Thetis--The Deep Sky Saga--Book Two

by Greg Boose

  “I’m sorry,” Jonah whispers.

  It takes a moment for the man to compose himself. “Me, too. Thank you, cadet. But I feel like I need to personally apologize to you and to all the other survivors. For what happened. For not getting to you quicker. For taking so long, for taking way too long. As soon as we lost contact with the Mayflower 2, we scrambled to get our ship in good enough shape to go after you, because, well, we think someone sabotaged it. That’s another mystery maybe you could help us solve.”

  New tears slide down Jonah’s cheeks. If they would have gotten there sooner, Garrett would still be alive. The cook and the professor down in the jungle may never have been killed by Tunick and Sean. Brian wouldn’t have been eaten by those fish with the airplane fins. Rosa wouldn’t have jumped overboard. Bidson wouldn’t have…

  “Even if you couldn’t see anything, maybe you heard what went on. Do you want to tell me what you heard?” the man asks.

  “I do,” Jonah says. “But I can’t yet. My head, it really hurts. I can’t really remember things right.”

  Commander Mirker pushes the stool away from Jonah’s bed and slumps over, his fuzzy shadow becoming a fuzzy ball. After a moment, he stands with a sad grunt and says, “Well, when you’re ready, I’m ready.”

  “Can I ask one thing?”

  “Of course, cadet,” the man says.

  “Why did you tell Earth all those kids died on that field trip when they actually didn’t? They stole your ship and went to Achilles. Why not tell people on Earth that instead of saying they died?”

  Commander Mirker opens the door halfway. Before slipping out, he says, “Those kids, they were lost. To us. They were dead, cadet. They decided to take a goddamn drug and they wouldn’t stop and their minds went to hell. They were dead to us. Wasn’t exactly the truth, but it sure felt that way around here.”

  And then the door clicks shut, and he’s gone, and Jonah is left alone to think about Hess and Lark and Camilla. They said Thetis was a bad place to be, and that they were almost murdered by the adults here, if it wasn’t for Tunick saving them, but it sounds more like they were out of control, slaves to the verve. He witnessed that firsthand. He should have told Mirker the truth. He will the next time he comes to visit.

  As soon as the thought crosses his mind, the door reopens, and Jonah decides it’s his chance to come clean, to tell Commander Mirker about Tunick and the verve and what they said was happening on Thetis, but it’s a smaller shadow that enters the room. A yellow blob slowly makes its way toward Jonah’s bed, stopping at his feet.

  “Hello,” Jonah says. “I’m really starting to feel better. I could use some water, though.”

  The yellow blob silently rounds the bed and comes closer to Jonah’s face where details start to appear. The person has reddish hair and pale skin. The yellowness comes from the person’s jacket. A second later, a sour stench reaches Jonah’s broken nose. It smells like…Achilles.

  “Hello?” Jonah asks.

  Dr. Z’s blurry face is suddenly inches away from Jonah’s, her breath putrid and hot. In a slow, emotionless voice, she says, “You weren’t supposed to leave.”

  Jonah’s body goes still. “W-w-why?”

  Dr. Z presses her forehead into Jonah’s, slowly smashing him down into his damp pillow. Spit shoots from her mouth onto his lips as she says, “Because the old boy chose you. They chose you.”

  He can’t speak. He can’t move. The old boy chose him? They chose him? That’s what the voices on the beach said. He watches helplessly as the doctor raises her arm over his chest and opens her hand. Dozens of what feel like rocks bounce all over his body. Then, in a voice so loud that it rattles Jonah’s teeth, she screams, “EAT THE SEEDS!”

  Like a spider approaching a fly caught in its web, Dr. Z slowly climbs on top of Jonah and bobs her head up and down over his, her hair sweeping back and forth over Jonah’s face. It falls into his mouth and he can taste its crispy, burnt ends. She slams a hand onto his chest and grabs a handful of the verve seeds from the bed. The lights continue to flicker on and off over her shoulders.

  “Enter the exit,” she whispers. “Exit the entrance.”

  Jonah’s shoulders pop as he tries to wrench his wrists from their straps. He attempts to buck her off of him, wildly twisting left and right, and then he rockets his knees into the woman’s back. He strikes her right in the spine—hard—over and over and over, but she doesn’t move. She doesn’t make a sound.

