by Tracy Korn
"Do you see them? Are they there?" I ask, the buzz in my ears getting even louder.
"What? There's nothing there. Rip, it was a dream…"
"I had gills! Check."
"All right," he answers, pushing his hand over his face just before he walks away from me.
"Liddick!" I say through my teeth.
"I'm just getting the glow rod, crite…Rip, you have to calm—"
"Forget the glow rod! Check right now. Can you feel them?" I ask in a rush, turning my back to him and reaching as far as I can around my side.
"Riptide…"
"Check!" I say, now losing control of my voice with the droning buzz in my head and the crippling fear that some kind of mutation is happening to me. Liddick blows out a long breath and moves his hands over the small of my back slowly, then up over my ribs. His hands are warm and steady, and when I don't feel him jump away in horror, I start to think I might be OK. "Do you feel them?" I ask with the last of a breath.
"No," he says close to my ear now as his hands grip my shoulders reassuringly, and I can feel his warm breath on my neck. "I told you it was a dream. I had one too."
Relief washes over me and spills out in a deluge as I exhale, then turn to look at him over my shoulder.
"What the hell?" Arco's voice comes out of the darkness, and I jerk my head back, barely able to make out his face in the filtered blue light. "Jazz…wh—?" he starts, shaking his head. Suddenly, I realize how everything looks with my base layer shirt bunched in front of me and Liddick standing at my bared back with his hands still on my shoulders.
"Heh, no—unfortunately, no, this is not that, Hart, listen…" Liddick says, holding up one hand.
"Oh, I'm listening," Arco says, getting to his feet, his arm bracing against his side for an instant before he takes a motivated few steps toward us.
"Arco, stop. I had gills!" I blurt, and this stops him in his tracks. Others begin stirring now, and I quickly pull my base layer back over my head.
"What?" he says, his eyes narrowing and his brows crashing together as Liddick picks up the glow rod.
"And I caught on fire, but didn't burn…" Liddick adds, waving the glow rod in the air just before he makes his way back to the wall. I turn to face him.
"You were on fire? That was your dream? Do you still hear the buzzing?" I ramble at Liddick, noticing that the buzz has leveled off in the background of everything in my head. Liddick nods.
"OK, someone start talking to me," Arco insists, his hands moving to his hips.
"Liddick? Why are you—what happened?" Dez asks groggily from the other side of the cave. He closes his eyes in a long blink and sighs, then pinches the bridge of his nose before looking up at me, then back to Arco.
"Wake everyone up. We got a message last night."
CHAPTER 4
Bridging
Liddick tosses the glow rod into the center of the cave as everyone rouses. Tieg pushes his hands over his face and takes a swig from the desalinator tube in his sleeve as Jax makes his way in from the fissure on the far side of the cave. He looks very pleased with himself, considering everything, and I look at him wondering why he would ever go back down there after what it took to come through it the first time.
"What?" Jax says, his voice clipped as he passes me. "Did I miss the sign for the designated restrooms down here?" he asks, pressing his lips into a line like he's actually waiting for a response.
"But your suit can—never mind," Joss says, then holds up his hands in surrender. "Maybe your suit can't," he adds with a chuckle. I roll my eyes as Ellis nearly chokes on the water he's just swallowed, and even Tieg smirks as Avis darts to the fissure with a tip of an imaginary hat to Jax.
"Truth. Just zone, Jazz," Avis says, flipping his blue bangs, and I gape at him.
"Did I say anything?" I ask, shaking my head and rolling my eyes, but he just shrugs as Jax leans back into his spot against the wall with a scowl.
"So, this message?" Arco puts his foot against the wall behind him and crosses his arms over his chest, angling his head at me, indignant.
What is this? I think as I raise an eyebrow at him, exhausted already and now confused, but also irritated when he just narrows his eyes at me like he's running out of patience. Is he really still bent about Liddick checking my back for gills? Heat radiates from under my collar, but as soon as I start to round on Arco, I hear Liddick.
