Marah Chase and the Fountain of Youth

by Jay Stringer

  Hass smiled. He was light-headed. Weak. He had a different answer, and it didn’t involve trying to guess about science or worrying about complex viruses. But he knew Chase would dismiss it. She didn’t have his faith.

  He watched as she knelt down at the water’s edge and started splashing water over her injuries.

  “I’ll need you to keep an eye on me,” she said. “If I go nuts, you need to tell me.”

  “Sure,” he said, hearing the sleep in his own voice.

  Hass could feel the pull of the water. A voice inside himself saying, Do it. Just your arm. What’s the harm? You could die right here if you don’t.

  He was losing blood. And now that the adrenaline was fading, he could feel the nausea, the faintness that he’d blocked out back in the clearing. This water couldn’t change who he was. No matter what happened.

  Do it…

  No.

  He wasn’t going to take the risk. He was going to stand strong. Even if that meant sitting on this rock, leaning slightly to one side.

  * * *

  Lauren had already turned away from the dead crocodile, from the sounds coming from below, to start opening her white pods.

  “Go see who that was,” she directed.

  “We know who that was,” Nash said.

  And it was true. He hadn’t thought much about Chase since she’d fallen from the helicopter in Glasgow. He should have stuck around, should have finished the job. But the cops had been closing in, and he’d wanted to get Eades back to Lauren, to please her, to earn his money.

  So now, somehow, he knew the gunshots down below were a sign that Chase was here. And surely Lauren knew it, too. But she didn’t seem to care. As soon as she’d seen that the water healed her hand, the second she’d learned this was the very pool they’d come looking for, everything else seemed to have dropped out of her mind.

  She turned back, irritation writ large. “What?”

  “It’s Chase.”

  Lauren rolled her eyes, shrugged. “Then go kill her. For real this time.”

  “And leave you here?”

  Lauren stopped what she was doing, made an impatient tutting sound, and knelt down to go through his bag of gear. She came back up holding one of his spare Glocks and waved it at him, then made a shoo gesture with her other hand.

  “It’s not safe,” Nash insisted.

  “I’ve got work to do. This is why we’re here.”

  They both heard the earthquake before they felt it. The deep rumble sounded, at first, completely disconnected from the world around them. Distant. Almost fake. But then the ground started to move. The trees and bushes shook. The surface of the water started to whip about, waves that beat against both sides of the shore. Somewhere, he could hear the sound of stone cracking. Then the sound and movement faded, petering out until it felt, for just a moment, like they’d imagined the whole thing.

  “We don’t have long,” Lauren said, looking up the mountain to the Uhuru peak visible through the trees. “Whatever she’s doing, it’s coming.”

  There was another cracking sound. This time unmistakable. It was coming from the wall, the dam that held back the waterfall and created this pool. Nash ran to the cliff edge and looked over. Some of the large bricks had moved. Water was seeping out through the cracks. The dam wouldn’t take a second quake. And, down below, in the pool that collected the water, he could see Chase and Hass.

  He ran back to where Lauren had left his ammunitions bag and pulled out his remaining grenades, strapping them to his belt in case there were any more twenty-five-foot roaring surprises on the trail, and turned to head down the valley.

  Time to finish this.

  * * *

  Chase was just about finished healing when the quake hit. She looked down at her ankle and thigh, where there had been deep cuts just a couple of minutes before. Her back no longer hurt. Her clothes were still stained with blood, but there were no cuts in her skin, no signs of how the blood had left her body. The most shocking thing of all was how quickly she had accepted this as normal. Less than a week ago, she would have dismissed the idea of the Fountain of Youth as a fairy tale. Now she was sitting in the Garden of Eden, where the water seemed to heal any wound, and it was just normal.

  She thought back to Gilmore’s letter, his mention of burying his friends out beyond the marker, where the earth doesn’t play tricks. In a place like this, what could possibly count as a trick? She wondered what the limits to the healing power were. If there was anything you couldn’t come back from in this place.