  “Help!” Jonah screams. “Someone!”

  Dr. Z drops a hand over his nose and mouth, smothering him. He again slams his knees into her back with all his strength, but she just giggles. Jonah’s teeth find two of her fingers, and he bites down until he tastes her blood. She finally takes her hand away, and he lets out a short scream before the doctor puts a hand on his neck, squeezing, crushing his larynx. Her other hand scoops up the seeds all around him. As soon as Jonah opens his mouth to try to catch a breath, Dr. Z drops several seeds inside.

  “EAT THE SEEDS!”

  The seeds hit the back of his throat and clog his airway. He chokes and coughs and starts to suffocate, but still he refuses to bite down on the verve. He knows what will happen. The hallucinations. The confusion and hysteria. Most of all, though, he knows the voices in his head will come back. The room flickers and dims; he’s losing consciousness. The seeds find their way into the spaces between his gums and cheeks, and he spits a few out. They land on his cheeks and forehead and then clink against the floor.

  Jonah begins to black out. He stops resisting, instead focusing on the sounds of his own gurgles and Dr. Z’s giggling and the humming of the medical machines near his head. He can hear the light bulb near the door buzzing and flickering. Then he hears the click of the door and quick footsteps. Just as his eyes roll back into his skull and begin to shut off, a shadow rams into the doctor, knocking her onto the floor. The doctor crashes into the machines hooked up to Jonah, and she gets tangled in his tubes, yanking them from Jonah’s skin, and it feels like tiny fires are ignited all over his body. Jonah raises his head and spits all over himself—a mess of vomit and blood and seeds—and that’s when he sees Mirker’s blurry outline stand over Dr. Z as she scrambles back and forth on her hands and knees in the corner.

  “We need him to eat,” she whispers.

  Mirker looks over at Jonah, his face nothing more than blocks of white and gray in the cadet’s eyes. “The kid eats when we say he eats.”

  Dr. Z gets to her feet. Humming a quiet, haunting song, she begins to circle Mirker. The boy watches helplessly from his bed, his wrists rubbed raw from the straps. Mirker circles along with her, quietly breathing through his nose while stifling a coughing attack. He steps on a seed, crunching it loudly under his boot. He looks down at the ground for a second and then he raises his head to Dr. Z. “Are you…are you fucking kidding me? You brought this stuff in here? Do you have any idea what this shit has done to this—”

  Dr. Z shrieks and dives for his waist, but Mirker squats and catches her in his armpit. He swings a fist into her gut and screams, “Do you have any idea what this shit does?”

  He keeps punching her. There’s a snapping sound, and Jonah doesn’t know if someone smashed another seed, or if Dr. Z’s ribs just broke. Mirker doesn’t let up; he just keeps swinging, delivering blow after blow. The man is vicious, relentless, a wild beast protecting its offspring, instantly reminding Jonah of his time spent living under a bridge in Cleveland with the mentally ill and addicts, where there were no rules. And definitely no mercy.

  Dr. Z somehow gets loose and falls onto her back. She immediately jumps to her feet, seemingly unfazed by the brutal beating, squaring off again with the man who is practically twice her size.

  “That didn’t hurt, huh? I don’t know what’s wrong with you,” Mirker says, “but I’m about to make it worse.”

  Dr. Z points at Jonah. “The old boy wants him. We want him.”

  Mirker stands bet
ween Jonah and the doctor and opens his arms out wide. “Yeah? Well, we want him more. But you can go ahead and try to take him.”

  Dr. Z charges ahead, screaming, “We are Zion!” She grabs Mirker around his neck, and they spin around and around until Mirker leans over and launches her across the room. Jonah hears the wall splinter from the impact, and then he watches Mirker’s blurry shape stalk over to the woman and pick her up by her red hair. He holds her at arm’s length, avoiding the woman’s swinging arms and legs.

  “If you think we’re going to put up with bullshit like this again, you’re dead wrong,” Mirker says to her. “Or, you’re just dead.”

  The door opens and in rushes the tiny Dr. Kinney and another figure. It takes him less than a second to recognize it’s Vespa.

  “Jonah!” Vespa runs to his side.

  “Untie me!” Jonah yells. “Hurry!”

