Ignis

by Tracy Korn

  The feed switches back to the studio setting with Monty, the dark-haired reporter.

  “Thank you, Faris. In related news today, the neural network is still down as crews report continued combustion in the port-cloud after nearly forty-eight hours of chain-reaction catalysts. These appear to be linked to the launch of the embedded sea-to-space vessel unearthed about 1,500 miles off the Atlantic Coast two days ago. Reconstructed data thumbprints implicate known hacker, Howard Grisham, who was working to directly implement subliminal Biotech Global propaganda messages into popular virtuo-cines.”

  I look quickly at Arco, who’s already smiling. “You erased Ludwig Sprague? Did you erase all that when you were typing on the ship console?” Arco shrugs and lets his smile spread. “Tell me!” I laugh, elbowing him in the ribs.

  “I mean, the uplink connection to Phase Three was right there, already in the coordinates bridge. And Phase Three was already connected to the port-cloud, so…I just cleaned up the breadcrumbs a little.”

  “But you didn’t believe Liddick’s story,” I say, looking up at him. He turns to me and smiles.

  “No. But you did…”

  “Knock knock? Are you decent?” Jax asks, actually knocking on the curtain.

  “No,” Arco says. I smack his arm and laugh.

  “Uh, yes, come in,” I answer, muting the feed.

  Jax and Fraya push aside the curtain and stand at the end of my bed.

  “It’s going to take a while to get used to flatfeeds without the 3D neural connection,” he says, glancing at the screen on the wall. “So, feel all brand new with your freshly scrubbed DNA?”

  I smile at him. “I mean, I’ll probably miss not being able to throw a fireball at you, but…”

  “Oh, good, bad jokes! Guess that means you’ll make a full recovery.”

  “If I have anything to say about it,” my dad says, coming into the room with Dr. Denison, both of them in white lab coats. I flinch a little until I realize it’s them, and so does Arco. “Omniclass nanites should have you out of here within the hour.”

  “Omniclass?” I ask.

  “Well, we had to mix up an extra strength batch for an exceptionally stubborn pilot I know,” Dr. Denison says, smirking at Arco. “And I’m afraid it’s all we had on hand. Hopefully, they’ll do.”

  “You still can’t make fireballs, though—just saying…” Jax raises his eyebrows and shakes his head at me.

  “Is everyone else OK? Mom and Nann? Myra, Vox?” I ask.

  “Major Reynolt arranged for a team to bring our families here,” Arco says. “It should be any time now… I don’t even know how to begin telling them about everything,” he adds with a sigh.

  “The only thing I’m sure they’ll be interested in today is that you’re all safe…and home, son,” Dr. Denison says.

  Fraya wipes a tear and curls into Jax, who pulls her close. “And Myra was discharged with Jax and me a little while ago,” she says. “Zoe, Avis, and Ellis are with her while Azeris is getting the heliocar. It’s really over, Jazz… It’s really over.”

  Tears start to burn my eyes too, but I push them back. I’m afraid to ask about the ship and everyone aboard since no one has mentioned it yet. Were there windows in the ship? Did they survive the sunlight? Why did all those medical officials rush in there? I realize now that I let the whole thing slip away after the initial newsfeed report because if I’m honest, I’m terrified to know the answers.

  Everything that has gotten me to this point, though, has involved asking the questions that I’ve been afraid to answer, and I know it’s the only way to go forward now.

  “And Liddick? Vox, and Dell, and Liam…” I barely say their names because it feels like their fates are tied to disrupting as little of the air as possible. It’s only seconds before my father takes a deep breath and responds, but it feels like it lasts forever.

  “They’re all still at the ship site with the other Vishan and Badlanders,” he finally says. “Reese’s team is giving those who need them the same treatments they gave you and Zoe in order to reverse the volatility in their DNA.”

  I exhale the breath I’ve been holding throughout his response. “So…they’ll be able to go in the sun?”

  “Not as quickly as you will with the Omniclass nanites, but yes…soon. We’ll be able to see them tonight at the integration dinner the new Skyboard Council leader and the leaders from Vox’s clan are arranging.”

