Riptide

by Jessica Gunn

  Alacia turned to Markus with an utterly earth-destroying look of grief and worry. “Markus, you don’t think? No—no, it can’t be.”

  Markus wrapped her in his arms and held her tight. I couldn’t help but see Chelsea and me that way, right after everything terrible that’d happened over the course of our relatively short relationship. “We can’t know, not without proof. But it’s likely that whoever was in there was one of us. A super soldier.”

  “What?” Chelsea asked. “Do you know who was in there?” Then her eyes narrowed. She slipped her hand into her pocket and pulled out a necklace. “I found this nearby not long ago. I wasn’t sure if Valerie had left this behind, or…”

  Markus glanced down at Chelsea’s hand and frowned. “A locket.”

  “Can you read the writing on the front?” Chelsea asked. “My Atlantean is a bit rusty.”

  He nodded, taking the jewelry from her and peering closer at it. “My love and my stars.” His fingers moved around the locket, deftly opening it. What he saw inside made his eyes grow wide. “Oh no.”

  “Markus?” Alacia asked.

  He showed the picture inside to her, and Alacia covered her mouth with her hand, but not before a sob escaped. Their eyes drifted from Chelsea’s shocked ones to… Sophia.

  Sophia paled, shaking her head. “No. I wasn’t…”

  Markus nodded slowly. “Your mother tried to get you out of the city through a Link Piece, but she left later than we did with Chelsea.” He pointed to the wardrobe. “She must have run into trouble and had to push you through on your own. You were young, but the ability to see the Waterstar map is one super soldiers have from birth. Your mother must have guided the Link long enough to see you through, then backtracked out and kept them from following.”

  “The person we found inside the wardrobe was dead,” Chelsea said. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  Sophia’s eyes narrowed. “Unless she was wounded. We’re so ignorant, so naïve when it comes to Atlantis and their power, their technology.” Her head fell back on her shoulders and she sucked in shaky breaths. “My parents never lied about me being adopted but they told me my parents died in a fire when I was a year old. I never—” Her words caught in her throat and she closed a fist around her mouth.

  I didn’t know which was worse. Growing up knowing nothing, or growing up as I had, knowing about the war and praying it’d all been a lie.

  “Sophia,” I said.

  She turned to me. “It’s okay, Trevor.”

  I didn’t think so, but arguing with Sophia was even more of an Olympic sport than debating with Chelsea.

  “I don’t get it,” Weyland said. “What happened?”

  “It’s a life preservation chamber,” Markus filled in. “A stasis chamber. It can freeze one’s body until it is healed by the machine, or until they’re let out. Whichever comes first.”

  Sophia looked up. “Then shouldn’t it have let her out once it healed her?”

  “It was broken,” I said quietly. “That’s why her remains mummified.” I hated having to utter that sentence.

  Sophia grew quiet, her features dark. She didn’t say a word.

  “Okay,” Chelsea said. “What was the point of coming here?”

  Markus and Alacia glanced to each other, then at the room at large. “This is not the only floor to the Archives.”

  “No,” I said. “But it’s the only habitable one. The rest of the floors are flooded.”

  “The Link Pieces remain, though, yes?” Alacia asked.

  I nodded. “Yeah. We also found a room that’s filled with active ones.” Or, at least it was active when Chelsea and I had inadvertently discovered them.

  “Show us the room, please,” Alacia said.

  Markus waved her plead off. “Nonsense, Alacia. It’s probably where it’s always been.” He talked past me to the floor where Chelsea and I had been years ago and stepped purposely onto the same pressure plate I’d accidentally fallen on.

  This time, when the floor shook and the wall directly in front of us gave away, I didn’t duck for fear of poison darts. I stood still and watched as Chelsea’s parents and the other super soldiers walked into the secret room filled to the brim with Link Pieces—the few that we knew for sure were actually time travel devices. They’d been safe enough tucked here, away from the rest of the world. It was possible Valerie had never found this room in all the months she’d lived here on the outpost.

