by Tracy Korn
"So how about that introducing?" she asks, waving us forward. "Come on."
What was that? I think toward Liddick. Dell thinks Biodesigners and Molecular Coders are taking people? And what's a tunnel shark?
He shakes his head. Cal said his nanites wore off too. He's from Gaia.
We follow Zoe and Veece through the cloth covering and into a short tunnel that is brightly lit with more green-hued torches. They bounce light off the dark walls, which curve into a path that angles sharply upward, forcing us to brace against the rock as we climb. The stone is warm under my hands, and I wonder how it's possible that the temperature has gone from freezing to this in the span of what was only about 10 miles from the seafloor vent we all first came through with the Stingrays. I remind myself to ask about the Rush, and what Cal meant by rainforests, beasts, and tunnel sharks, but I need to see Jax and Fraya first.
At the top of the climb, the tunnel opens into another cave, only this one is much bigger than the one we slept in last night, or even the one we just left. It's lined with more of the green torches and is almost as big as the Leviathan hangar—nearly 20 feet from floor to ceiling, and probably almost 100 feet long.
Bedding areas built up with the same kind of burlap cloth that covered the fissure we've just come through line the walls, and are separated by lines of piled stones. Some of the areas even have small, carved out shelves in the rock face that are stacked with more folded cloths and other things too small to make out from where I'm standing. More of the blond Vishan are standing around talking, and others close to our age look over at us warily. Zoe is right—most of them look like Badlander Fringe with their leather satchels and blade sheaths. Are there any adults? I think, and Liddick almost immediately responds to my stray thought.
There are more beds than there are people in here, so this can't be everyone. There was a group on its way out when we came in, right?
"This is Center Hall," Veece speaks up. "It's where we all sleep and eat. There's only one way in, so it's the safest place to be. Only way out is at the other end—you can't get in that way on account of the steep slide."
"Are my brother and Fraya in here?" I ask.
"I'll check on them," Veece answers, then nods to me with a smile. "Don't worry…I promise they are safe."
I scan the large cave again, the green light brighter in here along the dark walls, which reflect it somehow so that everyone looks like they're bathed in campfire light. As I let my eyes wander over the faces, I recognize Cal at the far end of the cave talking wildly with another Vishan girl, her nearly white hair pulled high off her neck as she holds up her hands to him like she's trying to calm him down, but apparently without much success. Dell is sitting on a flat rock about 20 feet from us leaning back on his hands. A girl in dark pants and a light shirt that is tied in a knot around her waist holds an old drill in front of his face…she must have been a Tinkerer when she was topside. Did Cal say they were pulled through the sand!? I think and Liddick glances over to her and winces.
I hope she was a dentist. Crite, is she going to..? Liddick starts, then trails off in horror as Dell curses when he sees the drill, then balls his hands into fists.
"So look, you can't move at all, or it won't fuse…wise?" the girl with the drill says, her mane of long, curly brown hair masking her face until she turns around to soak a cloth in a bowl before wringing it out with one hand. "Wise? Take this too in case I miss," she adds, shoving the cloth into his hand.
"Just do it," Dell answers, then opens his mouth as widely as he can.
"What is she actually going to do with that drill?" Liddick asks Zoe, each word on the heels of the last like they're racing to be the first out of his mouth.
"Calliope? She fixes things—fixes people sometimes too," Zoe answers as the girl picks up something from a little stone shelf in front of her and positions it inside the drill bit. "Looks like she's going to re-root the tooth your walrus knocked out," she adds. Liddick's eyes widen when he looks at me again, and I cover my mouth with my hand as Zoe pulls us toward the center of the large cave where a Vishan woman close to our parents' age is ladling soup into stone bowls. Several others start to funnel in behind us as Zoe completely dismisses the oral surgery taking place just over our shoulders and calls out to her. "Vita, we have two more, and maybe three if the walrus is awake."
The woman turns to us and smiles in response, her face marked in the same diamond pattern as the other Vishan, and her eyes flickering the same icy blue as Veece's and Cal's. She walks toward us with a younger blonde girl behind her, her wide blue eyes flashing too.
