, I'm very excited." He waited, smile firmly at his defense as Ocia watched, seeming to wait for truth to crack through. Emmit decided a little truth might help hide the truth he needed kept secret. "Why couldn't you tell us about this?"
In his question, he spread his gaze to Adi, inviting him into the obvious conversation no amount of whispering could hide.
"It wasn't safe." Ocia addressed both boys. "I've been working on this colony for twelve years. I didn't know until a week ago that we had to get you out. How many years would you have liked to know that there was a distant, but unknown, chance that I could set you free? What if you slipped and one of the guards found out who wasn't Nassib? We were operating under a thin disguise sneaking you and your mother in for the appointments. The Osuna have interrogation tactics that, not to frighten you unnecessarily, would have broken any amount of will you'd have had to not reveal our secrets." To Adi, he added, "I would have loved to include you in everything I've done for Emmit, b
ut the truth is, he and his mother are different, and the surgery to implant a neuronet chip would have been too risky, not only to do by myself, but also in the recovery. The chance that a guard would have noticed was too great."
Adi nodded under Ocia's stare, and Emmit did too when it turned on him. It made sense. Except.... "What makes me and Mom so special?"
Ocia smiled. His gaze held a world of information that he seemed glad to keep within. He slowly shook his head. "I'm sorry, Em. That secret isn't for me to ruin."
"Then who?" Emmit asked.
"Neither is that." Ocia set his hands on his lap and pushed up to stand. "We're almost at the end of the rail. Time to get dressed and boots strapped. Don't worry. When you're given your answers, it will all make sense, including the timing."
After Ocia left through the door to the middle car, Adi and Emmit shared a look of hope and wonder. "Who do you think we're going to meet?" Adi asked.
Emmit's mind went to the jerk in the milk line who'd thought, "He has the same eyes." The possibilities behind that thought broke apart under logic and scrutiny. Same eyes as who? couldn't find its home where Emmit wanted, in his dream of dreams, of his father being alive. "I don't know." He reached for the h-stick and set his thumb into the groove to turn it off. Instead of the screen shrinking back into the tiny hole, it flashed, and a series of Versteg letters appeared.
"Welcome home, Son."
Emmit's head filled with the weight of an introduction he almost couldn't bear. "Dad?"
"Dad?" Adi asked, pushing out from his table to come over. "What are you looking at?"
Adi couldn't read Versteg, so Emmit wasn't too concerned about him seeing the words on the screen. He only knew how, because his father had taught him. Better to be educated and give the Osuna one less way at fooling him. Could it be him? The beacon I opened on Setuk had a note written in Versteg. Was that from Dad, too?
He didn't want Adi to see, so he pushed the h-stick button again and this time the screen disappeared.
"Hey." Adi stopped. "Why'd you do that?"
Emmit sat back and shrugged, lying through his face. "I didn't."
"Yes. You did. I saw your thumb move."
"I mean, I...." Emmit couldn't think of a lie.
"Why did you say Dad?"
Again, he was stumped.
"You two ready back there?" Ocia called from the middle car.
Adi gave Emmit one more chance, and when Emmit didn't reply, he let out a steaming breath and moved for his pack on the booth seat. He dropped the heavy pack on the table and ripped open the zipper.
Emmit reached down for his pack and peeled it open to find compacted, air-sealed plastic bags inside. Two labeled "Jacket" and "Pants" respectively were near the top. When he pushed the button on top, they depressed the trapped air in a hiss. The muddy green material expanded out through the new holes in the top, and he pulled them out like tissues.
Adi zipped up his jacket and stole a glance at Emmit, then shook his pants out and stepped inside. "You know, if you're scared about something, you can tell me."
Emmit paused with one arm inside his jacket, then fit his other arm through the other side and zipped up. The thin plastic was the same the guards on Setuk wore. It could be programed to be warm or cool manually, or be based on body temperature, while also being both breathable and waterproof. As it ran over his sleeveless arms, it felt cool to the touch, which was nice considering it was a little warm in the train. Adi's question nagged to be answered, but he didn't know if it was safe or allowable to discuss what his dad had written... if it was Dad. Could be someone playing with me. Could be a trap.
Adi sat and strapped his boots tight. "If you're just being a jerk, then I seriously don't get it."
Emmit shook out his pants and pulled them up one leg at a time.
"I thought you two were done fighting," his mom said as she stepped into their car. "Why's he calling you a jerk, Em?"
Adi looked at Emmit, as though offering Emmit two seconds to come clean before he spit his thoughts.
Emmit's mom looked at Adi. "What's going on? What'd he do?"
Ocia walked in. "Are they ready? Emmit, come on. Get your boots on. Our approach will attract attention we don't want, so as soon as we stop we're out and running for cover. I'm not joking. Jolnes and Nassib will go with you." He picked up and zipped shut Emmit's pack while Emmit slipped his foot into his boot. "And whatever's going on between you two, resolve it right now. Once we're outside, we work together or we die."
