Landlocked (Atlas Link Series Book 2)

by Jessica Gunn

  Trevor. All Trevor.

  But then there were bits of me, too. Memories I couldn’t possibly have. Me, looking fierce and ready to take down Trevor, too. Me, swallowing scared tears. Me, onstage before being mugged. A feeling of attraction, of surety, swooped across my mind and lower belly, a chilled zap like lightning. A feeling that couldn’t be mine, of freedom. Of hope.

  “Are you guys okay?” Dr. Hill asked from the far side of the room. He and the others could only watch, only see what was on the display screens. They didn’t feel any of this.

  “Yeah, it’s just confusing,” I said. That didn’t come remotely close to describing what was happening.

  “What you are experiencing right now is the machine calibrating to the two of you,” Germay’s words filled the room. “In a few moments you will be given a puzzle to solve on the screens in front of you. It will take both of you to solve it, and it will require the mental connection now present between you two in order to do it.”

  “Mental connection?” Pike asked, sounding skeptical.

  “The devices on their temples,” Germay explained. “They allow thoughts to pass between two persons, filling in the space in their otherwise already strong connection.”

  “It’s weird,” Trevor said, but I also heard it in my head, too.

  I hear you, too, came Trevor’s thoughts.

  I let a small grin form around my mouth. Like you ever had issues reading me.

  Trevor laughed once from the other side of the glass, and shrugged like he had no idea what I was talking about.

  Smug-ass punk, I thought.

  He smirked.

  I didn’t know why, but it was like the flooding of old memories somehow whisked away the tension that had grown in our relationship. When I looked at him it was like those first few weeks all over again, with giddy smiles and awkward first kisses.

  I tried my best to stow away those misplaced feelings as puzzle pieces began appearing on our touch screens. We went to work matching the pieces together. As I started lining up the tablet tiles, some of the pieces I turned over shared glimpses of events from Trevor’s point of view. Some of these tiles showed things I couldn’t possibly remember, like when we’d first emerged on the outpost. Our first kiss, among… other stuff, all from his viewpoint. Including Trevor scrambling around outside the Bridge as Thompson’s crew took over.

  The Altern Device had read my memories—our memories— and was rebuilding pieces of our past into this puzzle. But why?

  Three pieces came together to form Thompson’s face. More merged to show images of the hijacking. My pulse raced, my breaths speeding to the rhythm of a jackhammer. Heat flashed across my cheeks and neck.

  No. I couldn’t. Seeing his face again snapped me out of the thrill of puzzle-solving. The outcome of this game wasn’t worth reliving that monster ruining my life.

  My hesitation to swipe another piece wasn’t unnoticed by Trevor. The pieces had formed the puzzle picture so far: half a Bridge console and the rest of Captain Marks’s face. Trevor filled in the gap from his own memory. I looked through the screen to the other side, eyeing him down, begging him not to finish. Major Pike, Sophia, and Hill, they knew the gist of what happened. But not all of it. Not that I killed Thompson. And I sure as hell didn’t need a visual reminder.

  Trevor continued to build the scene, so sucked in by this “game” that he hadn’t noticed the strangeness of it at all. I flipped another piece that clearly didn’t match the puzzle we were working on. Instead of scenes from SeaSat5, this tile had blue lines jutting out, with dates and artifacts flying off into the distance. A map. The Waterstar map.

  “Trevor, stop.”

  They were going to use me, use us, to build the map in front of them. To steal the map. To use it and the Piece they had for God knew what. But why us? Why…

  My eyes snapped up to Trevor. It wasn’t our connection to each other they were after, it was our connection to the outpost. To the Link Piece cache.

  “We’re almost done.” Trevor didn’t look up from his table. His fingers flew another piece from his touch-pad to the screen.

  Trevor, stop, I tried in my thoughts. “They’re using us to build the map.” The Waterstar map. Trevor, they’re after the cache.

  Building the map from my head was step one. Step two would be raiding the cache, assuming it still existed in their place-time. Unless they had planned to go back to ours and steal it from there.

  No one, not even Trevor, moved to stop the “game.”

