Cadence

by Wilson, Dianne J. ;

  23

  Evazee backed down, but Kai could see her staring at him when she thought he wasn’t looking. None of those sneaky looks escaped Kai, but he pretended to be oblivious. The empty syringe in his hand became a silent accuser; his jury, judge, and executioner.

  They’d argued back and forth about waiting or trying to get out. In the end, a worm swimming past had decided it for them. Who knew when their particular worm would be back for his snack? There was no point hanging around to find out.

  They’d practiced a drill on the lower drawers. Evazee went first, tapping drawers open with her feet. Kai followed behind hauling out amulets and climbing the drawers as he went. After some fumbling, it all seemed to work. All they had to do now was psych themselves up to keep going all the way up and out.

  “Are you ready for this?” Kai couldn’t read Evazee’s face. She seemed to hover between anger and determination.

  “Are you ready?”

  “I guess we’ll never know until we try.” He waved her towards the wall and she stepped up and got moving. Kick, climb, kick, climb.

  Kai followed, hauling out amulets and climbing.

  The two of them were sweating by the time they reached halfway up. There was no time to pause. Kai felt the thick double thump of his pulse through his system. This was exhausting. The amulets he’d retrieved hung around his neck and weighed a ton, making climbing harder. There was no telling how much time had passed, other than his screaming muscles.

  Evazee was breathing heavily up ahead, and her pace slowed slightly.

  “Keep going, Zee. I’m on borrowed time.” Kai stepped off a drawer as it pulled shut. They needed to move quicker. The timing was getting too close.

  They made it all the way to the last circle.

  “Faster, Zee! We’re nearly there.” Kai glanced down. That was a mistake. The ground was a long way down. To get this far and fail... His head swam a little as panic trickled through his veins.

  Evazee stepped off the last drawer onto the safety of the rim. Kai reached in for the last amulet, hung it around his neck with the others. As he stepped up, the last drawer snapped shut. His other foot slipped off the edge, and he lost his balance. Zee grabbed his arm. For a moment he thought they might be safe, but her weight was no match for his and he pulled her with him.

  They clung to each other as they fell, yelling as adrenalin raced. Kai held Evazee with one hand and clung to the amulets with the other. The jelly walls rushed past faster. Their screaming would surely bring a worm. But did it matter since they were about to die?

  They dropped like rocks. Suddenly Kai felt gravity shift as if they were being sucked sideways, much faster than before. Everything around them blurred and the colours smeared and ran into each other. They flew between two pillars, hit the ground hard, and rolled, carried along by momentum. Kai bumped up against an immovable force, dressed in sandals.

  He lay back and checked his body for injuries. His ribs ached, his legs felt like jelly, but he was still breathing, and he didn’t seem to be bleeding. Death, it seemed, wasn’t as painful as he thought it would be.

  Evazee prodded him. “Kai, wake up.”

  “You’re here too! That makes me happy.” He patted her arm and lay back, pleased to see a solid roof over his head and no jelly walls. Wait, what? Kai pushed himself up on his elbow, blinked away stars. The basement of the OS settled into view as the stars dwindled.

  Evazee whispered, “The testing arch brought us back. We must have passed. I think these people are a bit shocked to see you.”

  The priests from Zulu’s village surrounded them, as wary as if they were seeing a ghost.

  Kai sat up and the amulets around his neck clinked like music.

  A ripple of shock shot through the men. They backed off, whispering to each other.

  The circle opened up, and the chief priest stepped forward with Zulu at his side. He pushed Zulu to his knees before turning his attention to Kai.

  “What is this imilingo? My people locked you up in our village. How can you be back?”

  Zulu stared at Kai with the intensity of a cat stalking a bird. “He wants to know what magic this is that brought you back. Imilingo means magic.”

  Evazee said nothing, and this dictator would not put up with silence.

  Kai pushed himself to his feet with the amulets clinking around his neck like sports medals. He reached into his pocket and found the amulet with Zulu’s scar. He held it in his palm as he spoke. “I have some things that will help us find your boys.” I think. “Zulu, this might be yours.” He walked over to give it to Zulu and caused another ripple of muttering and back-stepping.

