by Greg Boose
“Come on! We’re losing her!” she yells over the roar of the field.
Jonah watches Paul point at the Module Eights and then look for Jonah and Vespa in the field. Jonah hesitates before jogging after Vespa, who still has eyes on Dr. Z. They lock hands and begin to run, taking turns pulling each other out of danger.
After a hundred yards, Vespa and Jonah find themselves in the middle of the field, soaked and staring at the doctor who stands near the lip of an enormous crater. It’s easily the largest geyser they’ve come across, thirty yards in diameter, with waves of steam dancing over its darkness like ghosts. With Brooklyn still across her shoulders, Dr. Z turns and curls her finger inward, beckoning them closer. “Now, you follow.”
And then Dr. Z turns back around and leaps into the hole, disappearing.
“Brooklyn!” Vespa shouts.
The cadets dash to the edge of the hole and see Dr. Z a dozen feet down, standing in the entrance of a cave cut into the side of the geyser wall. Brooklyn lies at her feet, motionless. Dr. Z looks up at the surface and beckons again, then she grabs the demic by one wrist and pulls her farther into the cave, vanishing.
Vespa nods at Jonah and together they back up several feet to get a running start. They charge ahead, palms flat, heads down, but just as they are about to leap, the giant geyser roars and explodes upward, sending a building-sized pillar of scalding water into the air. Jonah and Vespa scream and separate, both looking for any kind of shelter as the water rains in sheets. Jonah falls onto his stomach and rolls onto the lip of another geyser, only to crawl out of the way just as it activates. He gets up and jogs along the perimeter of the hole that Dr. Z jumped into, waiting for the column to collapse. He spots Vespa doing the same thing on the opposite side. Finally, the geyser ends; without hesitating, Jonah and Vespa run right at it. As Jonah leaps down into the darkness, he hears Paul shout somewhere in the distance.
The top of his foot hits the ledge of the cave and Jonah falls onto his stomach. He opens his eyes just as Vespa’s feet land inches from his face, spraying his cheeks with hot mud.
“Get up,” she says, “Hurry. Before this thing blows again.”
Jonah stands and looks upward just as Paul comes flying into view. Griffin is less than a second behind, both cadets waving their arms at their sides like helicopter propellers. They land on their feet, right next to Vespa.
“Holy shit,” Griffin says. “You assholes see that? I was like Superman or something.”
Paul grabs Jonah and Vespa by the arms and yanks them farther into the cave that leads to a tunnel. “Come on, before they get any—”
The cavern begins to rumble violently and a column of steam flies past them and up and out of the hole. A shadow appears in the steam, leaping right for them, and Jonah sees it’s a Module Eight boy no older than ten. The geyser erupts and sends a wall of water skyward, shooting the boy straight up and out of sight. If he isn’t killed by the scalding water, Jonah knows the fall will surely do it.
“Come on!” Paul shouts.
The four cadets sprint into the cave while water pools at their feet and rushes past them as they descend farther into the tunnel. It’s almost completely dark, save for brief patches of sunlight that must come from other geyser holes above them. The ground levels out, and they pick up speed, but soon they come to a circular room with several tunnel openings. It’s damp and hot and dark; no one knows where to go next. To make matters worse, dozens of feet echo behind him. The Module Eight kids are close behind.
“Dr. Z!” Jonah shouts. “Where are you?”
The cadets see a light flicker inside a tunnel on their right, and they run down it. The flickering light gets brighter and brighter, but when they round a corner, the light disappears, leaving them in complete darkness.
“Shit. Now what?” Vespa whispers.
“No one has a light?” Paul asks. “Nothing? A flashlight?”
“Wait, I have this. I have a sheaf that has a little bit of juice left,” Griffin says. A second later, a rectangle of dim light glows in Griffin’s hands, illuminating several feet in every direction. Jonah stands in front of the Third Year, staring through the back of the transparent sheaf, trying to read what’s on its screen, but it’s backwards.
“This way,” Paul says, pointing them to the left.
Griffin leads the way, running down the tunnel while Jonah continues to try to read the screen of the sheaf. Just as daylight appears at the end of the tunnel, Jonah stops in his tracks. He finally reads what it says: “Welcome, Jonah.”
