Ignis

by Tracy Korn

  “Is that Cole Daniels?” I ask, noticing my mouth starting to dry out because it’s hanging open. I snap it shut.

  “The Weasel of State himself,” Denison says. “Looks like we cut ourselves a big, juicy fly, Mr. Hart.”

  I shake off my astonishment and get to my feet. “OK, we need to move. We need to find my sister and the others. Where’s the archive DNA?”

  “Luz has it below. We can grab it on the way out. Are you ready for this?” Denison asks with a decisive nod.

  “Ready as I’m going to get for infiltrating an illegal lab full of people who want to kill me.”

  “Excellent. Let’s go.”

  Denison and I make our way to the airlock of the Wraith and stop when we hear Ellis come over the comms. “Their security feed will loop out in about ten seconds. You will have sixty more to get from here to that door up there. On my mark…” he says, and after a few beats more, “Three…two…go!”

  The airlock opens in a whoosh, and Denison and I both sprint toward the stairs. We take them three at a time, but the door is locked once we reach it.

  Denison swears and hits the comm system on his arm. “We need access—can you locate the panel?”

  “Not from here. Wait. I’ll try to pull up the source code,” Avis says.

  “We don’t have time for that,” I say, scanning the open hangar below us. “You’re going to have to hit that puddle jumper with some juice and then get the hell out of here before they close the outer door.”

  “That will bust the ion seal—you’ll suffocate!” Ellis says over the comms.

  I grit my teeth. “Not if you move fast. It’ll seal behind you. Go!”

  “But we won’t be able to get back in!”

  “Damn it! Figure that out later! Hit that ship now and run!”

  A few seconds later, a small pulse of light seems to come out of nowhere, then explodes the entire back end of the little jet-like ship just below us. Ripples of electricity run over the Wraith like lightning, and I start to see its outline.

  “Get out of here!” Denison says into the comm system on his forearm. The popping sound of the Wraith pushing back through the ion field is almost deafening, but everything drops to the background with the sudden blast of freezing air, which feels like a cold hand reaching straight down my throat to crush my lungs. Denison grabs a fistful of my jumpsuit collar and pulls me against the wall just before the door flies open and several more guards in red uniforms pour down the stairs behind us.

  As quickly as it came, the burning cold is gone, and I can breathe again as I watch the last of the rippling lightning disappear into the haze beyond the hangar opening. Before the door closes, Denison and I rush through…straight into another group of guards in red uniforms.

  CHAPTER 29

  Outfitting

  Jazz

  We get about another fifty feet before I remember we can’t go any deeper than we are without being in range of a hub like Gaia Sur, or at least a remote hub like the dive suits we had. The baseline nanites they gave us at Gaia Sur won’t work without it.

  “Wait. How are we going to go any deeper without a hub?” I ask, turning to Liam. “Our nanites are offline?”

  “How deep are these Vishan tunnels?” he asks.

  “Five or six miles,” Cal answers. “If we go by way of the supply tunnels, it’s almost a straight shot—that’s the trajectory we’re on now.”

  Liam shakes his head. “Yeah, we can’t make that depth. Not without a suit of some kind.”

  “I don’t have the equipment for a treatment, either,” Cal adds, and to everyone’s surprise, one of Vishan boys suddenly elbows the other in the arm. They both start yelling back and forth in their language.

  “Criminy, stop! You sound like chickens scalding on a tin roof!” Dell interrupts after a few more seconds of this.

  “You knew we’d need what?” Cal presses them when they finally stop talking, and they both start to answer at the same time. “Dev! You speak…”

  The Vishan boy who started the fight reaches into his satchel and pulls out Vita’s treatment kit…the reeds, the stones, even the special pain root and the little bowl. Everyone’s eyes go wide. “When the Seaboarders came to us the first time, Veece flared five kinds of red about them getting treatments, but you did it anyway,” he says to Cal. “They made it through the Rush because of you. Vita even sat Veece down about it sayin’ how sometimes you just have to make the call like that. So, when we grabbed the whizzer, we figured she wouldn’t mind us borrowing this in case things didn’t mix out right, and we had to bring those new Seaboarders back to the cavern.” He nods first to Finn, then to Liam.