  These priests were scared.

  Zulu took the amulet, ran his fingers down the groove that matched his scar. He slipped it over his neck and popped it open. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he rose to his full height. He seemed taller, broader, larger than life. A deep roar started in his belly and worked its way up, building intensity, growing, filling the room. It tore from his mouth as an angry growl aimed straight at the priests from his village. He stepped towards them and they crumbled before his anger. Another step. The roar grew deeper, louder, rattling the windows.

  Kai blocked his ears and shot a worried glance at Evazee. She shook her head and shrugged.

  The priests around them howled and ran from the room, tripping over each other to get up the stairs and through the trapdoor.

  As they left, Zulu snapped the amulet shut and as it clicked, he shrank back to his normal self. He held the amulet clutched in his enormous hands and shook from head to toe. He grinned at them both, swaying on his feet. “I’m going to rest now.” He left the room with one hand trailing along the wall to keep him upright. The amulet’s effect on Zulu was both awesome and terrifying.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t have done that.” Kai put an arm around Evazee, more for his comfort than hers. This serum was different to what he’d had before. The last batch had shifted him entirely into the spiritual realm, but this batch seemed to bring both the natural and the spiritual into sharp focus, like some warped new dimension.

  “I don’t understand. What did we just see? The result of what he did is amazing, the priests are gone. But I won’t lie. It scared me, more than a little. Restoring what has been stolen from someone should be a peaceful thing. I didn’t think it would be quite so dramatic.” Evazee’s hands were shaking.

  “I think we witnessed Zulu expressing his talent.”

  “Which is what? Roaring?”

  “No, man. He’s a protector and a helper.”

  “Oh! That makes sense.”

  Now more than ever, Kai regretted his impulsive decision to inject the serum. Under the influence of it, he couldn’t trust what he saw. Before, he could easily discern broken from whole. Right from wrong. Now? He couldn’t trust his Affinity. He couldn’t trust himself.

  ~*~

  Evazee ran the options in her mind. “Come on. We need to go find Runt and the others. I don’t think we can help Zulu right now, he just needs to rest.”

  They ran up the stairs and through the trapdoor into the main section of the building. The place seemed deserted.

  “Torn’s office. Let’s go.” Kai led them through deserted passages. As they got closer to Torn’s office, he heard banging and shouting. The key was in the outside of the lock. Kai turned it and the door swung inwards, depositing Zap and Ruaan in a heap on the floor.

  The others sat in a row along the wall, all squished up. There was no sign of any of the priests. Peta flew at Evazee and squeezed her tight. Paintbrush did the same with Kai, while Runt waited with her arms crossed.

  “Did they hurt you? You’re not being guarded?” Evazee stretched her neck to see around the corner.

  Runt shook her head, but her lip quivered, and she bit her lip again.

  Ruaan rolled Zap onto the floor. “They took off in a hurry. Strangely, they didn’t think it necessary to explain themselves to us.”

  “Is e
verybody back? Have you done a headcount?” Evazee glanced around, but there were too few in the room. Most of Zulu’s boys were still gone too. Those that were there were sweaty and tired. “You guys must be hungry. Go find something to eat. Maybe go lie down and rest once you’ve eaten.”

  As the room cleared, Boety stood up from the corner.

  Relief washed through Evazee at the sight of him. “Boety! Did they catch you?”

  Boety shook his head. “This room was my hiding spot. I didn’t know they were going to lock everybody in here.” He grinned and his face lit up.

  Seeing his smile warmed Evazee inside, and she wanted to hug him. His face reminded her of Zulu downstairs alone. “Boety, your brother is downstairs. He chased away the priests, but now he’s worn out. We don’t know how to help him.”

  “I’ll go.” The boy shot out of the room and disappeared down the passage.

  Evazee sat back and let the wall hold her up.

  Kai had been quiet since they’d sent everybody out. He stood off to one side, staring out the window, chewing on his thumb knuckle.

