by S. S. Segran
Mariah clicked the radio. “Dev?” she whispered.
“Hullo,” he whispered back. “In case you’re wondering, the bloke is currently taking a long nap behind the shed under some tarps. We should be good for two to three hours. I’m going in.”
“Copy that.”
Kody and Mariah took turns keeping an eye on the site for activity once Deverell had slunk into the Sanctuary. When it was Mariah’s watch, Kody picked up his staff and moved some ways down to hone his form. Something about the texture and weight of the weapon in his hands calmed him, allowing him to reflect and direct his attention better. He smiled wryly. The Kody he was now had come a long way from the Kody who could barely sit still during the crystal evaluation in Dema-Ki.
He glanced at Mariah on top of the hill. Seeing that she was fully fixated on the site, he retreated deeper into his mind, trying to expand inward and open himself up to the novasphere. He had quietly been attempting to gain telepathy since she achieved it in Israel. He resented being one of the last ones left who did not possess the ability, and he suspected Aari had been endeavoring to unlock it as well. The Elders’ warning about it merely being a possibility for all five of them was discouraging. Even so, Kody was adamant to make it a reality. I can connect with the others when we put our powers together, so I should be able to get telepathy . . . right?
He was so wrapped up in his efforts that he didn’t hear it.
Then it happened again. He looked around, trying to locate the source of the disturbance before a notion occurred to him. Pushing his sensory abilities further, he touched the dirt.
Explosions shook the ground beneath him, tremors racing up from his fingers into his arm. He could just make out muffled bellows of rage from the Sanctuary. He jumped up and bolted toward Mariah.
“’Riah!” he shouted.
She was staring at something through her binoculars. He pulled up beside her, not even needing his enhanced vision to see what was going on.
A lone figure had burst out from the shed, a backpack slung across his back. He tore toward the main road just as a flood of guards spilled out of the door. Kody balked in horror. It was a sea of black uniforms and weapons glinting in the sunlight. He tried to yell but his voice came out a hoarse croak. “We need to do something!”
Mariah was already on her feet. “Get the car!”
“What?”
“Get the car and go around! I’ll handle it from up here!”
“But I can barely drive, and—”
“Go, Kody! He’s heading for the exit!”
Kody wavered, then turned and raced down the other side of the hill. The sedan was parked on the shoulder of the road. He threw his bag onto the passenger seat and leapt in behind the wheel.
“Oh, man.” He fumbled with the wires to jumpstart the car the way Deverell had taught him. “Oh man, oh man, oh man. This is what I get for going after a private pilot’s license instead of a driver’s one like everybody else.”
The vehicle coughed and sputtered to life. With a death grip on the wheel, Kody stomped on the gas and peeled down the road. Gunfire sounded across the hills. He coaxed himself with encouragements: “It’s okay. You’ve driven a few times before. You can do this. It’s totally fine. It’s—why do these people have to put the steering wheel on the wrong side of the car?”
He pulled around a tight bend, speeding onward between the hills and the Phoenix site, and would have missed the entrance had he not pumped the brakes at the last second. With the car in neutral, he threw open the back door.
Deverell, still using the face of the knocked-out guard, barreled over crates as he tried to outrun the furious horde behind him. They fired their weapons but their shots all went wide of the Sentry, like water going around a rock. Though flummoxed, the guards kept shooting.
Kody knew it was Mariah’s work and silently cheered her on. He watched, heart in his throat as Deverell sped through the entrance. “Come on!”
The Welshman lunged into the backseat. “So, bad news!” he yelled, heaving for breath. “Jag’s not there. But I have good news! Wanna see?”
“Rain check!” Kody cried. “Need to get outta here first!”
“Where’s—” Deverell cut himself off and gawked out his window, face turned upward.
Kody looked out as well. The guards had all stopped in their tracks, and a few pointed at the sky in disbelief.
Above them, shipping crates sailed over their heads, landing between them and the plant to create a row, water inside sloshing over their sides. Kody’s ears picked up a distant rumble. He looked toward the Eye of Sauron. One of the massive tanks beside it suddenly tore open, a hole ripped clear through the metal skin. Thick, dark liquid escaped, inundating mirrors as it coiled past. The guards yelped, scrambling backward into each other to get out of the way.