  “The new Council leader?” Fraya asks. My dad presses his lips together into a quick smile and nods.

  “Their previous one and Ed Paxton have a lot of explaining to do at The State tribunal alongside Cole Daniels, Van Spaulding, Giselle Rheen, and Eros Styx.”

  “I can’t believe this…” I say, still unsure if this is really happening or if I’m really just dreaming, or in a virtuo-cine, or in someone’s channel. “This is real? It’s real, isn’t it?”

  Arco interlaces his fingers with mine and brushes his thumb under my bottom lip. “This is real,” he says. “I promise. It’s real.”

  Heat fills my chest and races up my throat, threatening to close off anything else I want to say. I ask about his sister and Ms. Reynolt as fast as I can before that happens.

  “Luz’s nanites fixed her concussion before we even got to the hospital last night,” Dr. Denison says. “She’s at Reese’s clinic with Lyden and Arwyn,” he adds, then stiffly nods. “It’s going to take awhile to undo what they did to them. But if anyone can reverse it, it’s Reese and his team. Liam will also be on staff to help oversee things.”

  “And Calyx?” Arco asks. “Plus the test subjects from Phase Three and The Seam building?”

  “The patients housed at The Seam are mostly discharged and currently at The State’s remote office here at Skyboard giving statements about their experiences,” Dr. Denison says. “As for the ones with Reese?” He chuckles. “Calyx messaged that an Alpha Class security detail has been in place around the clinic since early this morning after The State decrypted the backup files of evidence from Phase Three that we sent.”

  “But what happened with the patrols who were there?” I ask.

  “Bound in IV tubing and left on the doorstep to wait for the security detail,” he says, letting his chuckles roll into a laugh, which infects us all.

  “The best biodesigners from around the world are transporting in, too, at the request of The State,” my dad adds. “Turns out they’re very grateful for the feeds we sent of Cole Daniels at the Phase Three facility.”

  “Is that Eco?” Fraya asks, turning to the flatfeed. I turn the volume back on and blink to make sure what I’m seeing is actually what I’m seeing.

  “—barely escaped with my life. Honestly, and I’ve seen a lot considering my years as a top alpha channel tester for the virtuo-cines, this was by far one of the most corrupt and revolting operations I’ve ever experienced,” Eco says.

  “Is he actually trying to cry?” Arco gapes.

  “Giselle Rheen and Eros Styx are the epitome of what’s wrong with this world,” Eco continues. “Morally bankrupt people who were only ever interested in personally profiting from others’ misery.”

  “That pathetic little skod!” Arco says, shaking his head in astonishment as I mute the feed. “I should have hit him harder.”

  “So he just gets away with everything?” Jax asks.

  “He doesn’t need the bars at Lima. His life is his prison,” I say, noticing the ache at the bottom of my chest as I watch him…a desperate, never-filling hole where Eco’s sense of self—a real acceptance, a real understanding of himself instead of just free-falling through the worlds of others—would be. I watch the muted feed of him wiping non-existent tears from his face for a few more seconds before turning it off. I try to imagine what it must be like to be so completely disconnected from anything real. To live explicitly in a world where you’re only ever a player in someone else’s game. “That has to be the loneliest thing in the world…” I whisper. “It has to be the worst p
unishment of all.”

  “Jazwyn?” a woman wearing long, dark braids with blue beads intertwined knocks at the door, and I feel the breath catch in my chest.

  “Ms. Wren…? How—“

  “I was volunteering at the evacuation center. There are a few people out here who are very interested in seeing you all.”

  CHAPTER 50

  The Leader

  Arco

  Fraya stays behind to help Jazz get dressed. I wait for them outside her room with Jax while Denison and Jack go with Ms. Wren, our Communications teacher from Seaboard North. On the other side of those doors, Jazz’s mom and little sister are waiting with Fraya’s parents and Myra’s. Ellis’s and Avis’s will be coming up with Azeris and Zoe, no doubt, and mine should be there too.