  “This is what we will use against the Atlanteans,” Markus said, gesturing to the secret room. “These Link Pieces are very old, hidden inside the Archive for generations. Your mother and I were some of those charged with their protection. Because of their power.”

  “You’re a curator?” Chelsea said, eyebrows raised. “Essentially, I mean. How ironic. I’m an archaeologist. Maybe not a great one, but still.”

  Her father gave her a warm smile. “Apples and trees, I believe the phrase goes.”

  “I don’t understand how these are going to help us take the fight to Atlantis,” Weyland cut in. “SeaSatellite5 goes to the city. That’s the only Link Piece we need.”

  “Not if you plan on surprising them,” Alacia said. “For that you’re going to need something a bit more creative.”

  “Oh,” Sophia said. Her eyes lit up. “Oh! That’s a good plan.”

  I wasn’t following. “What is?”

  Sophia nodded to the Link Pieces. “Chelsea, can’t you see it?”

  Chelsea’s brow furrowed and she looked at the Pieces, studying them through the Waterstar map overlay.

  Why can’t I see—I stopped the thought before it breached my mental walls. I didn’t see anything and that was the only thing that mattered.

  “Oh wow,” Chelsea exclaimed. “Normandy. Babylon. Caesar.”

  “Nagasaki. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The Boston Tea Party,” Weyland added, eyes trained on the Link Pieces, as well. He could see the map now? Damn, he was learning fast.

  “I still don’t follow,” I said. “Can one of you fill me in?”

  Her father gave me a look that said he’d prefer I could see the map because he’d prefer I was an Atlantean boyfriend for his daughter. I shook it off. Little did he know, I was more Atlantean than most people in this room knew.

  “What’s that mean?” Chelsea asked me in a hushed tone.

  Her father spoke over her. Right. If he could read my mind, then he already knew about the map. Maybe that’s what his concerned look had been about. “We’re going to draw them out. These Link Pieces are connected to major world events. Events that, had they happened differently, could completely alter the course of history and the future forever.”

  “These artifacts were kept hidden for generations on Atlantis by a secret priesthood,” Alacia added. “Then the super soldiers were charged with protecting them for the very reason that if the High Council ever found out, they’d steal them and add them to the Atlas Cache.”

  “We’ll use these to draw the Atlanteans to this time-place,” Markus said, a definitive tone in his words. “The Atlanteans will come, I have no doubt. Then they’ll need a Return piece, and as SeaSat5 is the only Link Piece connected to Atlantis’s time-place, they will take us, they’ll use the station to get back home.”

  “So we hand SeaSat5 over to them without a fight?” I asked, swiping my hand through the air. “After everything? I don’t think so.”

  Chelsea’s hand closed in on my arm, placating me. “No, Trevor. We’re going to use the station as a Trojan Horse.”

  31

  Chelsea

  I slid out of the way of Weyland’s fist, spun as I swiped my hand through the air, drawing up water from the bucket between us, and smacked him across the face with it before he could grab it out of the way. The impact echoed through the air even if it didn’t cut him.

  Weyland sputtered and stepped out of striking range, lifting his hands in surrender. “Okay. Enough.”

  “Nope,” I said, repeating the a
ction. “The enemy isn’t going to stop. This is like the training I did with you guys at TruGates.”

  “Except with magic I’ve recently discovered I possess,” he said through heavy breaths.

  We’d been training for a few hours already in the gym and I couldn’t believe how fast Weyland was learning. We were running out of time and the only active ability he had was his strength, if you could even count that. Sophia and I, and my parents, both had access to control over water. He must have that ability too, we just had to wake it up. And we finally had after four hours of trying.

  “Look, I’m sorry that this whole ‘you learning new abilities’ thing has to happen in such a short amount of time. Really, I am. But you need to learn how to do this, Weyland,” I told him. “You don’t need to be as good as Sophia and me, but this ability seems like the foundation of all super soldier powers.”

  “Even you had weeks to learn it,” he said.

  “I didn’t know much until I was forced to use it to end the hijacking, remember? But here’s a secret: that wasn’t me. The super soldier part of us is like this physical thing.” I pointed to my chest where I believed she lived. “I don’t know if you’ve felt it yet.”