“Molten salt.” Deverell whistled. “She’s going to mix molten salt and water. Probably filled the crates from the bay.”
The Sentry sounded amazed, but terror drove its claws into Kody when he remembered what had happened in Egypt. He peered out the passenger window. Mariah remained at the top of the hill, one arm stretched out in front of her with her palm up. Blood dribbled from her nose and her eyelids fluttered, but her face was set in a determined grimace.
Kody turned back to his window. Like a living creature, the molten salt flowed past the approaching mob and plunged into the row of crates.
Explosion after explosion rocked the earth. Kody fell back, covering his ears, awestruck as geysers erupted forty feet into the air and debris was flung out with the force of projectiles. He couldn’t see the guards behind the wall of water and vapor, but their screams rent across the site.
Deverell’s voice was barely audible when he spoke. “Unbelievable.”
Kody looked back up the hill. He no longer saw Mariah standing.
Sirens blared in his head and he threw himself out the car, ignoring the Sentry shouting at him. When he reached the hilltop, he dropped to his knees beside Mariah and held her face, shaking her lightly. “Hey, hey. Wake up.”
She was unresponsive. The trail left by her nosebleed had started to dry and her skin was pale and clammy, almost lifeless. Kody tuned his senses; he felt a faint, irregular pulse in her neck and heard her heart beating an unsettling rhythm. He patted her cheeks, frantic. “Open your eyes, Mariah! You have to—God, ’Riah, why did you do it?”
Gingerly, he lifted her into his arms. Her limbs hung loosely and her head lolled. He gazed down at her unconscious form, inhaled a quivering breath, then ran back down the hill. He slid her onto the backseat beside Deverell and got behind the wheel again; the Sentry held onto Mariah, checking her vitals.
The initial chaos from the explosions had wound down. The guards were getting their bearings, some already up and running toward the intruders. Kody snarled at them, punched the gas, and left the site far behind him.
“One dead end after another!” Aari fumed, pacing the width of a small backyard, hands clenched in his pockets. “I can’t keep doing this. I might just rip my hair out. If I’m bald tomorrow morning, you’ll know why.”
Tegan said nothing as she lay on an old porch swing. Aari flopped on the ground, not caring if the dirt sullied his clothes, and took a moment to collect himself.
As they had pulled up to their destination, Tegan had received a call from Kody reporting on events in New Zealand. There had been no sign of Jag, but Deverell, in his haste to find anything that might prove valuable in the search, had grabbed a couple of thick binders filled with documents and one of the Sanctuary’s satellite phones. The former had, unfortunately, turned up nothing of immediate value, but Deverell seemed keen about the phone. Aari wasn’t sure what good the device would do. Mariah had expanded all her energy creating a diversion for his escape and hadn’t regained consciousness in nearly six hours. As far as the Sentry could tell, she was intact but would be nowhere near full capacity when she awoke, whenever that was.
The two groups p
lanned to meet up with the aid planes that had taken them to their separate destinations and get flights to the Lodge. They needed to regroup and recuperate in a safe place, off the grid. Victor had also sent word out to the League about what Tegan had overheard at the Brazilian Sanctuary. As of yet, no one had an inkling as to what the Camazotz and the other creature Reyor had mentioned were.
Aari worried about Mariah. She’s gotten stronger, but her abilities aren’t limitless. How far can she—and all of us—push ourselves? At some point the ceiling will stop budging, and if we keep trying to move it, something might happen. Something that can’t be undone.
He knew Tegan was concerned as well. Though she never uttered a word about it out loud, she kept picking at her nails.
Victor stepped out through the rickety sliding back door, Chief at his heels. He headed over to the swing, waving his hand at Tegan’s legs. “Scoot.”
Tegan curled up, bringing her knees to her chest to make room for him. Plaintively, she said, “I can smell the fish cooking from out here. My stomach hasn’t stopped growling.”