  Dell’s mouth hangs open until he tucks his top lip into the bottom one and nods like a proud father at the boy, who must be just barely thirteen judging from the fairly fresh, pink arrow scarring on his face and throat.

  “Is that what you thought?” Cal answers, tight lipped. The boys both take a step back from him as he holds his hand out for the satchel. The boy hesitantly takes it off his shoulder and extends it. Cal snatches the bag and takes another look inside, then looks up at the boys, whose normally-tanned faces, like all the Vishan, are white with fear. After another second, Cal laughs and shoves the bigger boy’s shoulder. Blood rushes back into both of their faces as they let out a breath.

  “Uh, I hate to break it to everyone,” I say. “But didn’t you say Spaulding’s men are making their way south anytime now? We don’t have twenty-four hours to wait for these treatments to kick in again.”

  “They won’t take that long,” Liddick says almost immediately. “At least…not for you. Cal retreated us when we went back into the Rush to make our way up through the tunnels… The fire didn’t work right away, but it didn’t take all night the second time, and I didn’t feel like I fell off a cliff afterward.”

  “Jack told me about these treatments,” Liam says. “You heat blood over some hematite and boron, then inject it? Somehow it’s supposed to bond? That’s ridiculous.”

  “Who cares how it works as long as it does? But even still, we don’t have the time for it to kick in for us,” I press, and Finn startles with an idea.

  “Wait! These suits are outfitted for going deep.” He points at the chest of the black fatigues he’s wearing.

  “Those?” Vox narrows her eyes. “It’s just a coverall.”

  “No…these.” Finn pulls down the collar of the heavier top shirt to reveal a slim red base layer that looks a lot like the blue ones we had at Gaia Sur. He nods to Liam. “Take this suit. It should fit you. Spaulding’s men will report back that they saw you. You’ll just endanger everyone topside if you turn back, so I’ll go. I’ll say you knocked me out, and when I woke up you were gone. They don’t know I helped you,” Finn says to Liddick, taking off the top layer of his fatigues. “I’ll get Azeris into Grisham’s hab and we’ll find you again,” he adds, unfastening his belt.

  I hold up a hand. “Whoa, wait. Maybe you can—“

  “Perfect. Strip!” Vox declares, cutting me off. She turns to Cal and rolls up her white sleeve. “I’ll do the honors this time.”

  Cal gives her a curt head shake. “No, we don’t know if it will work since your line has evolved topside. I’ll do it.”

  Vox rolls her eyes. “If I can survive in your caverns, not to mention in the Rush without a treatment, my blood has obviously evolved to be just as unsquishable as yours,” she protests. Cal closes his eyes in a long blink and mutters something in Vishan. She shrugs at him and puffs air in his general direction. “Pffft. Fine, if you want to put unnecessary holes in yourself,” she says, rolling up her sleeve as if she’s now racing Cal, who has also started rolling his.

  “What’s happening?” I ask, looking from one of them to the other.

  “I’m topping it off just in case.” He narrows his eyes at Vox, though I see him forcing back a smile once she looks away.

  “Ha! I’m first,” she says, offering her map-tattooed arm to Cal. He sig
hs and stops rolling his sleeve as she gives him a pressed smile, then glances at me. “Hurry up, sand dollar. We have to move.”

  ***

  When I open my eyes, I can’t see anything except for fire crawling about three feet over my face until it dissipates and new flames replace it. I gasp, inhaling a mouth full of dust that makes me choke, and when I try to reach for something solid, I only grasp scratchy fabric on either side of me. It’s then that I realize I’m in some kind of hammock…and I’m moving.

  “What—?”