  Zap ambled over and stood behind Kai with his hands on his hips. He leaned in close with his head cocked to one side. A minute later, he poked Kai in the shoulder. “I can’t hear what you’re thinking anymore, but I can see all sorts of nonsense going on in your head by the way your face is scrunched up. Are you going to tell us what’s going on?”

  Kai leaned close and whispered.

  Zap’s eyes went wide, and he thumbed towards Kai’s back. “Our boy here wants to go blow up the serum storage at Bree’s old school. Now that sounds like fun. Who’s in?”

  ~*~

  Kai heard his plan coming out of Zap’s mouth, and it sounded like pure lunacy. In his head it made so much sense. He turned to his friends. “What do you guys think? I know it’s only one fraction of a worldwide problem. But that stuff is going into everything and it’s going everywhere. It’s lethal. Once they’ve started distribution, it will be too late. We have to do something now.” He considered the enormity of the problem and his heart raged. “We can’t stop it, but maybe we can slow them down.”

  Anger burned through him. He felt the serum in his body like cancer. Invisible but deadly. And this time, it wouldn’t wear off. It was in him for life. A death sentence in his blood. Just because there was no hope for him, didn’t mean that he couldn’t make a dent in the enemy’s plans for the others.

  Zap still had his hands on his hips, but his eyebrows bunched in the middle of his forehead. “I’m all for a good explosion or two, don’t get me wrong. The thing is if you blow up the building and all the serum in it, there’s a good chance that all you’ll be doing is releasing it into the atmosphere. The heat of the explosion would make it evaporate and in gas form, it’s heavier than air.”

  “So you’re saying it will be in the air that we breathe, and it won’t dissipate but hang around?” Evazee wiggled her fingers in the air.

  Zap nodded, “That’s what I think.”

  “But wouldn’t it thin out and become ineffective?” Ruaan had the sceptical slant to his eyebrows that seemed to happen often around Zap.

  “Do you really want to take that risk?”

  Evazee cleared her throat. “Apart from the fact that it’s illegal to blow up buildings. There’s always that small fact that you might want to think about. Just maybe.”

  Kai’s mind spun. “You’re right. We can’t do that.” A breeze ruffled some papers on Torn’s desk, and Kai moved a paperweight onto the pile to stop it. “If we can’t destroy the serum, the only other option is to neutralize it. Zap would need to get back in the lab and figure it out.”

  Zap shook his head. “Don’t even go there. I don’t know enough. Even if I did, the lab here at the OS is a dismal little thing. It’s not equipped for that level of investigation. We’ll have to think of something else.”

  Kai’s head felt like it might split in two. “Seriously though, if you can’t neutralize the stuff, then we have to get ourselves someone who can.”

  Zap shot up straight and stared at Ruaan with eyes so wide he looked a little crazy. “Are you serious right now?”

  Evazee waggled a finger at Zap, “Please stop doing that.”

  Zap shrugged, “What?”

  “Dipping into people’s brains the way you’d eat yoghurt with a spoon. We all need to hear what’s going on, you know.”

  Zap sank into the corner of the couch muttering. “Well, fine. I just think kidnapping some scientists from a high-security building out in the middle of the desert may just get us locked up. But, whatever.”

  “Ruaan? Please tell me he’s making that stuff up?” Evazee’s face paled a few shades.

  “The way I see it, we don’t have a choice, and we’re out of time. And we need to move now before Zulu’s priests decide they’re brave enough to come back and face the Imilingo. They might know how to get the amulets free without us having to bring along all these small people.”

  “How are you planning to get back inside? From what I’ve heard, you don’t just go waltzing back in through the front gate.” Evazee’s voice had raised a few notches.

  Kai reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. “I took this off a notice board. They’re looking for test subjects for their serum.”

  “Did it hurt when it died?” The scorn in Evazee’s words stung.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The last brain cell that contained any common sense at all. It must have hurt when it died.”

  “It will get us straight to the scientists. Straight to Bree’s Dad. They are the ones we need.”