  “No, stop! Leave him there!” Mirker shouts over his shoulder.

  “Why not?” Vespa asks.

  Dr. Kinney throws her hands in the air. “What the hell is going on?”

  “She was attacking the patient,” Mirker growls.

  “He saved me,” Jonah says. “Dr. Z…she was on top of me and trying to get me to eat…she wanted me to eat verve.”

  Dr. Kinney’s small shadow picks something off the floor. She holds her fingers up to the flashing lights, and then a second later she turns and whips her hands toward the door; a seed pings against the wood. She stalks over to Dr. Z, who dangles from Mirker’s hand and asks, “What are you doing in here? Why would you bring this stuff back to Athens?”

  The doctor’s yellow shape bounces with quiet laughter before it falls limp in the man’s grasp. It’s as if she’s suddenly been turned off, or just fell asleep. Or died. Mirker lifts Dr. Z up to his face. “Does someone need to take a little ride to the Polaris Mons?’”

  Dr. Z remains silent. Mirker shakes her back and forth and then drops her onto the ground like a bag of trash. “You stay there.” The man then turns to Jonah. “You eat any of those? Tell me now. Tell me right now and we’ll pump your stomach.”

  “No, I swear. I spit them all out.”

  He looks at Vespa. “What about you? You take any?”

  “No,” she says.

  Mirker grabs Dr. Z again, holding her up by the back of her jacket like a cat holds her kitten by its scruff. “Good. You’re good kids. I’m glad to hear you know not to eat that shit. Because if you did…” He stops and slowly inhales what sounds like a painful lungful of air. “Doctor?”

  Dr. Kinney steps forward, the lights flashing onto her back. “Yes, sir?”

  “Do me a favor and make sure these two are okay, and then pick up all these seeds and burn them in the pit. And make sure you get them all. Check twice.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  The woman circles Jonah’s bed and places a quick hand on his forearm, giving him a gentle, reaffirming squeeze. The simple, protective touch has an amazing effect on Jonah. He leans back into his pillow. Adrenaline drains from his body, and his fists uncurl and relax. The doctor then pulls Jonah’s machines back into place and reattaches the tubes to his skin, igniting the tiny fires all over again.

  “Okay. What else can I do for you?” Dr. Kinney asks Jonah.

  Vespa sets a cool hand on Jonah’s forehead. “For starters, you can take these straps off his wrists. They almost got him killed.”

  The doctor raises her head to look at Mirker, and the man hesitates before nodding. Jonah’s straps are undone, and he immediately touches his neck, fingering the circle of bruised skin.

  “But don’t go anywhere yet,” Mirker says with Dr. Z dangling from his hand. “You need to stay hooked up to these machines for a few more hours or you’re going to go right back to being blind. You hear me?”

  Jonah drops his hands from his neck and nods.

  “And,” Dr. Kinney says, “after that, you need to come back in here every day for treatment, for at least a week. Just for an hour. Because if you don’t, none of this is going to work.”

  “Okay,” Jonah agrees.

  “Don’t forget to get every single seed, doctor,” Mirker says. “Feel better, cadet. We’ll put someone outside your door so you can rest in peace. This kind of bullshit, I guarantee you, won’t happen again. We’ll talk about what happened on Achilles when you’re ready.” He then opens the door and disappears, dragging Dr. Z behind him.

  As the doctor crawls back and forth on the floor to collect the verve, Vespa stands guard at the door. Even though Jonah barely sees her blurry shape, he can tell she’s prepared for battle. With anyone. With everyone. A few minutes later, when she’s sure she’s checked every corner and under every machine twice, Dr. Kinney comes back to Jonah’s bed.

  “I’m very sorry that happened,” she says with a strained sigh. “These stupid seeds have undone so much progress we’ve made here. You have no idea.”

  “Forget apologizing. Just make him better. Make him and Brooklyn better,” Vespa says.

  “We’re doing our best.”

  “Your best almost got Jonah killed,” Vespa says.

  The doctor pats Jonah’s arm again and then walks over to the door where she stops to whisper something to Vespa. The cadet brings a hand to her face, and her body slumps. As soon as the doctor leaves the room, Jonah asks what was said.