  She also wondered about the dark voices in herself that spoke up anytime she used the water. The way she was thinking differently here. Becoming possessive. Starting to need the water. Starting to need the euphoria that came with it.

  The quake pulled her out of the dark thoughts. She heard cracking up above and could see water starting to break through the rock face of the waterfall, increasing the flow. The water sloshed farther and higher, raising the level of the pool toward Hass.

  Hass.

  She ran to him, pulling him off the rock and away from the rising water, across the path to another set of rocks. The quake passed, and Chase looked down at her friend. And started to cry. He was dying. Almost gone. Pale and weak. His wounds had ripped wider with the movement, but his blood was pumping out at a slow rate.

  “Hey,” she said, trying for a smile, not sure if she managed it.

  “Hey,” he said, his eyes snapping out of their distant trance to look up at her. He smiled. Then his eyes settled back into their glassy daze. His chest was still moving, but slow, only the last few seconds of breath left.

  Her dark voices started to take over.

  Don’t listen to him. You don’t want him to die. Drag him to the water. Push him in. Save him. Only you can.

  But it wasn’t what he wanted.

  Screw what he wants. Save him.

  Chase yelled in grief and frustration. Everything inside her welled up into an animal sound, and she felt it ripping out of her throat, echoing out around them. And as it faded away, she picked up another sound. Footsteps. Someone had come into the clearing. She turned to see Nash, grinning and pointing a gun at her head.

  Chase stood up, ignoring the gun, and walked toward him. She had a focus for this primal grief now. An ass she could kick.

  “Where’s Eades?” she said through gritted teeth.

  “Yeah… no. She’s dead.”

  Chase could feel the anger but didn’t let it surge. Keep it controlled. Keep it focused. She gestured around the clearing. “No neutral ground here. No rules. Want it?”

  Nash slipped a shotgun off his back, dropped it. Unclipped a belt holding grenades, placing it gently on the ground. He unholstered his two Glocks and lifted the first one, dropped it down next to the shotgun. “One on one?”

  Chase put up her fists. “One on one.”

  Nash shrugged. He drew the second Glock. Fired twice. Chase felt both bullets hitting her chest. It was odd, in that moment, feeling the bullets more than she felt her own body. Everything else was just a numbness. Her legs didn’t seem to be connected anymore. She felt like she floated rather than fell. Nash stood over her. He knelt down. Chase looked up, trying to swear at him, but her mouth didn’t seem to be connected to her brain. Everything was so far away.

  “I guess I win,” Nash said, miles above her, at the end of a tunnel.

  Blackness.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Euphoria.

  Delight.

  Peace.

  Marah Chase had never felt so relaxed. What was this warmth? What was this glow all around her, this feeling of being wrapped up in…?

  Water?

  It filled her mouth. Lungs. Ears. This should be what drowning felt like, except she wasn’t worried. She didn’t panic. This was warmth, comfort.

  Euphoria.

  Delight.

  Peace.

  I’ll just stay here.

  Where is here?

  Doesn’t
matter.

  I’m moving?

  She was pulled. Hands holding her. Strong arms pressing against her. Lifting her. Out of the water. No, no, put me back in…

  Light. Heat. Air. Chase felt the surface hit her face and drew in a deep breath. She blinked. Light filled her eyes, and she couldn’t see at first. But now she could feel other things. She was being held. Carried. As her vision cleared, she looked up into Hass’s face. He was holding her in his tree-trunk arms. Where were they? A pool. Hass was carrying her up out of a pool.

  The pool?

  What would be the pool?

  Pain. Flash of pain. Hot. In her chest. Once. Twice. Then out her back. Once. Twice. But it was the same once and the same twice. That made no sense, but it felt real. It was a memory. How was she remembering…? Had she been shot? How would she remember being shot in the chest?