"Vita is my aunt, and that's my sister, Liv," Veece says, nodding, then moving forward to greet them. The girl is maybe 12 or 13, but her face isn't marked like the other Vishan. She throws her arms around Veece's waist as Vita sets down the bowl and ladle, then wipes her hands on the cloth tied around her hips.
"We have been expecting you. Are you hungry?" she asks us, her eyes darting to our dive suits before she settles on our faces.
"Yes, ma'am, thank you," Liddick says without hesitation, then looks at me over his shoulder and winks. I am so done with protein packets, he thinks, and I feel an instant, ridiculous wave of excitement radiating from him. What is it with boys and food?
Zoe takes a seat, and when we get closer, the girl slips behind Veece and peeks at us while we sit on the round, flat rocks that surround the huge stone cook pot, which looks like the hollowed out boulder from my dream. I squeeze my eyes shut as fast as I can to clear the image of the fire inside of it chasing after me, opening them to see Veece scrambling after his little sister.
"Liv…" he chuckles as he twists to bring her forward, but she won't come out from behind his back. "This is Jazz and Liddick. Remember how Vox told us they were coming? Help them feel at home while I ask about the walrus and Fraya, all right?" he says, then nods to Vita before he walks away, but Liv just scans us with her wide, unblinking blue eyes.
"The sandies she wanted Del and Cal to take to the Motherland?" another tall Vishan boy asks as he bounds up to the cook bowl. He's a little younger than we are, though older than Liv, with straight, shoulder length white-blond hair. Zoe shakes her head at him in warning when he looks over his shoulder, apparently trying to make sure Vita is distracted. When he's sure that she is, he plunges the side of a stone bowl into the soup, then maneuvers quickly under it to catch the stream of drips spilling down the side. He folds his long arms and legs in to sit next to us, beaming with his accomplishment as he brings the bowl to his lips, but spills the contents down his chin when Vita startles him.
"Axel! They're Seaboarders, and don't dip the bowl. Wait for the others." She frowns at the tall boy, then turns back to the line forming for bowls as Zoe sends him a thin smile and nods, pleased with herself. The boy reluctantly puts his bowl down in front of him, rolls his eyes at Zoe, and then fires a hand at Liddick.
"I'm Axel, obviously," he says with a grin, his face lighting with excitement as Liddick shakes his hand. "Are you Arco and Jazz?"
Liddick narrows his eyes at him, then gives me a flattened look that almost makes me laugh out loud.
"She's Jazz, but I am most definitely not Arco," he finally answers, and I knock my knee against his.
Don't be rude, I think.
If you think that was rude, it's a good thing you didn't hear what I was about to say. Are we supposed to get in line here or what? Liddick fidgets as several others gather around the cook pot, each of them taking a stacked bowl until two younger boys about Liv's age start jostling at the front of the line. One of them is blond, but he is also missing the Vishan markings, and one is darker like the Badlanders. Both of them are completely oblivious to us as Vita lets out a long sigh once she sees them.
"Were you in the Pinch again? What is that?" she asks the sandy haired Badlander boy who tucks the glowing blue head of something into his shirt pocket every time it pokes out. "All right, go—both of you go, and let that thing loose."
"
But we just caught it! It's just a baby!" the toe-headed Vishan boy protests, and I crane my neck to get a better look.
"Then go take it back to its mother. She's probably spooning out their soup now too," Vita answers, and both the boys exchange guilty glances before heading to the far end of the cave, where they quickly disappear down an opening in the dark rock floor.
"Whoa," I say, watching them vanish.
"That's the Swim," Axel says. "There's no water in there, so calling it the Swim doesn't really jive…well, unless you go down on your chest, and then I gather you could make out like you were swimming…maybe there was water gushing through once?" he asks the air as he sucks in his bottom lip in contemplation, then shakes loose of the thought. "Anyway, it'll take you to the river and the Pinch."