Aari silently agreed. He was weary but the gnawing in his gut had prevented him from grabbing even a catnap since they’d escaped the Sanctuary site and returned safely to Manaus. Carlos, the pilot from the aid plane, didn’t ask questions when Victor called him to ask if there was a place for them to lay low, and had offered his parents’ home.
“Mrs. Salazar says dinner will be ready in fifteen minutes.” Victor rested his head atop the swing’s backrest, forearm over his eyes. Chief hopped up onto his lap but the Sentry firmly pushed him down with his free hand. “No. It’s too hot and you’re too furry.”
Chief huffed and settled on the dirt to scratch his ear with a hind leg.
“I can’t believe Reyor was actually there.” Tegan shuddered. “At our target site, of all places.”
“Too bad we couldn’t nail the monster right then,” Aari said.
“Definitely. It’s not like there’s a terraforming device that will destroy the entire planet if it senses that Reyor’s in imminent danger.”
“Yeah, doing something about a problem is just too far out of our league, isn’t it?”
Tegan looked at him directly—not with a glare, but her expression wasn’t warm, either. “What’s that supposed to mean? You’re still stuck on what happened on the bridge?”
“Still stuck?” Aari fought to suppress his outrage. “I’m sorry about having a heart. But hey, maybe you can teach me how to rip it out and crush it. That way I’ll be able to walk past everything the same way you do.”
Tegan sat up and leaned forward in a manner that reminded Aari of a predator about to attack. Her gray eyes narrowed. “I’m going to ignore that last part. We can’t stop every horrible thing that happens, and the sooner you accept that, the easier it will be to focus on our job.”
“I thought our role was to protect people,” he pushed back. “Saplings of Aegis, that’s what the prophecy said. You know what the aegis is? I didn’t, and it was the first thing I looked up once we got our memories back. It’s from Greek mythology. A shield. We’re shields, Tegan. For everyone. That’s what this is all about. Letting those people get run over? It was a giant failure on our part.”
“Right. We’re shields. All five of us. If one is dead or missing, that shield is incomplete and it’ll be harder to protect others.” Tegan passed a hand over her face and took a moment to compose herself. “You really think I liked leaving those people on the bridge? They were crazy. They were sick. They were trying to get themselves killed. I hate—hate—that it happened. But you know what’s worse? Knowing that this isn’t the only place where things like this are happening. I’m looking at the bigger picture. We just can’t stop every step of the way, and we can’t risk losing any one of us and dooming the only chance we have at stopping Reyor.”
Chief went up to Aari, lightly bumping heads with him. Aari pulled the wolfdog in for a hug and screwed his eyes shut. “I wish we could,” he said into the soft fur. “I wish we could help everyone.”
He had always taken pride in his logical side, the part of him that stowed away feelings and looked at everything practically, no matter how painful the situation. But over the past number of months, after witnessing the atrocities Reyor unleashed, he’d learned that he was not immune to the tide of emotions, nor was he as detached as he’d believed himself to be.
Victor lowered his forearm from his face. He looked straight ahead, past Aari and Chief as though they weren’t there. “With all that’s going on, you’re capable of remaining civil.”
Aari wasn’t sure if there was supposed to be a question attached, or if it had simply been a statement.
“We’ve always hated raising our voices with each other,” Tegan said. “The five of us, I mean. We’ve argued, disagreed, and snapped, but we try not to go past that. I don’t think the guys have ever even punched one another.”
“No, we have,” Aari mumbled, blasé. “But it’s rare, and never when you or Mariah are around.”
“How gentlemanly of you.”
They met each other’s gazes. Understanding passed between them. Aari doubted he’d be able to let go of what had happened on the bridge, and Tegan would most likely refuse to dwell on it going forward. It was something he’d have to accept no matter how much he disliked it, but it would not diminish seventeen years of friendship. They would never let that happen.
We’re all trying to figure it out, he acknowledged. And it doesn’t help that the world’s changing so fast. We’re not perfect. Sometimes there isn’t a right answer. It just . . . is. And we have to deal with it. I have to deal with it.
