by Brindi Quinn
But though Tide hadn’t been aware of much, Jobe had.
He’d seen her dangle from one hand and swing herself to an unreachable pipe that should’ve been too unsteady to support her weight. The pipe hadn’t budged, however, for Tide had exerted careful balance until finding an uneven spot in the wall that somehow turned out to be footing enough for her to hoist herself higher. He’d watched as she’d easily hopped from fallen beam to fallen beam; from cement chunk to cement chunk – like some sort of lesser primate – before ending it all by throwing her body across a wide gap and onto a solid piece that was connected to the ‘roof’ by a ramp of broken wall.
“Hell,” said Jobe from below. “That was . . .”
He didn’t know what sort of word to use. Climbing was somewhat acrobatic by nature, but Tide’s display had been graceful.
“You coming up?” asked Tide.
“Uh, right. Dang. Now I’m impressed. Truthfully, I didn’t get to watch you that much at the dome.”
That only served to stir up their former issue.
“THEN WHY THE HECK DID YOU STA-”
“I’m coming up! It won’t be all fancy pants like yours. But, girl, I AM strong. See and believe.”
Without waiting for a response, Jobe took a running start at a part of the ‘entrance’ that was built up with rubble. Heaped debris made it a more obvious choice than his unconventional partner’s. His climbing strategy was simpler too. There was no swinging. There were no chances taken on balancing acts. It was all brute upper-arm strength that brought the muscled hunter up the heap of concrete and metal, each new footing carefully analyzed before being utilized. Still, even without ‘fancy pants’ tricks, he made it up just as easily as Tide.
He pulled himself over the edge and asked, “Well?”
“Uh. Good job?” Tide wasn’t sure what sort of response he was after.
Jobe wiped his forehead with a red scrap of fabric tied to his belt. “Hmph. Not even a swoon or anything?” he said.
“You know, you wouldn’t sweat so much if you tied your hair back.”
Jobe scowled at her. Then he sighed, removed the red fabric and tied it around his hair. “Better?”
“Somewhat.”
Jobe studied their collapsed surroundings. From the top, the tree was more clearly visible. Still a ways off, it sprouted from the direct center of the airport. It was huge. Knotty. Twisted. A climber’s dream. Blackbirds littered its branches, and several tawny nests made from dead cacti and ground shrub resided in its higher boughs. Now that Jobe and Tide had infiltrated the facility, getting to it would be easy. Well, maybe not easy, but at least they had two course options now. They could either make their way across the roof, or drop through a hole and into the building’s interior. Jobe sized up both; then he turned to the princess,
“It would be best to walk along the roof. The structure’s weak in some places, but there are large pillars from within serving as support beams. As long as we plan our route, we should be-”
“Really? I was hoping to go inside.”
“Huh? Why?”
“Well, it’s our first hunt, and . . . there might be interesting things in there.”
“Interesting things? Girl, all of the interesting things in the world don’t matter if we get trapped in there.”
That was true, but Tide’s curiosity was something she’d inherited from Nero, and as such, it was a quality deeply rooted into her persona. The Gustway . . . The Weighted Dome . . . Rye . . . Her curiosity had been responsible for several of her timeline’s unexpected branches, and again it was attempting to drive her into uncertainty. It didn’t have to try very hard.
“I’m going,” said Tide. And she was resolute. She made her way to a part of the roof that was open and started to slip down into the unstable facility.
Jobe watched her and shook his head. “Geez! You want to that badly? Caution be damned and everything?”
She did. All of her did, and it was apparent in the way her mitted hands securely gripped the path down.
“All right,” said Jobe. “It’s obvious you’ve got some kind of weird instinct, so I guess I’ll follow you. Get me killed and I’ll haunt you for eternity, though. Just so you know.”
“Wait,” – Tide was caught off-guard – “really?”
He shrugged. “Yeah, I’ll be filled with vengeance and stuff, so . . .”
She shook her head. “No, I mean, you’ll really come with me?”