  I don’t think I’m the same person who left on that shuttle sub all those months ago. I don’t know if they’ll know me anymore…if I’ll know how to tell them who I am now, what I’ve seen, or what I’ve done that has made me so different than the person they hugged goodbye that morning on the shore.

  We’ve spent our whole lives pushing forward to get to a place that never existed, and now all I can seem to do is stand right here while what is real waits for me on the other side of the door.

  I blow out a breath and try to think of what to say, but no words come to me. When the girls come out of the room, Jazz takes my hand and smiles up at me. In that second, I start to understand why I can’t think of anything. Sometimes there aren’t any words. Sometimes, there’s only taking one step after another…forward.

  “Are you ready?” she asks. I nod. Jax throws an arm around my shoulder as Fraya takes his hand, and we make our way to the door.

  “Arwyn?” I say to myself when I see her locked in a hug with my mom and dad. She hears me and turns around.

  “I have to go back for follow-up treatments to remove all the DNA integrations—they’re not as cleanly fused as the Vishan treatments, but they were able to remove the volatility strand so far.” She wipes her tear-streaked face and tries to restore her composure.

  “They keep saying that Dr. Halliday is the best,” I say, swallowing hard to dislodge the knot forming in my chest. I clear my throat.

  “He wants you to come in with Dr. Denison and me later in the week for a scan, just to make sure everything is healed up there.” She cocks an eyebrow and messes up my hair. Not even a second passes before tears start streaming down her face again. “It’s so weird to reach up to do that…”

  I press my teeth together like a dam against the tears closing off my throat, but it doesn’t work. I squeeze my eyes shut for a second as a last-ditch effort and pull her to me in a tight hug. Over her shoulder, my mom is covering her mouth with tears streaming down her face. My dad’s arm is around her with Denison on his other side gripping his shoulder.

  “Your son is a hero, Mr. and Mrs. Hart. They are all heroes,” Denison says.

  I don’t know what to do with that. I laugh, but not because it’s funny, and the dam just breaks.

  My parents come over and wrap their arms around Arwyn and me as I watch Jack walk slowly toward Nann, Jazz’s little sister, and kneel in front of her. He takes her small hand and kisses it, nodding and smiling at her. She throws her arms around him. He lifts her up in a hug as her mom moves to his side, and Jax pulls Jazz in under his arm.

  ***

  Ms. Wren and Denison lead us to the lobby of the hospital, where Major Reynolt is waiting in uniform with several State Patrol officers. Everyone slows to a stop, and I exchange a wary glance with Jax.

  “No cause for alarm, gentlemen,” Major Reynolt says. “They’re not here to arrest any of you. They’re here to escort you to see the president.”

  “The what?” Avis asks.

  “If now is a good time, of course?” Major Reynolt smiles.

  “Uh, yes!” he answers. Ellis elbows him and gives him a narrowed glare. “What? Sorry, you have a date so we should reschedule?”

  Ellis rolls his eyes, and his mom and dad laugh.

  “Please follow the Sergeant at Arms, in that case,” Major Reynolt says as one of the Patrols turns on point and heads for the door. The others move in lockstep on either side of our group as we all follow him.

  The black heliocar waiting outside is even sleeker than Liam’s clone’s car. It’s flatter, wider, almost like an airship. The doors glide upward, and there’s enough room inside for all of us to slide in around a center console with oxygen mask portables, chocolates—with one Zero Gravity caramel bar peeking out among them—and beverages. I don’t even have to look up at Jax before I start noticing the geometry of his hand in proximity to the Zero G bar…the length of his arm, the probability of his reach velocity. The numbers and symbols work themselves into an equation, and I look up, grinning. He’s wide-eyed when he glances from the chocolate to me, possibly more amazed than he’s been since we left Seaboard North in the first place.

  “That’s a Zero G bar, man…” he says conspiratorially to me. I nod at him and cock an eyebrow. He nods back at me, and I reach for the bar a fraction of a second before he does, snatching it right out of his closing hand.

  “Ha!”