"What's the Pinch?" Liddick asks absently, stretching in his seat to gauge the growing line behind the cook pot.
"You can't go there," a small, stern voice from somewhere behind Axel says, and when he turns sideways, Liv is sitting there glaring at us while Vita helps ladle soup. Axel nods his head at her.
"That is what you say when you want people to go there," he looks over his shoulder at her, then turns back to us. "But nobody bigger than the littles who just went down the Swim can fit up there, so no matter. Nothing there but luxes anyway."
"Ax-el!" Liv enunciates his name with a hiss, and he whips back around to face her.
"Listen, why don't you go fret at Ghost and Rav about the baby lux Ghost was just poking down into his pocket, wise?" he says with an air of authority. Liv's face instantly flushes as she scrambles to her feet and runs to the opening in the floor after the boys, disappearing into it just like they did as Axel turns back to us shaking his head, exasperated. "Littles!"
CHAPTER 13
Reunion
The soup Vita passes us smells spicy like the stew my mother makes, and I recognize potatoes, carrots, and a white meat that I assume is a sort of fish.
"Thank you," Liddick sighs, inhaling the rising steam, and a laugh bubbles in my chest at how happy he is over soup. I nod and smile at Vita as Axel nearly drains his bowl, then looks back to us with a satisfied grin.
"I caught the fish in here," he beams. "From the channel, not the reservoir."
"What's the difference?" I ask, feeling his pride warm everything around us as I raise my bowl to my lips.
"About a mile that way," Axel answers, pointing at the ceiling. "Took Alec and me all day to hike there and back, but worth it, right?" he adds, tipping his bowl so far up it almost covers his face, but then he quickly pushes it to the side and rushes over to the girl with the drill who fixed Dell's tooth. I turn to see what has him so startled, and find Jax squinting against the light as he leans on Veece, a small Vishan girl with wavy blonde hair at his other side in the rock wall entryway.
"Jax!" I yell, and spill hot soup on my hand as I nearly drop the bowl on the ground in my scurry to get up.
"Jazz?" he says, squinting, then brings his hand to his head and lowers his eyes with a grimace.
"Are you OK? They said you passed out?" I say when I get to him, then bring my hand to his face to angle his head for a better look at the large knot that's still swollen over his left eye. "What is that?" I ask, seeing the clump of green mud smeared over his eyebrow.
"It's Avo paste," the small Vishan girl says, her soft features and round blue eyes making her look like a doll. "It's a disinfectant."
"It smells like dead fish. Do you smell it? Because that's not me," Jax assures, trying to widen his eyes, but he only manages to blink quickly.
"He hit his head on the rocks," the girl says, motioning to the damage on his forehead. "His eyes flickering and shiny like that means it's swole on the inside too. I gave him a drink that will help."
"That smelled like dead fish too," Jax says, and both Veece and the girl stifle a laugh.
"So you have a concussion?" I ask him.
"You and Hart can trade war stories," Liddick says as he walks up behind me, then offers his hand. Jax takes it and nods, smiling to one side.
"How can he still have a concussion this bad? The nanites had Arco's fixed in less than an hour, and a ship imploded on him," I ask Liddick, looking again at how glazed Jax's eyes still are.
"He has nanites?" the girl asks me under raised, invisible eyebrows. "Dell's don't work this close to the barrier…" she adds. Veece clears his throat, and she presses her lips into a tight line before abruptly changing the subject. "Well, I'm Ada. You're Jazz, aren't you?"
Did you hear her? Nanites. Dell is from Gaia. Liddick thinks, but I can't respond to him and to her at the same time.
"Yes, and this is Liddick," I reply, ready to ask her to say more about Dell's nanites, plus whatever the barrier is, until I feel a wave of panic and regret from her as Veece stands guard over everything she says, so I shelve it for now. "Thank you for helping my brother," I say instead.
"I didn't do much," she laughs too quickly, a flush rising in her cheeks as she looks back at Jax, evidently relieved that I'm not asking any follow up questions about Dell.