“DUH. We’re partners, right? We’re kind of supposed to do this together,” said Jobe. He patted the girl’s head before leaping over her and into the opening.
With his blessing, Tide grinned and gave in to the curiosity that had been responsible for nearly all of her life’s flavor. Little did she know, it would soon also be responsible for her first encounter with a dark, hungry creature.
The inside of the airport was dim, lit in patches by sunbeams invading from open parts of the roof. Dusty streams of gold invaded the place, turning the forgotten ruins into a painted dreamland, adorned with relics of a distant past.
“Omigod!” Careful to overstep debris, Tide ran to a far wall.
Jobe watched her trot away, but didn’t react. He was taking everything in – committing the sight and feeling to memory. The silence of the air made the center of his stomach feel empty, but it was a good feeling, so he allowed it to remain. Moments like these only came so often. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the stillness.
– But only until an excited interruption broke that in which he’d been indulging.
“Look, Jobe!” With open hands, Tide eagerly pressed herself against one of the walls. “I didn’t realize from out there because everything’s so coated in grime, but look!” She set her cheek against the smooth surface.
“A brown wall? How neat.”
“No! Look at how it looks lighter than this part of the wall here!”
“Huh?”
“It’s a window! See? There’s a crack there!”
“Window? Out here and still intact? Naw.”
“Yeah!” Tide was sure. “All of these are windows! It’s like a big wall of them! Way bigger than the one in my apartment!”
“What? Why? Wouldn’t that make this whole thing incredibly unstable?”
“Nope! Glass is actually really strong if you use it right. And it retains its composition for a really long time . . . maybe even forever!”
“I highly doubt it’s ‘forever’.”
“Well, even if it isn’t, there’s no denying that these are all windows, and that most of them have remained intact!”
“Again, you’re so excited by all of this.”
The princess pulled herself away from the wall and leaned into a patch of sunlight. “Well, yeah . . . I love exploring.”
Jobe studied her with his chin in his hand. “You don’t look the type, but whatever. Guess it’s a good thing.”
“Don’t look the type?”
“Sure. Look at you. Your skin is smooth. Like you’ve never been out in the sand and wind. Your hair’s all silky and shiny, and styled like that, it makes you look like some upper-class art-chick. And your eyes don’t have any sort of ruggedness to them. They’re just all sweet looking. Like a little kid’s.”
Tide let her jaw hang limp a moment, and then,
“Y-you’re one to talk! Your hair’s the silkiest I’ve ever seen on a guy! And I wear mine like this so that it doesn’t get in the way when I climb! Unlike you, who just lets it all flow in the wind without caring that it might get caught on something! And I can’t help how my eyes look! Besides, ‘ruggedness’? What does that even mean?! How can a person’s eyes look rugg-”
“Whoa, girl, no need to get all upset. I was comp-li-ment-ing you. Get it? To put it bluntly, you’re pretty. Too pretty to be an adventurer.”
“Bu-” Tide opened her mouth to protest further, then closed it. “Oh.”
“Yeah, ‘oh’. Geesh, you’re so uptight. Come on.” He dismissed the topic wit
h a wave and started for the most clear-looking path.
“Uptight?” Tide said to herself. “Not really. Or rather, not usually.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing!” She hurried along beside him. After a moment, she added, “Thanks, Jobe.”
He glanced down at her. “For . . .?”
“The compliment.”
“There. That’s a much better response. Good job.” He patted her on the head.
“I’m not a dog,” she muttered, embarrassed.
“No, but you are sort of my pet, since I’m the reason you’re even here.”
“The reason?” But he sort of was, so she had no choice but to fall behind and fume once more. Jobe smiled corruptly.
“Creep,” said Tide.
The two continued through the broken building. Along the way, Tide stopped to collect a few random treasures. She was unable to take anything too large along, for fear that Nero might discover her secret hobby, so she settled on a small red piece of plastic from one of the dead machines, a corroded bottle cap, and a small circular piece of copper that might’ve been a coin but was too rusted to tell for sure.