Easy… he says in my head. Just start at the beginning. He doesn't know what we know, and everyone is still on edge from yesterday. We need to get out of this cave.
I don't risk a glance at him, but close my eyes to reset instead, then pull in a long breath to find my store of patience that's normally good for at least initial tolerance. Arco may not completely understand the thrum, but his latent receiver ability would definitely make him feel at least some of its effects…maybe he doesn't know why he's so clipped.
"The messages always start with buzzing," I say, opening my eyes again, but I try not to linger on anyone's expression too long, or I know I'll lose track of what I'm saying just because I'm worried about their reaction to it. "I first heard it with the marlin when we were still topside at the port-festival. Right after that I heard the never saw it coming message. It happened again when we went for our advisor meeting at Gaia, and that's also when I saw the lab with our dad and the others," I start.
"Some of the rest of you heard the same marlin message when we were in the cave during the Stingray practice run back at Gaia," Liddick adds, nodding at Arco. "And it happened again in the Boundaries room just before Vox reached out to Jazz. It's been the same for me for years, and Jazz and I are hearing it again now."
"So then what's the message from last night, and why are you still hearing the buzz if it's already come?" Joss asks as Avis hops back into his place between Myra and Ellis along the bend of the wall.
"I don't know why it's still here unless we're somehow still connected to the source of it," Liddick answers. "Maybe it's just like an open channel or something."
"I think it's supposed to help us find everyone because the buzzing in my dream last night led me back to Vox," I say, recounting everything I saw her do. I glance up at Arco, whose hazel eyes are still hard over the muscles working in his jaw. "She seemed to be talking to something in the walls—to someplace where our dad was because more of his message came through there at first."
"You heard him again?" Jax says, leaning in, and I nod.
"He said they targeted him because he turned Gaia down—that they couldn't risk people like him not being affiliated or monitored. Then his voice was gone, and the wall just glowed after Vox yelled at it."
"She was yelling at the wall?" Tieg raises an eyebrow. "Of course she was…" he trails off, closing his eyes and shaking his head and grinning as he leans back against the dark rock face.
"To whatever was in the wall. She blamed it for making her kill the creature we saw that first time in the cave—that same shadow thing that chased us in here. She did it out of pity, like she was putting it out of its misery," I say, trying to focus on the details before they fade. "Toward the end of the dream, my sides started feeling strange, and when I looked…when I felt with my hand, I had these long, wrapping…gills."
"Gills?" Myra asks, her voice pitching, and a cold blast of fear hits me. She's still so close to the edge of keeping it together. Liddick is right, we need to get out of this cave.
"So it was like Lyden in the transmission you saw in Plume's office back at Gaia?" Arco asks after another second, his hard expression finally relaxing.
"Right, and I tweaked. That's when you saw me with Liddick…I'd just woken up, and it still felt so real," I say, shaking my head as I remember the feeling of choking when my fingers slipped inside the long fold down my side. Arco's eyes lower as he takes in a breath, then sighs. "When I asked Vox for answers, the only thing she said was to wake up and follow her, and the buzzing in my ears hasn't stopped since." Everyone looks around at each other, and Arco n
ods as he comes off the wall to take a seat in the circle next to me.
"Follow her where?" Tieg asks, pulling a protein wafer from one of his dive suit pockets and opening the square package with his solid wedge of Skyboard engineered teeth, his surreal blue eyes enhanced by the glow rod light, which casts shadows along the sharp angles of his face.
"I don't know. Maybe follow the buzzing…go in the direction where it tends to get louder. That's what I felt compelled to do in the Boundaries room the last time I heard it," I answer.
"I got the same vibe from Liam in my dream," Liddick adds as he racks his forearms on his raised knees before ripping open his own wafer packet. "Only it didn't feel like a dream. It felt like ghost scripting in a virtuo-cine," he says, handing the first wafer to Dez. "We were walking down a long corridor in the beginning. Liam was wearing the lab coat like Rheen and Styx wore when Jazz saw them in her advising session with Plume. I kept trying to talk to him, but he couldn't see or hear me."