  “That tightness?” he asked, relaxing his stance. I did too. “Sometimes when I heal people it’s like the world slips into laser focus. It happened in the field all the time. My reflexes would get faster, my aim better. I’d always assumed it was from experience.”

  “Some is, some isn’t.” Enough talking. Without warning, I pulled up the rest of the water in the bucket and threw it his way at full speed.

  His eyes widened in surprise then narrowed with focus.

  Good. Wake that soldier up.

  Before he could react, I split the wave and sent it to attack from two sides. He lifted his hand and yanked on to the water with his own power. Instead of creating his own source from the air around us, he tugged forward on the wave, through my power, and turned it around on me until I’d lost control completely. I couldn’t stop it. The water closed in around me, tightening around my head. Drowning me.

  I pulled it with all my power even as the super soldier part of me emerged. It was Weyland. There was no reason for her to think this was playtime. I shoved her down and reacted of my own accord, pushing the water back toward him. He resisted. The water grew into a five-foot tall solid wall between us.

  Shit. He’s powerful. I took a deep breath, readying to push again. He used that opening, that tiny window of opportunity, to attack. I lost control of the wall and the water sailed overhead.

  Drenched head-to-toe, I stared up at him.

  “Happy now?” he asked, a smirk on his face.

  I threw a small splash his way. “Yes. Good job.”

  “I thought you were going to drown me with that attack.”

  “That was the point,” I said dryly. “Think you’re gonna die and the super soldier inside of you slips forward. That’s the key for you right now, tapping into him. He’ll make sure your powers work.”

  I snagged a dry towel from the counter on the far side of the gym, then rolled over an exercise ball to sit on. Weyland stood there, looking at his hands.

  “You okay?” I asked him. “You did a good job. You’re a quick learner.”

  He balled his hands into fists. “I don’t know.”

  Frowning, I looked up at him. “Talk to me, Weyland. I’ve been where you are.”

  “Yeah, when you were young and able to easily change your worldview.”

  I chuckled once, enough to let him know this was serious but I still found it a bit funny. “I don’t know about that. I’d discovered my powers at the same time as I’d learned Atlantis and Lemuria were real, my new boyfriend was technically my enemy if we allied ourselves with our ancestors, and then the one place I’d called home was taken through time to a new time-place. At least you’re getting it in bits and pieces.”

  “But when will those bits and pieces end?” He released a deep breath. “All of this is too much sometimes.”

  I nodded slowly. I understood that well enough. Unlike Trevor, we hadn’t grown up knowing all of this to be real. “I’m here if you ever need to talk about it. You know that, right? And not because I’m also a super soldier. I’m your friend, too.”

  “I know.”

  “How’s Erin taking all of this?”

  He laughed. “Oh, the whole mythological civilizations waging a time travel war over egos? Pretty well, all things considered. I don’t know how she’ll react when she finds out I’m literally from the lost city of Atlantis, though.”

  “Maybe wait a bit to let that one sink in,” I suggested.

  He nodded. “Yeah. I’m going to. Thanks for training me today.”

  “Anytime. I figure it’s payback for all the times you had to babysit me on SeaSatellite5.”

  Weyland leveled me with a look. “I think we’re well beyond that, Chelsea.”

  Right at that moment where Weyland and I had finally seen each other for the first time, Josh strode through the door, his hands wrapped as if he were about to go a few rounds with the punching bag in the corner.

  When had he been let out of the Brig? Had Mara and Eric been released, as well?

  “And that’s my cue to leave.” As the words left my mouth, his gaze found mine. “Yup, definitely leaving,” I added under my breath.

  Weyland frowned.

  “Hey Chelsea,” Josh said as he walked toward us.

  “Hey,” I replied. “I was just leaving. See you all in the morning for D-Day.”

  I was out the door before he could open his mouth to respond, almost slamming into the military police officer that must have been Josh’s babysitter. Guess the same trust that’d gotten them out of the Brig wasn’t as strong as the memory of what they’d done.