“Wait. Where did you get that? Where is that sheaf from?” Jonah asks.
“Don’t stop, Firstie! Let’s go!” Vespa yells.
“Griffin?” Jonah asks. “Did you find that on Achilles?”
“Found it the last day we were there, yeah.”
Jonah runs after them. “Look at the name on it; that’s mine. That’s my sheaf. I was looking everywhere for that. It’s—”
Paul twists around, jogging backward. “Who cares, Jonah? It’s our flashlight right now.”
The thought of seeing the photo of his parents again instantly gives him another wind, so Jonah sprints ahead until he’s right next to Griffin. He can’t take his eyes off his sheaf; the last time he saw it, the Mayflower 2 was grinding against the surface of Achilles, and his module was breaking apart, sending kids and adults and debris everywhere. He’s not going to lose it again.
The end of the tunnel gets closer and closer, the pinprick of light becoming an eight-foot high exit, but just as they are about to run outside, Dr. Z’s head pokes out of a small hole carved into the bottom of the wall.
“Follow, follow,” she whispers before pulling her head back inside the hole.
“Forget that,” Griffin says as he blows right past the hole. He reaches the end of the tunnel and bounces on his feet, waiting for the others to join him. “Let’s just go. Let’s just keep running. Come on.”
Jonah looks from Griffin and his sheaf to the hole where Dr. Z waits inside. He knows he has to follow Dr. Z and fulfill his promise and save Brooklyn, but he doesn’t want to lose his sheaf. Not again. “I don’t care where you go, just give me my sheaf back.”
Griffin whips his head back and forth, checking the jungle behind him. “You want it back, then you guys come with me. Let’s go somewhere. Let’s hide. Those zombie kids will be here any second.”
Brooklyn’s low moans come from the hole at Jonah’s feet. He even thinks he hears her say his name. He turns to Griffin, “Just don’t lose it. I need it back.”
And with that, Jonah lowers himself to his knees and ducks inside the dark hole. It’s musty and warm and the rocky floor beneath him sweats a slimy liquid that sticks to his skin. He hears Vespa and Paul whisper behind him; it sounds as if they decide to leave him and take off with Griffin, but then a second later Vespa pushes on the soles of Jonah’s boots and tells him to move faster.
As soon as Jonah enters the space, there’s an odd electricity to the air and an overwhelming feeling envelops him like a blanket, telling him he’s safe inside. He stands in complete darkness, but he’s not afraid. He hears Dr. Z giggling somewhere in the corner of the room, but he doesn’t hesitate to seek her. When he gets to what feels like the middle of the space, he holds his arms out at his side—the slime slowly drips off of his clothes and hands—and he allows the electricity that swirls around to consume him. Nothing can hurt him in here, he thinks. Nothing and no one.
Vespa and Paul crawl into the room, their breaths heavy and full of fear.
“Firstie?” Paul asks. “Where’d you go?”
With a hiss, a light comes to life in the corner of the space, and there sits Dr. Z with her legs crossed, holding a long match in her dirty hand. Brooklyn lies flat on her back next to her with eyes flittering. And next to her sits a pink-haired Kip hugging his knees to his chest. He doesn’t look older or taller like Vespa said on the ship; in fact, he actually appears younger t
han he did on Achilles, maybe nine years old. Is he the “old boy” Dr. Z keeps talking about? He’s not old, though. He’s young. Maybe she means the tall Module Eight boy with the burnt hair.
Dr. Z slowly pulls a small opaque disc out of her pocket and presses it between her fingers, lighting the object up just as the match goes out. Her face is frozen in a sadistic smile, her yellow teeth wet and glistening. She tosses the disc of light into the middle of the room, right at Jonah’s feet, and that’s when he sees the symbols covering the walls.
“Jesus, not again,” Vespa whispers. “Please no one touch the walls. Jonah? I’m talking to you. Just don’t. That’s not why we’re here.”
“But that is why I’m here.” Jonah rotates on his heels, his eyes crawling over several familiar symbols and new ones he’s never seen before: a six-pointed star with a square in its middle, a curved line hovering over it like an umbrella; two ovals stacked on top of each other with three lines intersecting them; a rectangle without its bottom line; an “S” with sharp angles instead of curves; a pair of feathers standing on their quills. There are hundreds of them, maybe thousands, repeating and also appearing at random. And once he spots one of the Cs with the three circles inside, he begins to spot dozens more.