"You said you were on fire, but it didn't burn you. Like Arwyn…" Arco adds as Dez threads her arm with Liddick's. He nods, swallowing the bite he's chewing.
"That happened toward the end. Liam and I walked into this room with a bunch of metal console stations. He shut the door behind us and started telling me in a hurry that he was targeted because he said no to a program Rheen wanted to put him in when he got into Gaia. That's when I started smelling something burning. When I told him we needed to get out of there, I was suddenly in this big clear box like the ones Jazz saw holding Arwyn and Lyden," he says as his eyes scan the ground. "He couldn't get me out before flames started shooting up my arms and burning through my sleeves. Then he shifted—just got all serious and told me to wake up and follow him like Vox told Jazz in her dream."
Liddick's dark eyebrows dart together like he's contemplating something he can't figure out as Dez leans her head on his shoulder, her long blonde hair draping over his chest. She tightens her arm around his, and my teeth lock together in response. I make a conscious effort to stop as soon as I notice because this is ridiculous. I shouldn't feel this way. How can everything he's just said be pushed to the side by…what, jealousy? It's just—
It doesn't make it wrong just because it scares you, Liddick says in my thoughts, startling me, and once again I'm reminded that I need to figure out how to stop projecting every single thing I think. I meet his eyes, which he holds on me like a spotlight, making me feel seen, caught and held responsible for feelings that are too tangled to even begin untying, and the guilt this causes pulls down on me from the inside. Just stop fighting it, Riptide. Stop fighting being with me…he adds in my head, and I take a deep breath to refocus.
Arco's hand slips over mine, bringing me back. I clear my throat when I look up at him, the corner of his mouth tacking up with the start of a smile.
"So we should start getting out of here," I say abruptly, looking back out at the group. "The buzzing is almost gone now…we don't want to lose it if it's a beacon," I add, and just like that I've shut off having to process Liddick's comment.
Arco nods, squeezing my hand quickly before he gets to his feet. Liddick follows, then extends his hand to help Dez up. I watch her cling to him and feel the bottom fall out in my chest—her fear and instability again—and my own issues are eclipsed by hers…the Leviathan imploding, then not being able to save Pitt, and now worrying about Tieg being so volatile, I think, just as if she's dictated her worries to me. Crite, the weight of it all is almost crippling.
She'll be all right. I've got her, Liddick thinks, and again I'm reminded that I really need to get a lock on my thoughts down here. My eyes dart to his for just a second before he slides his arm around Dez's shoulder, and my throat tightens. Before I can process my reaction, a smile pulls at the corner of his mouth, and his eyes light. Rip…you already know I couldn't want anything more than this with her. I told you what I was coming for.
With one more nod and a piercing blue look that ignites a small explosion in my chest, he turns with her then and follows Avis and the others toward the tunnel path next to the stream. I don't know what to do with the sense of relief that washes over me when I hear this, or the anger at myself for feeling it, so I swallow hard to reclaim my composure as heat floods into my cheeks.
"Jazz?" Arco says, standing next to me and offering his hand as everyone starts moving toward the tunnel. I look up at him abruptly, then take his hand. He hoists me up, then takes a deep breath. "I'm sorry for the ice earlier," he whispers, angling his chin down to catch my eyes. "It was just easier to think you were actually—I mean, I guess it was easier to be angry than to think you didn't—" he stops again and looks at the ground, then blows out a breath. I feel him trying to rally, to chase after all the pieces of what he wants to say like they're so many marbles spilling from a jar. He can't do it, and I want to let him know he doesn't have to.
"Arco, you don't have to apologi—"
"It was just easier to be angry than to think you didn't want this…" he says quickly, then meets my eyes again. "That maybe you didn't want me." He smiles awkwardly, and it suddenly feels like the ceiling of this cave and the entire ocean above is crashing down on me.