  I strummed my guitar, singing along quietly so as not to disturb Trevor as he worked. We’d spent most of the day ferrying off unnecessary personnel and prepping SeaSat5 to become a Trojan Horse. And now we were working on the last parts of the plan.

  Trevor sat at my desk, hunched over his tablet. I doubted he’d finish working until we disembarked on Atlantis sometime in the future, when we had to find the Atlas Cache and destroy it. Assuming everything went according to plan.

  Anxiety had wracked me since the plan had been put into action. Sparring with Weyland had helped some, but the tension, the weight of what we were supposed to do, sunk me down back into the black pit of fear. I’d handled it until now. I’d somehow accepted the whole tearing apart space-time thing until now. But in this very moment, with Trevor sitting so tense and quiet beside me, the one person I knew I could count on, I couldn’t handle it anymore. It was as if we’d thrown in the towel and sat waiting for this war to claim us instead of acting to save ourselves.

  Obviously, that wasn’t the case. We were working the plan we’d created. But even twelve hours seemed too long a time to wait to act on it, and I needed to move.

  “Tell me your favorite song.” I’d been strumming mine for the last hour, but it wasn’t doing me any good.

  He jumped slightly, as if startled by my sudden outburst, and swiveled his chair to face me. His blue eyes settled on mine with a wild glint that didn’t used to be there—evidence of all we’d done and been through. This Trevor was not the same Trevor I’d teleported to out of nowhere. I supposed I wasn’t the same Chelsea, either. We’d grown together, then apart. And now here we were together again. Changed and different. Whole, yet broken.

  “What?” he asked.

  I lifted my guitar. “Your favorite song. Mine’s not helping and I know too many songs to pick one.”

  “I don’t have a favorite song,” he said. “I’m not a music guy, remember?”

  “Come on.” I scooted to the edge of the bed so I’d be that much closer to him. “Everyone’s got a favorite song. The one they sing in the shower or belt out to their steering wheel. Everyone’s got one.”

  “What’s yours?” He pointed to
my acoustic guitar. “I’m assuming that’s what you were playing.”

  “Good Riddance, Green Day,” I answered without hesitation. “Got me through the good and bad, as Green Day always does. Nice deflection, by the way.”

  He leaned back in his chair, studying me—or thinking. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference. When he looked at me, sometimes he really saw me. Other times it was like I was only part of a larger puzzle in his head, something I only knew because of our telepathy. Oftentimes those puzzle pieces came to life and drifted across our telepathic connection.

  “Uh,” he mumbled, drawing the syllable out. Then he shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “Think,” I urged him. I’ve heard him utter lyrics. He couldn’t sit there and pretend it hadn’t ever happened. That he never once listened to music. And I needed a challenge. For him to state a song that I could force my mind to figure out the chords to, just to have something to do.

  A few more moments passed before he smiled and said, definitively, “It’s My Life by Bon Jovi.”

  My eyes widened. Okay. I didn’t see that one coming. I always sort of pictured him as a game soundtrack music kind of guy. Or maybe even country. “Huh.”

  “Huh what?”

  I shrugged. “It’s fascinating, that all. I’m usually better at picking out the music people listen to. I can’t believe I never knew your favorite song.”

  “It’s no big deal,” he said, waving it off.

  I put my fingers back to the guitar and poised to strike, mimicking the sound-maker as best I could—“Bwow wow”— and started the song.

  Trevor laughed, covering his mouth with a hand. “No.”

  “Oh yes,” I said as I stood. I struck a pose and—“Bwow wow”—played it again. I sang out the first line in perfect key.

  Trevor’s eyes lit up. “You know it!”

  “Duh-uh, it’s on-ly a clas-sic, bwow wow.” Like, really. Everyone knew those words.

  He sang the next line back to me, and my heart just about melted and slipped from my body like puddy. As he kept singing along with me, my smile grew wider and wider until it mirrored his own Cheshire cat grin. I’d never taken him for a singer, and he damn well wasn’t a good one, but that he would in front of me, with me, made me fall in love with him all over again. A warm buzz rode through me, breathing life and love into my lungs and making me whole again. Alive. Free.