“There you are,” Jonah whispers. Before Dr. Z can even ask, Jonah reaches into his pocket and empties it, the keys clanging on the floor. He opens his hand to reveal three white verve seeds to the room. Dr. Z gasps loudly at the sight, and then she begins to rock back and forth in delight, smacking her knees with her palms. “Yes, yes, yes. Talk to them. Talk to him.”
Jonah holds one of the seeds up to his eye, studying its pebbled surface. He remembers what happened in Tunick’s backyard: the visions, the nausea, the undeniable strength and aggression. It took everything in him last time to fight against the onslaught of chemicals attacking his brain. This time, though, he’s going to let it all take over. This time, he’s not going to fight until he finds some answers.
He puts the seed into his mouth, moving it to his back gums with his tongue. “Someone take Brooklyn away from her before I do this.”
Paul springs into action and scoops the demic up into his arms and then sets her up against the wall behind him. Her head rolls from one shoulder to the next, her eyelids throbbing. “And give her the medicine.”
Vespa rips open the small sack and pulls out a bag of clear liquid with a long plastic tube wrapped around it. She finds the end of the IV needle still stuck in Brooklyn’s arm and attaches the tube. Vespa then stands and holds the medicine above Brooklyn’s head.
Jonah sits and takes a deep breath, letting his eyes wander from the symbols on the walls to Paul to Vespa to Brooklyn and then to Dr. Z and Kip. The seed clinks along his back teeth until he gets a small grip on it and shaves off a sliver between his molars. A bitter taste fills his mouth.
“Jonah?”
He whips his head over to look at Brooklyn whose lips slowly smack together. Her eyelids separate to show the two deep blue eyeballs behind them.
“Brooklyn?” he asks.
The demic’s chin lowers and a strand of drool falls onto her leg. She coughs twice before snapping her head back up in alarm. Her one arm rises slowly from the floor and she points a shaking finger in Dr. Z’s direction. “Don’t trust her. She’s going to kill us. She’s going to kill all of us. She told me.”
Jonah tries to respond, to ask why she would say that, but his head and shoulders are suddenly too heavy. He lies on his side and opens his mouth to speak to his friend, but his tongue simply falls out and touches the slimy ground. He watches in horror as his tongue appears to grow and slither its way toward Brooklyn’s ankle, turning black along the way. The hallucinations are starting, he tells himself. That’s not real. Jonah closes his eyes and concentrates, and when he opens them back up his tongue is still in his mouth, rolling the seed back and forth along his teeth.
“You okay, Firstie?” Paul asks, kneeling beside him. Jonah feels his energy before he sees it; a yellow glow suddenly surrounds the cadet like rays coming off of a sun. He’s the hero, Jonah thinks. He’s the one. Paul puts his hand on Jonah’s wrist. “I think you should spit that shit out. We have Brooklyn. Let’s just get out of here. Screw all this.”
Vomit shoots up Jonah’s throat and explodes out of his mouth, an orange liquid that fills the room with a horrible stench. Vespa shrieks over Dr. Z’s growing laughter while Paul jumps to his feet and flattens his back against the wall. Jonah watches the seed escape his lips with the next wave of vomit, floating in his sickness, and he quickly reaches out and shoves it back into his mouth.
Dr. Z crawls up to his face, indifferent to his vomit. “Don’t be afraid. You have been chosen. You will save us all.”
“But what if it’s Paul? What if he’s the hero?” he whispers as thick saliva fills his mouth. His brain begins to crackle as if someone has shoved a hundred crystal orange wrappers into his ears with an electric fork, and the noise is enough for him to sit straight up and bang the palms of his hands against his temples. His sight comes and goes. One second he sees a terrified Vespa standing over Brooklyn, administering the medicine, and the next second he’s alone in the room with nothing but the symbols on the wall, which glow green and crawl over each other like ants swarming a meal.