Mom gasped. "What?" She stomped over. "What are you—"
"Ehli. Darling. You and Emmit, and in time Adi as well, are too special to shelter any longer. It's time we risk worthless lives to fight back against those who have spread their wickedness into our families and homes and threatened to tear us apart."
"But what if he's not ready?"
"He will be." He turned to Emmit. "We're getting off this train in twenty seconds and you need to get your wolverine." Then he turned back to Mom. "He's got a wolverine. He'll be fine. Unless he doesn't follow my every command." He smiled at Emmit. "But he's a smart boy, so he'll be fine."
My wolverine. His heart beat quicker at the thought of riding his wolverine into the jungle. He strapped his second boot tight and stood. "I'm ready."
"Good." Ocia handed Emmit his pack, then brushed past Ehli. "Let's go."
Emmit palmed the h-stick and put it in his pocket.
Mom stopped Adi from leaving with Ocia. "I'm not happy with these circumstances, but he's not kidding, so whatever's cross between you two will be uncrossed right now. Five...."
"If I could, I would," Emmit said. "When I can, I will." If you love me as friend, you'll need to trust me to come clean when I can.
Adi chewed on that for a second. "If you don't, I won't." And he meant it. Adi's frame wasn't as thick as Emmit's, but he had a fire that in that moment dared not be tested.
Emmit stuck out his fist.
Adi thumped it with his own.
"Okay..." Mom said. "That was weird, but whatever. You two stick together and stick with me."
"You're at my side, Ehli," Ocia said from the middle car.
Nassib stepped into the doorway, levitor rifle clipped to his battle vest. Jolnes clicked something near the trigger of his rifle and examined the barrel sight.
"Nassib and Jolnes, not to mention the wolverine, will be good cover for the kids," Ocia added. "We're spreading out before we meet not far from here."
Jolnes motioned for Emmit and Adi to follow him to the door of the rear car.
"You be careful," Mom said before pecking his head with a kiss and exiting to the middle car.
Be careful, Emmit thought, grinning in sarcasm at the irony of her words as he walked toward his caged wolverine.
11
Ehli kissed her son's head, brought Adi in for the same, then left them to Jolnes, Nassib, and a wolverine's protection. She walked into the middle car, shaking her head at where her life had gone since the Osuna killed her husband and whisked her and her son into captivity. Emmit should be excelling at school and learning to glide with his father. Instead, they were on some mad mission through a god-forsaken jungle.
The floor shook as the train slowed, and gave a faint squeal as the magnets locked pad to rail. Through the front car windshield, she saw the cluster of massive fallen trees and thick-rooted vines. No amount of speed she could imagine would send their train through that without a massive crash. The train stopped close enough to see a small family of bright green lizards scamper over one of the fallen trees and disappear on the other side. The spectrum and vibrancy of colors in the native flora stole seconds of observation—so different from Setuk.
And, as she'd seen on Setuk, the wonders and powers of nature could steal life just as easily.
Ocia led the way to the door and paused, facing the group. "Huls will chart our course. Follow right behind him as quickly as you can. I'll bring up the rear," he said to Ehli, and let Huls take position at t
he door.
"How's your leg?" Sara asked.
It felt as normal as the other. She curled her foot up to stretch her hamstring. "Good."
"You ready back there?" Ocia called out through to the back.
"Yep," Nassib responded.
Ocia nodded at Huls, who punched the button beside the door frame. The door slid open, exposing a jungle close enough to jump into, with fanned out leaves and trees so tightly-packed that Ehli didn't see any way in without being forceful and, ultimately, blind to what lay on the other side.
"Go." Huls leapt off the landing and threw an arm up into one of the branches, snapping it at its base and casting a path into the darkness of the jungle. Sara jumped out next. Then Torek, with Cullen and herself trailing after. Ehli landed on the soft earth and charged in before another branch could snap back from Cullen's outstretched hand. Her feet moved more quickly than she felt she was able, but with no other choice, she cut between exposed tree roots and over small bushes and fallen branches. The air smelled sweet, wet, and as foreign as a stranger's kiss.
A rustle of leaves a few arm lengths beside her emerged into the blazing fast form of the wolverine, with Emmit and Adi holding on with their heads tucked down. Nassib was too far behind to see through the branches.
Ehli had only a split second to watch her son's course before having to adjust and not run into a tree. Cullen caught her forearm and yanked her clear before she did.
Her face passed through a sticky web covered in scratchy bugs she couldn't see as they clung to her skin. She wiped it with her arm as she held on to Cullen's hand, running as quickly as she could. As they went deeper into the jungle, they joined a strange chorus of bird and insect calls. Branches broke and footsteps pounded from directions outside their tightly-knit path. The gradient sloped away from the train, causing her to build speed over dexterity. A foot landed in a slick patch of grass, and she nearly slid into a bush. Cullen's grip tightened, and his strength yanked her back onto their path.