By the time night came around, their bellies were full of fried fish and tomato sauce, accompanied by some fruits and honey-sweetened water. With a river nearby, fish was a steady source of protein that the locals of Manaus still had good access to. Pork, beef, and other meats were far more difficult to come by since the nanomites had hit crops that provided sustenance for both humans and animals.
Courtesy of the Salazars, Aari’s head was also filled with one awful story after another about people lost to the disease or the riots. Carlos was one of only two siblings out of four still alive. Even so, the Salazars insisted they were among the more fortunate, and that other families had been hit worse. A residence down the road, once overflowing with laughter and wild parties, was now a dark and empty husk with everyone buried or cremated.
“Why is this happening?” Mrs. Salazar had asked at the dinner table. “Is this from nature? Is it God? Is He angry with us, with how rotten some of us have become?”
Aari wanted to tell her the truth, to get it off his chest that the horrors could be pinned on one person, but Tegan had stared at him until he’d regained his wisdom.
Mr. Salazar, who looked at least ten years older than his wife but barely had a blemish on his skin, had given the group a once-over as he chewed on a toothpick. He was a little gruff, though nowhere nearly as bad as Aari’s own mentor, Ashack.
“Carlos said you’re here doing aid missions, like him?” he prompted.
“We’re just trying to help,” Victor replied.
Mr. Salazar quirked one bushy eyebrow at the teenagers. “But you’re so young.”
“Age doesn’t really matter,” Aari said. “At least, I don’t think it should. We can all do something to help out, big or small.”
The couple had smiled at that, a little sadly. “That’s right,” Mrs. Salazar hummed. “Carlos says the same thing.”
Now, the friends and Victor convened in the generous spare room. Aari and Tegan sat on opposite ends of a lumpy couch and the Sentry settled on the edge of the bed, facing them. Chief patrolled the small area, tail flicking every once in a while. Two boxy lamps on nightstands drove away the shadows from the maroon walls, and an open window with rigid blinds offered a view of the unkempt lawn and a concrete fence. It was dark outside, and distant shouting drifted in.
Aari looked at his p
hone as it charged beside him. It was an hour past the nine o’clock curfew set by the state. The raucousness was probably rioters and authorities clashing. As he scrolled through his news feed distractedly, he said, “Funny how abnormal things can become the norm so quickly.”
“We’re not too shabby at adapting,” Victor supplied. “It’s one reason why we’ve become a dominant species on Earth.”
Tegan, her head on an armrest, half-closed her eyes. Her fingers fluttered in the air as if she was tracing some invisible drawing. Aari wanted to ask what she was doing but still sensed discomfort between them. He looked back at his phone. “So, that ship that blew up in the port of Galveston as we were leaving the States? Turns out those on board had been infected with the Omega strain.”
Neither Tegan nor Victor responded, but the air grew heavy.
An incessant buzzing broke the quiet of the room. Victor pulled out his phone, saw the caller ID, and answered it. “Kenzo.”
Aari put aside his own phone and watched Victor attentively. Beside him, Tegan’s hand paused in mid-flutter before lowering to her lap.
“Calm down, calm down,” Victor said. “We were dealing with some stuff. It’s hard to get reception in the middle of the Amazon.”
Tegan made a sharp motion, catching his attention, and signaled him to put the call on speaker. He looked at her as though deciding if he wanted to comply, then yielded. A dulcet voice came from the phone’s tiny speakers. Tegan leaned forward. Aari glanced at her; her face was bright with intrigue as she listened.
“Well, anyway,” Kenzo was saying, almost in a whisper, “you wanted me to get close to the higher-ups? You’ve got it.”
“How close?” Victor asked.
“How about Dr. Nate-wanting-to-have-lunch-together kind of close?”
Aari’s jaw fell open. Victor, who’d been inching backward into a slouch on the bed, sat upright. “What—how did you swing that? And so fast?”
Kenzo recounted the incident he’d set up in the Sanctuary, and the way he had played the humble hero who happened to take an interest in Dr. Nate’s work. Aari and Tegan swapped glances of amazement. Who is this guy? he wondered.