The crinkling gets louder and louder. It’s as if he’s underwater. As if he’s gone too deep. Jonah springs to his feet to swim to the surface in his mind and then Dr. Z’s voice is suddenly in his ear and he turns his head to get away from her and his eyes begin to follow random symbols along the walls, which speed up and overlap, blurring into a mess of lines and curves. He hears Paul say something, and an invisible hand falls onto his shoulder, but Jonah bats it away. He takes a deep breath and bites off another slice of the seed and sucks on it as hard as he can until his mind goes blank and the crinkling noises stop. Jonah opens his hands out in front of him and they glow a brilliant, blinding white, as if he’s holding two of the brightest stars in the Silver Foot Galaxy. The stars begin to melt; the light drips from his hands like water and splash onto the ground, covering every inch of the floor before creeping up the walls. Within seconds, Jonah stands alone in a bright white room. The only colors are the blurred green symbols that change speeds along the walls.
“Vespa?” he asks in a voice that seems to come from behind him. “I’m alone. I’m all alone.”
He hears Vespa answer him but can’t make out her words. Just the thought of her being nearby gives him enough strength to stay on this journey. Jonah sucks on the seed and clenches his fists, waiting for what’s next.
A burst of purple shoots out of his chest and explodes against the wall, turning into a thick cloud of smoke. A man’s angry face appears. It’s the same face from Tunick’s cave when Jonah made his escape. Back then, this face looked wise and familiar. Now, the face appears to be furious, ordering Jonah to help him. Jonah has done something wrong, he thinks. He’s in trouble. He shakes his head violently and pounds his fists against his chest and closes his eyes, and when he reopens them, he’s back in the dark cave with the others. There’s Vespa and Brooklyn. There’s Paul pacing back and forth, pointing his finger at Dr. Z who claps and bounces in place. Paul notices Jonah looking at him and yells his name. Jonah blinks, and instantly the room changes and he’s looking at the purple smoke face in the white room again. A different man than before steps out of the cloud and offers his smoky palm to Jonah. It’s his father. His father is here. Jonah reaches for his father’s hand, but before he can touch him, the man changes shape, widening at the shoulders, stretching like clay. His father’s head splits down the middle until it’s two different heads with giant beaks that move away from each other along growing shoulders. Soon, Jonah stands before two separate beings connected at the hip. Purples change to yellows until Jonah stands before one of the conjoined twin aliens he saw after escaping the village.
Both of its faces remain blank. They have no eyes. No e
ars, no noses. Just the large, beak-like mouths sticking out of the bottom of their yellow heads. The left alien points a long, thin appendage at the ceiling. When Jonah looks up, he sees a dozen of the glowing green symbols crash together and then spread out like constellations, dimming and brightening in a white sky. The symbols flip forward and backward and then spin so fast that they’re completely indecipherable. Letters then begin to float off of the blurry symbols, and Jonah reads: We are Zion.
Jonah’s eyes begin to water; he can feel tears streaming down his face.
A few of the symbols spin in the other direction until the word “We” turns into “You.”
You are Zion.
Jonah takes a deep breath and concentrates just enough to keep his rising panic from taking over. He asks, “What am I supposed to do? What is Zion supposed to do?”
The words above him pulse and then fade away. The whiteness of the room takes over and grows until it’s so bright Jonah has to shield his face. He takes another bite of the seed and tastes the bitterness slide down his throat. When he opens his eyes again, he’s floating in a blue sky. Wind whips at his clothes and blows into his ears. He looks left and right and sees nothing, but when he looks down, he sees a red and green blob over a gray backdrop. He’s flying, he thinks. He can fly. But the blob below gets bigger and bigger, turning into the size of a rover, then into the size of a house; Jonah, he suddenly realizes, is falling. And he’s falling fast.
His screams are silent, lost in the sky as he plummets toward a continent that grows and spreads out below him with every second. Jonah starts to make out green rivers and lakes, red mountains and beaches, thousands of acres of trees and grasses. He can see individual waves break toward a line of red cliffs. He’s descending so fast that in another ten seconds, he realizes he’s going to hit the ground, and so he waves his arms frantically at his sides. Instantly, he shoots forward like an arrow, the wind pulling at his cheeks and flooding his eyes with tears until he hovers over a section of land that looks oddly familiar, but he knows this isn’t Earth. The colors are all off. The air even tastes different. Is this Peleus? he wonders. Or is the other side of Achilles?