  “Stop, stop!” Liddick says, then drops to one knee to take off a backpack, but my legs drop as I realize the backpack is connected to the hammock. The heels of my boots hit the ground, and I leap off the fabric to whirl around in front of Liam, who was apparently supporting my other end. He pulls his arms through the makeshift straps of the burlap wrap and chucks it to the ground.

  “You’re a lot heavier than you look.” He chuckles.

  “How do you feel?” Liddick asks. “Stiff? Sore?”

  “Not really…not like the first time by the stream,” I answer, the memory of him helping me that night flooding back. I shake my head and refocus on the burlap knotted together on the ground. “What did you do?” I ask. “And how long were you carrying me in that thing?”

  “You were only out a few hours after the treatment—we tied your wrap together with Liam’s and Vox’s to make the sling,” Liddick explains, beads of sweat collecting, then streaming down his temples. I immediately feel guilty.

  “Oh…sorry. I didn’t want you to have to carry me.”

  “Stop. It was the only way. We’re about a mile out yet. Can you walk?”

  “Yeah, of course,” I answer, though I’m still a little dizzy. There’s no way I’m getting back in that sling for them to carry me again, though. I hold out my palm and try to concentrate on making my palm itch to bring back the Vishan fire, but nothing happens.

  “That will take a while…”

  “Took an antlion to light it for him this last time.” Dell chuckles as we all start walking again.

  “What?!” I gasp at Liddick.

  “Uh, yeah we had a run-in… Everything was fine.”

  “After he yelled at it,” Dell adds, laughing openly now. “Just went all Tarzan!”

  I stare at Liddick, whose lips quirk. “It wasn’t a Tarzan yell, thank you very much.”

  “Right, right. More like the ape’s.” Dell laughs so hard this time, he makes himself cough, and Cal narrows his eyes in a glare at them both.

  “What’s a Tarzan?” Cal asks. Everyone except he and the two Vishan boys laugh now. “What? Why is that funny?”

  “Nothing, nothing,” Liddick says, slapping Cal on the back and swallowing the rest of his laughter. “I’ll explain it later.”

  Cal gives him a side eye and scans everyone still choking on bubbles of laughter, but his expression changes when he abruptly stops.

  “Vox—hey…” he crosses quickly to her. Her face is paler than normal, and she’s swaying with each step.

  “I’m good!” she slurs.

  “What’s wrong with her?” I cross to her on the other side of Cal, who moves under her arm.

  “You started to wake up a few minutes after we treated you, so we had to supplement with some of Vox’s blood,” he says. “It takes a toll.”

  “You took out maybe two ounces,” Liam balks.

  “It takes time to replace. Two ounces of our blood is like several pints of yours.”

  “Well, that explains a lot!” Vox slurs again, then starts laughing. Cal talks quietly to her in Vishan, saying something that just makes her laugh-snort. He rolls his eyes.

  “My sister will give her Avo juice and she’ll be fine—we’re almost there.”

  “Is that the stuff that smells like dead fish?” Vox snorts again. “Because, thanks, no.”

  I feel more guilt well up in my chest seeing her like this, and between that and being closed up again in these narrow tunnels, everything starts to feel claustrophobic.

  Take a breath, Rip, Liddick thinks, reading me. She’s fine. You heard Cal. There’s nothing to feel guilty about.

  His confirmation should make me feel better, but it doesn’t, and as soon as I realize this, Vox has already read me too and is slurring again.

  “Just call him back, sand dollar.”

  I turn to her, and she widens her yellow cat eyes at me like I’ve missed something obvious. “What?”

  “Tell him you were just happy to be right when he kissed you. Easy!”

  I’m frozen, unsure of what to say to her after that, mainly because I don’t know how to tell her she’s wrong. I don’t know if she is wrong, and with every second of trying to think of something, I realize more and more that she’s exactly right. Kissing Liddick wasn’t about him. It was about me. About knowing I was right that he didn’t betray us like everyone thought he did. It was…victory?

  “Victory!!” Vox says much too loudly.

  “Stow it!” I hiss at her, feeling my face flush as Dell and Liddick catch up to us.