“You collect little trinkets, huh?” Jobe asked when they stopped to rest. They were very near the base of the tree; though neither of them knew it yet.
“Oh,” said Tide, bending down to retie her boot. “Yeah. I keep small things like these in a box behind my armoire. Things from my climbs. I’ve got this odd little key and few different coins and . . . and random other stuff.”
Jobe leaned against a solid-looking pillar. “Armoire? Ha.”
“What? What’s so bad about that?”
“You’re just so . . .”
Lace retied, Tide stood and waited for him to finish. But instead of elaborating, the muscled boy just shrugged and said,
“Never mind. So, basically, you hide them? Your little trinkets? Sneaky, sneaky. Then I take it your dad’s not fond of-”
But Jobe stopped himself, for his partner’s face had just fallen.
“Yuck!” said Jobe. “What’s with that look?”
Tide’s stomach had also fallen. Heavily. Without warning. Feeling sick, the princess put her hand against the wall to steady herself. “You just said ‘dad’.”
“Huh?”
“Just dad. Not ‘parents’. Why wouldn’t you say ‘parents’?”
“Oh.” Jobe chewed his lip and tried to think of an excuse, but in the end, all he could come up with was, “Oops.”
It was like a confession, and it set the paranoid princess off.
“Seriously!?” she shouted. “You know who I AM!? THAT’s the secret you were talking about when we met!?”
“Whoa, girl!” Jobe put up his hands to deflect the overreaction. “That’s not it. I told you, I could tell by your fancy mitts that you were from a privileged family. I just didn’t realize HOW privileged . . . until I traced your fax number.”
“Omigod.” Astounded by her own stupidity, Tide smacked herself on the forehead. Of course. Of course fax numbers could be easily traced at any library.
Jobe snorted at her realization. “So,” he said, “you going to make me bow down now that I know, Prin-”
“Stop it right there, thank you very much. I HATE that nickname.”
Jobe thought it was funny. “But, Ink, your dad’s called the King of the Midwest, so by all logical thought, you should be Prin-”
“NO!” Tide let out a grumble and slumped over. She couldn’t take being identified that way. “No, Jobe. Don’t.”
“Oh, it really bothers you that much?”
“Yes.”
“I . . . I see.”
Jobe was sympathetic. Or at least, a part of him was. But there was another part of him entirely – a dormant part – that was starting to move. It was something that was always with him. Something that tore at the back of his throat and seduced him into delivering his next line with something that was more than playfulness. More than teasing. More than mockery, even.
No, it was none of those things that dripped off of the young hunter’s tongue next, though any of them might’ve been acceptable. It was –
“Guess that’s the reason you’ve stayed hidden from the media, Princess Tide. Wouldn’t want to dirty your hands with the affairs of the lower world. Even though your dad’s one of the reasons for the lower world’s filth in the first place.”
– unbridled spitefulness, and it poisoned the space around them, tearing at any seeds of new friendship they’d sown.
Jobe finished by giving one of his corrupt smiles; and in that moment, as she stared up at the garish-looking thing, something inside of Tide ticked, and she came to a hasty decision:
She really disliked this person.
Jobe could sense her drastic shift in energy, and it made him shiver. He hadn’t set out with the intention of making her hate him. Rather, he’d actually intended to become her friend – a pretense he’d only keep up until he got what he wanted, of course, but a friend nonetheless.
But that didn’t matter anymore because there’d long been a flaw within the boy that made him experience immense satisfaction at seeing things break. All day the urge had stayed latent, but with his partner’s shift in energy, an impulse throbbed from within – an impulse that wanted to see her crack. It flooded the veins of his body and replaced any carefreeness with cynicism. To hell with friendship. He wanted to see what a broken Ink was like. He couldn’t let her break just yet, though. There’d be no fun in that. For today, he’d only stretch her.
Confused and angry, Tide ignored him and moved on. They were nearly there.