  She pushed loose from Hass’s arms. He let her go, and she splashed down hard into the water, then got to her feet. Angry. Angry at him. How dare he. This water is home. This water is me. This water is where I want to be.

  Why couldn’t he let her have this?

  She turned to splash back into the water, to dive into the warmth, but Hass lifted her again. They crashed through bushes, down a slope, and branches bounced off her. He threw her down onto the hard ground. The dry ground.

  She stood and tried to push past him, but Hass caught her and hugged her close. He was pressed against her back, his arms wrapped around her front. Whispering in her ear.

  “Please.”

  Why is he saying please?

  “Please, Marah?”

  He hates the water. How dare he stop me going in. He’s not even willing to go—

  A new memory. Waking up. Euphoria. Delight. Hass, in the water with her.

  She stopped fighting. Stopped pushing. Tried to speak. The words came easily, but they didn’t feel like they should. Why did this feel like a miracle?

  “Are you okay?” she asked, looking down at his arms, touching them. Wanting to turn to see the changes the water had forced on him. Hass relaxed. His grip eased, and he set Chase down on her feet. She turned to him. He looked the same. No, better—he glowed. He was healthy. His arm was fixed.

  “Was I…?” She looked down at herself. Torn clothes but no injuries. No scars at all. She couldn’t finish the question, it was too impossible. Too stupid.

  Hass answered anyway. “Yes.”

  “And the water…”

  “Yes.”

  She looked him up and down again, then pulled him into a hug. “You were so scared of the water. You put me in?”

  “Yes.”

  “But it didn’t change you?”

  Hass smiled. “No.” He had tears in his eyes. Why would he be crying? Chase felt so happy. She’d never felt so relaxed. How could she stay this way?

  Chase tried to think again. He’d confirmed for her, she’d been… she’d been…

  She fell to her knees. “Dead.”

  But how was that possible? What the hell had just happened? Dammit, now she was crying. Why was she crying? There wasn’t any need to cry in the water. She started to crawl forward, but Hass held her back. He settled down behind her, pulling her close.

  “Marah, listen to me.”

  Chase tipped her head back. Screamed. Shouted. They weren’t words, more guttural whatevers. I NEED TO GO BACK.

  “Trust me. Marah. Trust me. Stay with me. Trust me.”

  She wanted the water. She needed the water.

  The water accepted her.

  The water accepted Hass, too. Listen to your friend.

  Trust him. Her own voice was telling her that. Trust him. Listen to him. Stay with him. She closed her eyes, screamed again, but it was different this time. It was acceptance. They were staying here. They weren’t moving until Hass said so. Those arms weren’t letting her go until they wanted to.

  She needed to listen. To breathe. To trust.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “Nash shot you.”

  “He killed me.”

  Nash paused before answering. “Yes.”

  “But you were dead.”

  “Not quite. Almost. Nash thought I was dead. But I had a little left.”

  “You got us to the water?”

  “Dragged you over. After Nash left. I didn’t have the strength to push you in or throw you, but I knew I could pull you in with me.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Can we stop fighting now?”

  She laughed, kissed his forearm. “Thank you.”

  Hass relaxed his grip. Chase shuffled over to sit next to him. They were surrounded by bushes. The fruit and berries stared at her. Calling to her. She could feel the pull to go back to the water. Her clothes were still wet, and she could still feel the touch, the dose of happiness.

  “I don’t know if I can trust myself,” she said.

  “Trust me.”

  She looked over at him. Still glowing with health, strength. He seemed calm. Relaxed.

  “How are you not feeling it?”

  He breathed out. Smiled again. “I am. Believe me. But I’m in control of me.”

  “What happened to Nash?”

  “Picked up his gear and went back up the trail. I think Nazi Bitchpot is up there with him.”

  “It felt like I was doing a lot of shouting when you pulled me out.”

  “A little, yeah.”

  “Enough for him to hear?”

  Hass shrugged. “Maybe. That’s why I pulled us back here, in case he came back down.”