  “Right about what?” Liddick asks.

  “Nothing—how close are we to the cavern now?”

  Liam looks at me and sighs. “Not close enough.”

  CHAPTER 30

  Trackers

  Arco

  I count four guards who rush us as we come through the door. For a second I struggle with them, but then realize they’re not trying to drag us off—they’re just trying to push us out of the way. Denison and I look at each other, astonished—they must think we’re guards. We quickly start walking away from the door panel after it closes behind them.

  “It’s the red uniforms,” Denison says.

  “I forgot we were dressed like them.” I say, looking down at my clothes. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to keep my pace steady. “Where are we going? We need to get everyone out before we plant that archive.”

  “The first thing we need to do is get out of sight.” Denison steers us around a series of corners until we come upon a small hallway. He scans the ceiling and then nods at me. I shake my head at him, confused.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Surveillance. I don’t see any here, but we still shouldn’t stay long. We have to keep moving so they don’t discover we got off that ship.”

  Denison opens his hand and pushes the thin line of a faded incision in the base of his palm. A second later, a conical blue field appears with a grid inside. After another second, several blinking red dots appear, then take on the shape of everyone’s faces: my sister’s, Jax’s, Jack’s, Lyden’s.

  “When did you get our tracker uplink? You weren’t in The Seam building when we had those put in.”

  “I’ve had this awhile. Calyx just uploaded your locator code to my feed. Look!” He watches the final dot take on the shape of a face in the base of the cone. “Eco...”

  “Why isn’t he with everyone else? Where is that?”

  “He’s in the oxygen trials wing. That’s the first stage of treatments for the Organics we saw,” Denison says, and I can’t understand how he has managed to be affiliated with a place like this all these years, just biding his time. I press my teeth together to keep my questions to myself. We don’t have time for an ethics discussion right now.

  “So then where are the others? What is this part?” I ask, pointing to the center of the cone where everyone’s avatars are.

  “Recovery rooms…” Denison meets my eyes in the same second the dread of what this means hits us.

  “No way. There hasn’t been enough time to put them through any procedures. It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours,” I say as soon as the idea registers. Denison thins his lips and nods in agreement, but that doesn’t make me feel any better. I push down the nerves because we don’t have time for them either. “We need more weapons. The guards who rushed through the door back there had neural rays.”

  The console on Denison’s arm blinks. “The Wr
aith is clear—they’re going back to The Seam to regroup.”

  “Then we won’t have a ride back anytime soon. We need to find a backup in case they can’t get through the barrier again,” I say. “Are there ships here?” I ask, my mind going a mile a minute and in three different directions.

  “Without port-carnate tech on site, there would have to be,” Denison answers. “Calyx would know. We need to move.”

  Denison slips around the corner first, waving at me to follow him. We walk casually through the corridor without making eye contact with anyone else in red until a few balding men in long, white lab coats approach. It’s harder not to focus on them, considering they’re no doubt the ones actually executing the genetic experiments up here. I catch the eyes of one of the doctors and look away immediately, but it’s too late. His face contorts in confusion at first, but then his eyes widen.

  “That’s two of them—“ he starts to say to the other doctor next to him. Before they can call attention to us, Denison and I pull them back around the corner. It doesn’t take much to subdue them since they’re both thin and, well, not young. To my surprise, Denison grabs the throat of the doctor closest to him and squeezes until the man gasps for air.

  “Briggs,” the doctor wheezes. “You…traitor.”

  “I’m the traitor? You swore an oath to protect these kids, not exploit them, you selfish parasite!” Denison snarls, reaching into the man’s coat and yanking off some kind of badge with a little black stick attached to it. He jabs the stick under the man’s chin while the smaller doctor in front of me tries to make a run for it. I grab his lapel and slam him against the wall, pushing my fist into his throat.

  “You stay right there!” I say through my teeth, then rifle through his coat for the lanyard he must be wearing too. I jerk it from his neck and find the little black stick attached, which seems to be a miniature neural baton. I shove it into his neck.