"I will leave you in Ada's capable hands," Veece says with one last warning glance at Ada, then briefly lowers his eyes to the ground. "Zoe will check in on you soon—we have a special event tonight," he adds with another nod, then walks back toward Vita as Ada smiles and nods.
"All right, well if you feel rush-ups starting, just send somebody after me, and I'll mix up more of the drink, wise?" she exhales, obviously grateful that Veece has gone.
Jax looks at me puzzled, blinking several more times, and the look on his face is so clueless I feel my face pulling into a huge smile.
"Wise?" he asks.
"I think it means OK, or do you understand?" I manage to say without losing my composure.
"Do I understand what?" Jax squints at me again, sincerely confused as he looks from me back to Ada. Liddick brings his hand to his mouth, and after a few seconds, pulls the smile off the end of his chin as he clears his throat.
"Should you feel the need to roarf, Ripley, if you would be so kind as to have someone alert Ada here first, she'll bring you that fish drink so you don't cause an ecological disaster."
Ada starts giggling, and the sound of it combined with the sight of Jax's face scrunching as if Liddick has just asked him for a kiss pushes me over the edge. A laugh bubbles up before I can swallow it, and Jax's eyes dart to mine.
"Sorry," I say. "You really should lie back down."
"Your brain is swole," Liddick echoes, wide-eyed as he nods and bites back a chuckle. I give him a fierce look, then glance at Ada to make sure she hasn't taken any offense, and am relieved when I see her nodding in full agreement.
"All right then, I'll find you later if you don't find me first," Ada says with a big, bright smile at Jax before she turns toward the soup where Dell, Alec, and the other Badlanders are making their way toward it. Jax follows her with his eyes still narrowed against the light, but after a second, they open widely.
"What—?" he starts, taking in the room for the first time, and a wave of adrenaline crashes in my chest.
He can't see Dell yet…if he just woke up, he won't know they were just trying to—I start to think toward Liddick, but he's already talking.
"Ripley, do you want some soup?" Liddick asks. Jax's heavy, dark brows flinch, and suddenly, Liddick has his full attention. "It's good, but take it easy. Ecological disaster, remember? Jazz, why don't you take him somewhere quiet, and I'll bring it over?" he continues, lowering his chin and looking me right in the eyes. I glance over his shoulder to see Alec approaching, and nod quickly.
"Jax, let's go sit down," I say, threading my arm through his, but the second we turn to go, I feel ice chase us down and run up my back.
"Walrus! You're awake!" Alec bellows to us, and my heart stops dead in my chest. I scramble to find the most readily available words to explain to Jax as fast as I can when I feel the jolt of his anger shoot through my stomach.
"OK, li
sten—Jax, listen…" I search his face until he makes eye contact with me. "He's just joking. It's not what you think. They only grabbed you because they were—" I start, but he immediately jerks his head back to Alec and loses his balance as a result of the sudden movement.
"Whoa!" Alec says, taking two large, quick steps to help.
"I wouldn't—!" Liddick is just close enough to Alec to throw out a forearm to stop him from advancing, the jostle making Alec spill the soup he's holding all over his legs. He looks down at his pants and narrows his dark eyes at Liddick, who doesn't give him a chance to complain. "Listen, he doesn't know what really happened yet, so if you don't want him knocking your tooth out too, I'd give him a minute," Liddick explains, raising his eyebrows and then setting his jaw. Alec's eyes soften as realization sets in, and he nods before taking a few steps back. When I feel Jax's weight shift toward him, my words just start spilling out.
"Jax, wait—they pulled us back from the pool to get us away from something in the water. Vox was here already…she told them we were coming. They were just trying to help us, OK?" I try to put all the words in the same sentence before he stops listening, but his eyes just land on Dell in the distance.
"That one…" Jax growls, and I move in front of him to block his path. Dell notices the commotion and starts making his way to us, which puts a ball of ice in my chest.
Stop him…I think toward Liddick, but he is already moving to intercept Dell. His cheek is bulging like he's holding a small plum in his mouth as he shakes his head and holds up a hand before Liddick can say anything.