"Arco," is all I can say as his anxiety squeezes my chest so tightly it's hard to take a breath. I wrap my arms around his neck and pull myself to him. "I do want you," I whisper against his ear, then feel his arms slip around my waist as his chin presses into my shoulder, and I can breathe again.
There isn't any chaos spinning around us—no raging ocean threatening to sweep us away, or some impossible depth we're about to fall. It's just the opposite. It's the second after the close call when everything is safe again…the one second when you see that everything you already have is actually what you've always wanted, and you're just grateful to have one more chance to hold onto it all.
CHAPTER 5
Breathe
The tunnel path is much narrower than the one we came through before, and the angle is also much steeper, especially shuffling upward and sideways. After about five minutes, the tops of my thighs start burning, and the pounding in my chest is so loud it almost drowns out the buzzing that is getting progressively stronger in my ears.
"How far do we have to be like this?" Myra's pinched voice wavers back to us.
"Ten more yards from up here. I can see the opening ahead!" Ellis answers from somewhere that sounds far away. I close my eyes against the ricochet of shoulder lamps along the damp, dark walls, which press against my back and cheek every few steps I take. The crushing mix of everyone's fear and anxiety is worse in the cramped space, especially when I try to take a deep breath to push down the panic tightening my throat.
"We're almost there," Arco says from behind me, his Latency Receiver ability no doubt picking up the same anxious feelings I am. "They made it up that far, so you know we can too. Just focus on something."
I answer him with the most positive sound I can make, unable to find any words as I try not to think about the walls narrowing any more than they are, or that in some places I can feel them pressing into my chest and shoulder blades at the same time. Instead, I count the bounces of the supply bag dangling from my wrist as it knocks against my outer hip, aligning the breaths I take that seem to get shallower in the thickening, heavy air that tastes metallic and gritty on my lips. One…two…Myra starts whimpering ahead of us, and I squeeze my eyes shut even more tightly to keep back the rising anxiety it stirs in me. Three…I can't tweak in here. I have to hold it together. Four…I think, but it's only a step ahead of the chilling terror pushing into my bones, just like the dampness making my hair heavy enough to stick to my face.
'Just hold it together until we get home…' I hear Liddick's voice in my head. You know, I never told anyone else that story about Liam and me.
Liddick! A warm rush of relief shoots through me at the sound of his voice in my mind, and the image of him as a kid walking home with his brother—both of them holding their slashed eyebrows closed after Liddi
ck's fall and Liam's self-inflicted cut to console him—makes me forget about the cold and dense air for a second. Are you out? I think as my teeth start chattering against the permeating cold that's freezing my lungs. Why aren't our suits…I start again, but the buzzing in my ears is finally eclipsed by the pounding in my head as I try to get a full breath, and I abandon the question.
Remember how big the sky looked over the water? Remember the stars from up on that dune, and how the water reflected everything? Liddick thinks, his words measured and even. Rip, tell me you remember that.
I…remember, I answer after a second, and try to will my chattering teeth together so I don't bite my tongue.
When's the last time we'd seen stars? he asks. The sky was never that clear.
The realization that we really did see stars the night before we left for Gaia makes me open my eyes again. Shoulder lamps are still shooting white lights everywhere in the distance, but now I also see that sky. It was always hazy because of the port-cloud, but that night stars were everywhere, and the moonlight glinting off the water made it look like we were just floating in space.
How did we…not notice? I ask, dumbfounded as I finally get my teeth to lock together. Were we that distracted by the marlin talking? By all of it that night? I don't hear anything in response, so I reach out to him again. Liddick?
I was, he finally answers. All I could see was you.
Almost immediately after I hear this, the wall in front of me falls away, and I stumble forward into someone. I shut my eyes against the sudden, blinding light as strong arms close over me. Liddick…I think, relieved as I let my forehead fall against his chest.
I hold up my hand to shadow my eyes from the bright light that goes out a second later, and in the wake of the lamps up ahead, I see him.