  “She said to stop,” Pike said, firm and commanding. On a soldier, it may have worked, but Germay kept plucking away at her end of the machine.

  I looked away from the pieces and Trevor. The electrodes burned as I stood and ripped them from my temples. Something buzzed near my ear and Trevor’s thoughts exploded across my mind as he continued building the hijacking scene with his own memories.

  No! Don’t shoot her! Chelsea, NOO!

  Oh my God, oh my God—is she dead?

  She’s dead. She’s dead.

  Dead, dead, dead.

  I collapsed forward, bracing against the console for support against Trevor’s memory. My head rested against the glass and my breath puffed clouds onto the clear surface. Sweat coated my palms and slicked down my neck and back, paving the way for anxiety to rip through me without resistance.

  I was there again. On the Bridge. Gun in hand. Someone pointed my hand holding the gun on Captain Marks. I was forced to choose. Marks. Trevor. Myself. Marks. Trevor. Myself.

  I adjusted my aim at Thompson. Pulled the trigger. Bullets flew, five at Thompson, one at me. It’s all Thompson had time to get off.

  My abdomen ripped open, blood hazing my vision.

  “TREVOR, STOP!” The thought reverberated through our linked minds as I said it aloud.

  I can’t. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. Not there, not again.

  Trevor stopped at my shriek and stood, also prying the electrodes from his temple, and within seconds our memories wrapped tightly around each other. The electrodes fizzed out with a final spark and fell to the touch-pad of the Altern Device.

  My eyes shot to Trevor. “You had to go there, didn’t you?” My veins lit on fire beneath the Lemurian seal burned into my skin. A phantom pain tugged at my side, right under the scar from the bullet.

  Pain twisted with aggravation at having to relive that day, and I couldn’t stand to look at Trevor anymore. The earlier, pleasant memories slammed together with these dark, painful ones, and nothing made sense. I couldn’t focus beyond one single thought: the Link Piece wasn’t worth this bullshit. We’d just have to wait it out until my and Sophia’s powers came back in order to get home.

  I fired Trevor a glare and marched past Dr. Hill and the others to the entrance of the room.

  I needed space.

  I needed peace.

  The guards escorted us back to our cell.

  ajor Pike pinned me against the cell wall while Dr. Hill, Sophia, and Chelsea were brought in by the guards. Germay and her people had elected to give us a break to calm down before continuing. Why, I had no idea. Maybe they wanted the Sargasso Sea cache so badly they didn’t want to risk my, or Chelsea’s, well-being. Seemed stupid for the same people who kept us imprisoned.

  “It’s private,” I argued. He’d boarded SeaSat5 with the other TAO soldiers, but he hadn’t stormed the Bridge with them. He, along with the others, didn’t know the whole story.

  “I don’t care. What happened that day became public when it showed up on that screen. Anything that sends Chelsea into that type of state on a mission is absolutely my business.”

  I shot him a hard glare. “What happened on the Bridge that day was classified for a reason.” I stood up straighter to face him. Lemurians with poisons. Chelsea killing Thompson. All the traitorous players out in the open, not all of whom were caught. Or necessarily guilty.

  “I work for TAO, Trevor,” Pike said. “I’ve got the highest security clearance known to man
kind. I knew about SeaSat5 before you even set foot on it.”

  My eyes snapped to his. “Excuse me?”

  “What? Are you surprised TAO had a hand in SeaSat5’s funds? TAO had people on board way before your Lemurian friends hired you and that other girl.”

  He meant Valerie. A vague memory of Dr. Hill saying the Lemurians weren’t the only side with agents surfaced. I’d wondered back then who it was, but never had a chance to find out.

  I let my eyes drift away with the realization. Of course TAO had a part in SeaSat5. Their program had been around twice as long as the SeaSatellite ship designs, three times as long as SeaSat5 itself. And if TAO had the same thinking as the Lemurians, then making sure they had someone around if Link Pieces were found made sense.

  SeaSatellite5 was a pawn from the start, and no amount of protection on my part could have ever helped keep them out of it.