  “Are you feeling as amazing as I am right now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Shall we go kick their asses?”

  “Hell yeah.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Lauren worked fast. The quake had moved the schedule up. She’d always expected to have time to study the water fully. Buy the land, claim it, protect it. Own whatever minerals were in the ground. Build a bottling plant over the Fountain, maybe buy out whatever country it was in, market the hell out of it. Imagine the potential.

  Well, she had. Nonstop. Forever. Dosa Cola privatizing the answer to eternal youth. Reverse engineering the process. Controlling it. Fifty years for you, sir. A hundred for you. Only ten for you. This was the future, and it was almost here. And her parents had been wrong. They should have listened to her. They would.

  But now the whole stupid mountain was going to explode. She could only collect enough samples to analyze the water back home.

  If it even was the water. The paintings on the wall seemed to show those red plants way more than they showed this pool or any kind of river. And the ceremonial altar, if that was really what it was, had been where the plant was growing at its thickest, floating on the water. Plants could carry retroviruses. That was already something people were researching. The next age of health resources would be using genetically engineered DNA, editing to kill off diseases rather than causing them. She’d helped fund a whole load of that research. And maybe this plant, right here, was the answer.

  She collected samples of the plant. Half a dozen leaves, the dark berries that seemed to grow off the branches, the stems and the suction cups that held them fast to the cave wall. She froze them in a portable cryo chamber, a small black box. Next, she took out another small cryo box, this one filled with plastic bottles, and started filling the bottles with water from the pool, placing each sample carefully into the chamber before sealing it.

  And now the main project.

  She found the small control panel on the inside of each pod. With the press of one button, small skids folded out underneath, lifting the pods a couple of inches off the ground and making them easier to push. She guided the pods to the water’s edge. A second button engaged a mechanism inside, which lifted two casket-size cryo boxes out of the pods and suspended them over the water.

  This next part was the leap of faith.

  What were the water’s limits? Not for the first time, she regretted throwing Eades
from the plane. She’d been injured. If she had been here, they could have made use of her. Hell, they could have killed her here and used her as a test.

  That was what she needed. She ran to the edge of the cliff, where the path started down the mountain, and met Nash, already on his way back up. He paused when he saw her.

  “Where’s Chase?” she said.

  “Dead.”

  “You said that before.”

  Lauren hadn’t realized she was angry at him until saying that. But she was. Her friends in London had relied on her to deliver, and she’d trusted Nash to take care of it. Now she looked foolish. He wasn’t the man she thought. Not a major problem—in a few minutes everything else would fall into place and she could take the time to reconsider the whole Nash thing.

  “This time I mean it,” Nash said. “Shot her. Stayed there to watch her die.”

  “Where is she?”

  Nash paused, hesitated. Half turned to point back down the trail, then shook his head and looked at her like you doubt me? “Down there.”

  Lauren smiled, put her hand up in a calming gesture. She could see his blood was hot. Why was it always on her to manage the failings of the people around her?

  “I have my equipment ready,” she said. “I need to run tests first, and I think the ultimate test would be a dead body.”

  He smiled again, nodded, and headed back down the trail.

  Lauren turned back to the pods.

  I need this to work.

  I need this to work.

  She looked down at her hand again. The total lack of a scar. The skin looked younger there. Brand-new. Renewed. She knelt down, touched the water. It was warm. Inviting. As it soaked into her skin, she could feel the lake wanted her. And she wanted it.

  * * *

  Nash headed back down. He kept his swearing under his breath until he was out of earshot of Lauren. God damn but women needed to make up their minds. Go kill Chase, no, go fetch Chase. He didn’t like this new Lauren, the one who’d emerged since they landed in the valley. For the last few days, she’d been all about making him feel wanted, showing him the number of zeroes that had already been transferred to his account. Talking big, about how they would both be sitting on an empire once this was done, as equals, as the only man who ever understood her. She was the only woman he’d ever really wanted to please.