  “Brooklyn’s not doing as well as you are,” Vespa says. “She may not make it.”

  He closes his eyes, sending slow tears down his temples. A second later, though, his eyes pop open, and he sits up with a gasp.

  “You have to go check on her! You have to make sure no one is going after her like they went after me. The kids from Module Eight, they’re messed up like Dr. Z.”

  “Shit,” Vespa whispers. “You’re right. What about you, though? I need to stay here until someone else—”

  There’s a knock on the door. A second later, a large pale head with short black hair appears inside the room.

  “Hey, hello. The commander asked me to watch the door and guard you so you can get some rest. My name’s Freeman. And nobody gets past Freeman.”

  “Freeman?” Jonah asks. “Where’s Brooklyn at? The blind girl they rescued from Achilles with us?”

  The man pauses.

  “We just need to make sure she’s okay,” Vespa adds. “Jonah was just attacked in here, and we need to make sure she’s safe.”

  “She’s just down the hall. At the end. Number three.”

  Vespa jogs over to Jonah and gives him a quick hug. The smell of her hair and skin is reassuring, even if it does instantly remind him of the beach on Achilles.

  “You should take a shower,” Jonah says.

  “Yeah, I know,” she whispers in his ear. “Right after I make sure you guys are okay. I’ll watch this Freeman guy from the door. Nobody’s going to mess with you guys. I promise. So, get some rest. And then we’ll get cleaned up and figure out our place here.”

  A moment later, she’s gone, and Jonah’s alone in the room with the flickering lights and the hums of his machines and the pain circling his neck. After five minutes, his eyes close and he’s asleep.

  • • •

  Jonah sits up as if someone turns him on with a button. Adrenaline shoots through his body like lightning, practically sizzling his skin in the pool of sweat beneath him. It takes him a few seconds to shake off the dream he was having: he was in a dark, endless tunnel with a flashlight when he came across a line of rocks sticking out of the walls, circling the floor and ceiling like a mouth full of teeth. He thought maybe it was a portal he had to jump through, but once he got closer, he saw that the rocks were the stone heads of people from the Mayflower 2: Manny, Garrett, Rosa, Portis, Griffin, Paul, plus demics whose names he never knew, the flight crew. They had their mouths open in permanent, horrific screams. Their eye sockets were empty, but tears flowed down their stone cheeks. Terrified, Jonah ran in the other direction, only to imm
ediately trip and lose his flashlight. When he grabbed it and shined the light at his feet, he saw that he fell over the stone head of Tunick. Tunick’s mouth was stuck with a giant grin, his sharp teeth holding several verve seeds. Jonah’s flashlight died right then. When he hit it against his thigh to get it working again, the beam lit up Tunick’s head, but it wasn’t him anymore. Instead, it was his own face, frozen in a look of agony with the seeds sitting on his tongue. While everything else in the cave was brown and gray, his stone eyes were a bright, bright blue.

  The dream flashes behind his eyes like the light above the door of his hospital room. Jonah hits his temples with his fists and blinks hard. He’s safe; still in the bed, still hooked up to machines with tape and tubes. He scans the walls, relieved to see it’s not covered with faces of the dead. No Manny or Rosa. No grinning Tunick. Jonah stretches his neck to see a bag of clear liquid dripping into a rubber tube, and then he looks down to see his naked feet sticking out from the end of the off-white sheets like two hibernating animals checking out the winter landscape. His feet are dirty, caked with grains of gray sand and smudged with black and red marks. The nails are scuffed and chipped. A bandage covers the top of his left foot, its edges frayed and uneven.

  As Jonah surveys the room, noticing the slight patterns in the cement floor and the narrow shadows running down the black, wooden walls, it slowly hits him that his vision is…it’s crystal clear. He can see patterns. He can see that the walls are made of some kind of fuzzy, black wood, and his bandages are frayed, and that there’s sand sticking to his feet. The medicine works. He can see again. He can’t believe it.

  The door opens, and Jonah watches a man’s weathered face stick through the opening. It’s dark and covered with white stubble. Under a large forehead, his eyes are brown and sharp and sad. But they seem kind and concerned.

  The man enters the room and closes the door behind him. Jonah sees he’s thick with muscles under his tan jumpsuit, built like a bull. “You awake in here?”