  “Chelsea killed someone,” I said. “She didn’t mean to, but Thompson deserved it.”

  “How do you not mean to do something like that?” Pike pried.

  “Thompson…” How much was I allowed to tell? “He poisoned her, weakened her mind and resolve while he threatened her and everyone else. Then he gave her a gun and told her to shoot the Captain. Chelsea refused and aimed it at him instead. Pulled the trigger. Probably panicked.”

  Pike backed off with a sharp intake of breath. “Damn.”

  “She’s not like you,” I said. “She wasn’t back then, anyway. She just wanted to get off the station alive. She used to be innocent, not a part of all of this.”

  “Then I found out how awful the world really is.” Chelsea emerged from the front half of the cell, finally free of her guards. How much had she heard? “What Trevor’s not telling you because he wasn’t sure I wanted anyone to know, was that more people than Thompson died during the hijacking.” She looked to me. “Our friend Michael got caught in the crossfire because of me. I thought I got over Michael and over killing Thompson.” She shrugged. “I guess not.”

  But once again, most of the blame fell to me regardless of her words. “I should have stopped when you said to,” I apologized.

  “Yes, you should have. We all knew it was a trap from the start.”

  Pike waved Dr. Hill and Sophia forward so we were huddled up. “I’m calling this one. We’re leaving.”

  Sophia shook her head. “We don’t have a Return Piece. We can’t.”

  “Then find me one.”

  If only it were that easy. The way Chelsea had described it to me, not only did they have to find a Link Piece in general, but it also had to be the right Link Piece—which they couldn’t discover unless she and Sophia had time to consult the Waterstar map in their heads. That was something that required concentration, something I was beginning to think wasn’t going to happen here anytime soon.

  Footsteps sounded down the corridor and we broke apart. Germay held an object in her hand, slender and long, with a hook at the top. A sickle. She ducked into our cell room long enough to say, “Once you’ve recovered, you can try again. After that, we can send you home.” Then she turned on her heel and left in the direction of the game room, guards at her side the entire time. She took the sickle, too.

  Sophia eyed the sickle from afar with glazed over eyes. She must have opened the Waterstar map in her head and was examining the Link Piece within its context. It must be a Return Piece—one we might be able to use to go home. Why weren’t Germay and her people using it if they just wanted our cache?

  I gave Sophia a small nod and furrowed my eyebrows. Sophia flexed her arm in response. They were waiting for their powers to return, assuming they would.

  The minutes ticked by, blurring into hours as whatever kept their powers at bay continued to work. Still, both of them were convinced their abilities would return naturally. We didn’t have that kind of time. We had to get home.

  Stop thinking about going home. Chelsea’s voice penetrated my thoughts. Whatever they did to us earlier with the Altern Device must have kept our minds connected even after the electrodes were gone. How long would this last for? Oh God. What if it lasted for good? So much for us ever having a normal relationship again.

  I want you to get your powers back, that’s all, I replied.

  Yeah, well that makes two of us. Her tone had a bite to it that stung even more from the intimacy of this telepathic connection that we shared.

  God, I couldn’t wait to for it to go away.

  What? You think I want to hear your thoughts all day?

  I glared at her. Stop.

  She sighed. Why were you so eager to finish the puzzle scene?

  I looked away. Let’s not talk about this.

  No, she said, let’s. No one else can hear. Let’s have at it.

  I wanted to see if it could have ended differently. The thought had plagued me for years now. If I had done something different, said anything, what would have changed? But we hadn’t finished it, so none of this mattered.

  Nothing, and you know it. She straightened up against the wall she sat against.

  That’s not true—

  The only other ending would have been you telling us what we’d found from the start, when we found it. Maybe we could have protected SeaSat5, or moved the artifacts away. But you didn’t. So shit happened, end of story.

  I knew it. I knew she still held that against me. Knew it was the root of all our problems.

  When we find SeaSat5, will you finally forgive me for that? I asked her.

  If it was solely about that, yeah. Maybe. But it’s not.

  I stood and stepped toward her. Jesus, if she’d open up and talk for once in her damn life, maybe we could have worked this out years ago. “So tell me what it is about then!”