  Ruaan fiddled with the pendant hanging beneath his t-shirt, scuffing the floor with his shoe. “Do you know how much red tape you have to wade through to be accepted as a test subject? There are forms to go through and sign, tests to be done, physicals... It could take weeks before we even see a scientist.” His face crumpled in a frown as he scratched his chin.

  Zap frowned at Ruaan. Then his eyebrow popped up, and he nodded. “That’s not a bad idea.”

  Evazee threw her hands up in exasperation. “Will you stop it! What now?”

  Zap pointed at Ruaan. “He’s thinking we should try St. Greg’s.”

  “For what?” Kai’s nose pulled up.

  Ruaan shrugged. “It’s just a thought. They’re working with the Recruiters. Just because we shut down their operations at the OS doesn’t mean they’re not still going strong elsewhere. Bree and Elden’s old school is being used for storing serum, why wouldn’t there be something dodgy at St. Greg’s?” Ruaan’s stomach growled, but he patted it and turned his attention back to their conundrum.

  Zap scratched his head. “Should we find you some food before—”

  “I’m fine, really. You’ve been trying to force-feed me all day. I’m hungry, but I can wait.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “If you keep asking me that, I’ll probably get angry.”

  Zap flung his hands up in surrender. “No, it’s all good.” He shot Ruaan a puzzled look. Since getting his amulet back, the boy had been as meek as amicable as after a full meal. Judging by the way Zap was eyeing Ruaan, he clearly didn’t trust the change. Zap turned back to Kai. “I’m beginning to wonder if these schools are connected.” He waved a hand in frustration at his clumsy words. “We know that they are connected with all the recruiting and stuff, but I’m thinking physically. Secret roads, maybe?”

  Kai sat up straight. “There could be an entrance to Brio Talee or something similar.”

  Zap looked both chuffed that someone understood, and a bit sick at the mention of Brio Talee. “Exactly. Though I’m hoping for something less, uh, spirit realmy.”

  “You remember how we used to hear rattling in the middle of the night? Sometimes our windows would shake, and we were scared of earthquakes...”

  “Except now we know that we don’t get earthquakes here.” Zap’s face lit up with c
onspiratorial wonder. He clicked his fingers.

  “You might not be as insane as you sound right now.” Kai grinned at his friend.

  Evazee stuck her hand in the air. “So while we are all out hunting for secret earthquake-inducing roads,” thick sarcasm laced her words, “who will be watching over this lot and those who come back from the testing arch?”

  24

  Kai found Zulu’s boys sitting in a circle around him in the sleeping hall. They’d covered him with a blanket and sat talking quietly amongst themselves. From the outside it looked as if Zulu lay fast asleep, but Kai wasn’t sure what to make of it all.

  He joined their circle, and they shuffled sideways to make space for him. He’d brought the amulets from the well in their village. He’d watched the change in Ruaan and seeing Zulu rise up and take a stand against the bad things the priests of his village wanted him to do, convinced him this was the right choice. Between the Healing Stream water that they’d drunk and getting their amulets back, Kai couldn’t wait to see how much these boys changed. If their response was anything like Zulu’s, they’d have some serious power on their side.

  “Guys, we’ve got big trouble. We have a plan to fix the trouble, but I’ll need to ask you a favour.”

  They bum-shuffled closer and bowed their heads. When they looked up, there was steel in their eyes. “Our swords are yours, Bright One.”

  Bright One. He had a name? He didn’t know what to make of that, so he ignored it and moved on. “Will you watch over the people here? We need to go do something. I hope that what we find out will free all the people of your village.”

  “Even the priests?” Boety waved towards the boys that were back. “Priests are bad for most these boys. Village traditions are broken. Very bad. You make magic to fix?”

  “Yes, I hope so. It’s not magic, though, just...” Kai didn’t know how to explain it. “It doesn’t matter. We want to fix it, but we have to go away to find the cure, and we can’t leave them alone.”

  Boety banged his chest twice with a clenched fist. “On it. Go in peace.”