  “No way!” he protests, falling against the back of the seat in disbelief while throwing his arms in the air. “You did some Nav-jitsu math right there! Everybody see that?” He chuckles.

  “All right, all right.” I laugh, breaking the bar and tossing half of it to him.

  A few minutes later we’re at the temporary State facility several miles up the Skyboard mountain. The Sergeant at Arms and the rest of the Patrol escort us into the white building, the back half of which is still being printed by three land rigs in the distance.

  The Patrols march on either side of us, corralling us through the winding white hallways, which haven’t been decorated yet. They head toward a doorway and flank each side as a receptionist with a bun as tight as Sarin Nu’s presses a button on her desk panel.

  “Mr. President, the Gaia cadets are here,” she says.

  “Brilliant. Send them in, Grace.”

  The Sergeant at Arms nods to the receptionist and opens the door for us.

  Inside the office, President DeAngelis gets to his feet and crosses to us, shaking each of our hands.

  “Have a seat, have a seat,” he says, waving us to the high-back white couches. Calyx is sitting on one of them with Finn, Ms. Reynolt, a Cloudy woman with long, black hair and radioactive green eyes like Pitt had, plus another Cloudy man with blond hair and a tanned complexion, but with ice blue eyes like…Dez?

  She stands up on the other side of the Cloudy man with her glowing blue eyes filled with tears.

  “Dez!” Myra says, running to her with open arms.

  “I’m so sorry,” Dez sobs. “I didn’t know…we didn’t know…”

  Jazz looks up at me just as shocked as I am.

  “Thank you all for meeting with me today,” President DeAngelis says. He takes off his suit coat and hangs it on the back of his desk chair, then passes a hand over his salt-and-pepper hair. “Please, sit.”

  We all take a seat as Dez wipes her face with a tissue she snags from behind the table.

  “This is my oldest brother and sister, Zed and Bev Spaulding,” she says, her voice crumbling into erratic chuckles. “They’re twins, believe it or not.”

  Jazz laughs and starts wiping tears away with the back of her hand as Dez blows out a breath and tries to reset her composure.

  “Tieg was bitten by an antlion,” she says tentatively, nodding to the president. “One of the creatures from the biomes I mentioned. He’s OK. Our brother Lief is treating him at his clinic. But he wanted me to thank you all for helping him…even after what our father did,” she adds to us, lowering her eyes.

  “It won’t make up for what you’ve all been through, but as acting CEOs of Biotech Global,” Zed says, taking Dez’s pale hand in his tanned one. “Bev and I have authorized BTG’s board of directors to make rebuilding Seaboard Nort
h our company’s top priority…for as long as it takes.”

  “In cooperation with The State,” Bev says, pushing a lock of straight, black hair behind her shoulder when she nods to President DeAngelis, “and the new acting CEO of the Carboderm Corporation—“

  “New acting CEO?” I interrupt before I can stop myself.

  “Yes,” President DeAngelis says. “Their former CEO is currently…indisposed as we work through the rest of the files our crews are decrypting,” he says delicately and nods to the group.

  Bev Spaulding tries to smile as she continues. “Well, in cooperation with The State and the new Carboderm leadership, we’re already working to rebuild The State campus, and we’ll be starting on the new Gaia campus soon…topside. We’re breaking ground as soon as we can get it to dry out.” She smiles.

  “But…the air?” Jazz asks.

  “That’s one of the reasons we asked you here today, Ms. Ripley,” President DeAngelis says. Major Reynolt here has advised me that your group has developed keen abilities during your tenure, albeit brief, at Gaia Sur, and throughout your subsequent ordeal. I would like to invite you to finish your schooling at the new Skellig Tark Institute once it’s complete, under the leadership of its directors, Briggs Denison and Luz Reynolt. That is, if they would do us the honor?” He lowers his chin in a question to them.

  Denison and Reynolt both startle, obviously not knowing about this ahead of time.

  “Sir, the honor would be ours, I’m sure,” Denison says. “Though I don’t want to speak for Luz—“ he starts, but she takes his arm and tries to contain the huge smile threatening to take over her face.