  My voiced echoed around the room, startling Dr. Hill and Sophia. They both looked up at me. He knew better than anyone else about the artifacts and that we could have been hijacked. He hadn’t said anything to Chelsea or Captain Marks either. By her logic, he was as much to blame as me. And yet here he was, unscathed.

  Chelsea’s eyes met mine in an even line, icy enough to cause me to step back from her. She stood up slowly and glared like she had the day I’d brought her the burn medicine during the hijacking. We’d stood there in her bathroom, her accusing me of everything she thought I’d done wrong.

  “You lied,” she spat. “And before you go saying something stupid like I’m not Ray, never was, blah, blah, blah, you’re right. You’re not like him. Because when you lied, Trevor, people died. Michael died. And because you lied, I murdered someone.”

  Dr. Hill looked away, avoiding our argument. He’d lived enough of that hijacking situation himself.

  “In self-defense!” I shouted.

  A disgusted look crossed her face. Her mouth opened, her brows crinkled, but no words came. Instead, she flopped down on the bench beside me, thinking, This isn’t the time.

  No. It wasn’t.

  I sighed and, ignoring stares from everyone else in the cell, closed my eyes. Think, Boncore, think. There had to be something in this cell we could use to escape. We just had to find it.

  I opened my eyes and took a good look around the room. Walls leaned in toward the center of the room, making the space appear much smaller than it really was. I couldn’t figure out what the wall material was made out of, but the bars to our cell that separated us from the door were some kind of metal. Beyond those bars sat a single computer console, a tablet imbedded into a wall. Just outside of arm’s reach.

  “Oh,” I said, drawing looks from Chelsea and the others. That I could work with. Maybe. If I could stretch far enough.

  “Oh?” Chelsea asked.

  I pointed through the bars to the shiny tablet, lit up with some sort of menu screen. “Think they use that to control the prison area?”

  Pike’s eyes flitted between the tablet and me. “Let’s assume they do. Think you can use it to our advantage?”

  Could we use future technology for our advantage? Absolutely.
But was I able to even use future tech? Maybe. After all, a computer was still a computer. “I think so. In the very least, I might be able to get us out of this room.” A high promise for sure, but if it worked we’d be one step closer to getting out of here.

  Pike stood, rounding the others to stand in front of the camera mounted atop one corner of our cell. He crossed his arms and turned, looking at Chelsea. “We’re going to fake an argument, distract whoever’s watching the cameras from Trevor.”

  “What if they can hear us?” Dr. Hill asked.

  Sophia and Chelsea joined Pike. Chelsea said, “They’d already be here.” She gestured wildly at Sophia, before Sophia shoved her.

  While their fake argument went on, Dr. Hill walked underneath the camera’s line of sight and joined me at the cell bars. I got as close as possible to the tablet and slid my arm through the bars.

  It wasn’t nearly far enough. I shifted my body so my shoulder slid almost inside the bars too, adding another inch. My fingers brushed the edge of the tablet. “Almost got it.”

  “Work fast,” Pike ordered, taking up a ready position by the cell door.

  I crushed my chest so tight against the metal bars that I could barely breathe. One more inch. Two to be sure. I sucked in as deep a breath as possible, scrunching my body as thinly as possible, and reached.

  My fingertips slipped along the touch screen. “Made it!” I went to work… except this wasn’t English. At least, the words on the screen, or what bits of the screen I could see from this angle—which wasn’t much—weren’t totally in a readable language. Lucky for me, computers were often similar enough that this might still work. I opened and closed windows on the touch screen, finding English words every now and again, searching code and slipping from one program to another.

  “Can’t you just look for a ‘unlock door’ button?” Dr. Hill asked.

  Well, yeah. But that wouldn’t have solved the powers problem. However the next minute played out, Sophia and Chelsea needed their powers to fight these guys. Without their abilities, evening the battlefield aside, we needed a Link Piece to get back. And for that, we had to have the Waterstar map in their heads. I strained against the bars, typing in command after command until the string completed running. And then—