“So,” said Jobe, following behind, “this is your escape. Is that it? You love adventuring because your dad’s so overprotective? You’re quite a rebel.”
Still, his tongue was lashing. Tide said nothing.
“What’s it like to look down on your kingdom? What’s it like to look down on the street-dwellers? Bet you think they’re filthy. Bet you think-”
But Tide had had enough. “You’re cruel,” she said, interrupting him.
Jobe let out a hoarse laugh. “Why? Just because I’m teasing you? So I was right. You ARE stuck-up.”
“No. That’s not it. There’s something off about you. Like, you shouldn’t have stabbed that girl at the dome. She deserved to win. You should have left things that way. You’re a cruel person.”
“Cruel?” Jobe thought about it and smirked. “Yeah, guess I am.”
Tide was surprised at how easily the admission came. She whirled around. “But you don’t care!?”
“Not really.”
Tide didn’t like him. At all. She didn’t want to be his partner. She didn’t want to look at that gross, corrupt smile ever again. She’d given him a chance, and things had been fine – better than she’d expected – but she could sense the cruelty that exuded from that smile more strongly now. She started to huff away again.
She really disliked him.
But then she realized something.
Did she really dislike him?
“Wait.” Tide turned to face him once more. Jobe folded his arms. “You know you’re cruel and you don’t care?”
“No.”
“You don’t?”
“Girl, what are you-?”
“Really?” she pressed.
“No, I told you-”
“So that’s how it is.” Tide understood, and it was a relief. She didn’t dislike him after all. She only disliked that piece. And there was a good chance that he disliked it too. Jobe frowned. His partner’s energy was shifting again, and it was causing that impulse to return to dormancy.
Tide continued, “Okay, so you know you’re cruel, and you don’t care. But doesn’t knowing something like that make you feel sort of, I don’t know, DEAD?”
“Uh-”
She pointed to Jobe’s chest. “Right there?”
Jobe released his arms and looked down. “Wha-”
“Come on. You’re ALIVE, aren’t you?�
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Jobe froze. Then he swallowed. She’d just used his own words against him, and just like the first time, they were instantly as some sort of magical incantation.
Tide used them again. “You’re alive. Right, Jobe?”
Jobe didn’t need to think about it. “Yeah,” he said bitterly. “I am.”
But though there was annoyance behind his eyes, Tide’s olive ones were calm. She brushed her hands together.
“Then I change my mind,” she said. “You’re all right. Part of being human is learning to decipher and accept other people’s flaws. Actually, you sort of remind me of my friend Y. I couldn’t stand her at first either. By the way, I’m sorry I called you ‘Charles’ just to bug you earlier. I’ll stick to ‘Jobe’ from here on out. Let’s leave our old names behind when we’re together. I feel like things’ll be better for us if we do that.”
Jobe looked at her and was reminded of something from a past life.
And just like that, the darkness reverted to sleeping, and he felt remorse. “Damn it,” he mumbled to himself. Then to Tide, “Er, sorry.” He brought a hand to his partner’s shoulder. “Guess I lost it. I’ve . . . uh . . . I’ve got kind of a mean streak. Probably should’ve warned you at some point.”
“I get it,” said Tide. “And it’s okay. Now that I know, it won’t be a problem. It’s kind of ironic, though, because that’s probably why you enjoy serenity so much.”
Jobe raised a brow and removed his hand. “Say what?”
“Oh, right.” Tide was embarrassed for what she was about to admit. “I, er, saw you before. When we first came down here. By the windows. Even a rough kind of guy like you can appreciate those moments, huh? Or maybe it’s more fitting to say, ‘especially a rough guy like you’.”
“Like me?” Jobe took on a stance of discomfort. He didn’t want to go there. He wasn’t in the mood to have a deep sort of discussion with a person on the verge of becoming self-righteous.
But Tide was rambling:
“It makes you forget about that part of you. Your mind goes blank. It’s the same with me and climbing, I think.”