AQUA (The Elements Series Book 1)

by Korn, Tracy

  "Basically. I just had to file things, and they didn't ask me to be a coach, but I am one of only five other freshes getting my own library database code right off the dock," she bubbles, still shimmering with excitement about Liddick's latest brush with fame and fortune. I mean, it's interesting and all, and it would be fun to meet cinestars and go on all the adventures, even if it is only virtual, but my family has more important things to spend our chits on than virtuo-cines—things like thread and fabric for the printers, and seeds for the greenbed, but Liddick doesn't need to worry about these things. His parents are our quadrant representatives to the Seaboard North council, which means they get a whole house instead of a habitat in one of the stacks complexes, plus a stipend. Not to mention the stipends from his two brothers who have already gone through Gaia—Liam, who graduated this past year and is already a rising star as a biodesigner for Skyboard North clientele, and his oldest brother, Lyden, whom he hasn't talked about since his port calls stopped coming from the technology complex he ran about four years ago. Add in both of their contributions, and Liddick's family is the richest in Seaboard North.

  "Do they really call us freshes when we get there?" I ask Myra, hoping I've been mishearing.

  "Just for three months," Myra says, playing with the elastic band at the end of the long reddish-blonde braid she's just finished. "After that, they said matriculation is over, and we're on a career path," she adds, and begins her sycophant question barrage at Liddick all over again. Why didn't the Gaia representatives tell me any of this about matriculation and being called freshes? It makes me wonder what else I don't know, both good and bad.

  Maybe Liddick is right; maybe everyone is overreacting because none of the rest of us, except for maybe his best friend Ellis, has a lot of experience with virtuo-cines. But I guess if we turn into a bloat-headed chutz like Liddick, I'm glad we don't. I'll stick to flat-cines, thanks. Nothing wrong with being a bystander. Though, I must admit, I probably wouldn't say no to fighting alongside Sera Lim and liberating thousands of imprisoned pilgrims from the core of a planet. That could be fun.

  Once we're through the quadrant gate, I let Liddick and Myra walk on without me. The day seems heavier now that the sun is starting to slip closer to the horizon, and I know this feeling of exhaustion must be the result of the constant struggle between my excitement for the new adventure of leaving home, and the knot in my stomach about not having a choice. I suppose I could turn down the scholarship and the stipend, but no one does that just to stay here in Seaboard North where the best thing you could hope to become is an apprentice, and that's if you're lucky. No one throws something like this away after working a lifetime for it, and I'm not going to be the first.

  CHAPTER 6

  Aftermath

  I hear footfalls behind me, and turn to see Arco jogging. He is out of breath when he catches up to me, and his shirt is damp at the center of his chest. How long has he been jogging? I couldn't have gotten that far ahead of him.

  "There you are," he says, panting.

  "Where did you come from? I thought you were right behind me," I ask, looking around to see if anyone else is behind us.

  "No, I decided to take a detour. I wasn't in any hurry…I'm still not," he says to the gravel between each of his steps as he slows down and catches his breath, then looks up at me.

  There is a long, awkward pause between us as I try to decide if I really want to ask him about his interview again, but I feel pulled to do it, so maybe he wants to tell me.

  "Arco, what really happened to you in there?" I ask, and when his eyes lock with mine, he lets out a long sigh.

  "It's all strange and disconnected, but I guess the best way to say it is that in one of the scenarios, I had an opportunity, and I missed it," he says as he looks out on the waves that are crashing on the shore to our left. "They wanted to put me in charge because apparently, I had the skills," he says, curling his fingers into quotes at his waist around the last words.

  "You didn't agree with them about that?" Arco has never been one to doubt himself, at least, I hadn't thought so.

  "I didn't at the time. They put three of us at the controls of the sub—me and two others I didn't know—and something hit our ship. Water started rushing in, and they just kept yelling for me to do something. I could have, and I see that now. I know that I could have jumped in and hijacked the system override to seal off the gush, but I froze instead and left it up to someone else who wound up getting himself…electrocuted," Arco stops and swallows, then begins again, "…all because I didn't trust that I'd be fast enough with the codes." He picks up a flat stone from our path and tries to skip it sideways over the water as he talks, almost to himself now, and I wonder if he's forgotten I'm here. "It's worse, you know, to watch someone failing like that, to realize too late that you could have made the difference for everyone if you'd just had the guts."

  He turns his profile completely away from me and faces the sea, then whips another stone overhead as hard as he can. It sails well past the first several breakers and drops into the water behind the lapping surf.

  "It wasn't your fault, Arco. It was just a game. You must have known on some level that it was just a game," I say to the back of his head, his sandy brown hair catching the breeze from the water and whipping into a tangle.

  "Maybe," he says, finally looking forward again, and I feel a struggle inside myself like I'm losing my grip on a heavy package. I can only think to tell him that the Arco I know isn't afraid of anything, but then I realize that I don't really know this. I don't really know him beyond our childhood pranks because the last five years have been so isolating in preparing for today. Do I really know him anymore? Do I even know myself anymore? When is the last time I had an idea about anything other than information and protocols, or about mastering skills and presenting myself properly? Who are any of these people I've been with almost every day of my life so far?

  To help us both, I try to think of the last moment I can remember feeling like I had an identity beyond my class rank, and finally, it surfaces.

  "Do you remember the summer before we started secondary classes? We were 13 and sneaked away from the port festival with Ellis and the others so we could watch the shuttle relay surface by the dome to get ready to pick up Liam Wright the next morning?"

  "You just had to go in the water after Liddick dared you," he shakes his head, chuffing out what is almost a laugh.

  "Yeah, and I was in bed for two days with that jellyfish sting, remember? It felt like someone was burning my ankle off with a soldering iron!" He looks at me sideways and smirks. "Remember how I froze when it happened? And how you just splashed right in after me and pulled me out?"

  His eyes hunt again for an answer he seems to have dropped in the sand, and as I try to remember the details of that day, how it all felt floods back. It was the first time I was ever really afraid, the first time I thought I could be hurt or lost. I don't think I'd ever felt so small before, and it crashed into me all at once. I was alone in the middle of the ocean. Looking back, I wonder if maybe that was the only way to prepare me for the loss of my father later that summer. I had to know what it was like to feel lost so I wouldn't freeze when it happened again, and maybe it happened to show me that no matter where I was, I could never be alone as long as I had friends like Arco Hart.

  "That was a long time ago," he says.

  "But you didn't freeze, and you could have. You could have waited for someone else to jump in, like Ellis or Liddick, but you didn't. And you won't if it's ever real again like that, so don't let their head games get to you. It wasn't your fault."

  We walk on in silence listening to the gulls, to the water hitting the beach, and after a few minutes, he pulls his hand out of his pocket and rests it on my shoulder. He seems relaxed and casual again until his whole body goes rigid, but once I understand what he's doing, I also understand that it's too late for me to run.

  "Let's see if I can still haul you up this hill while you're flailin
g and squealing," he says, and in one quick dive, sweeps up my legs and throws me over his shoulder. My breath is forced out in a whoosh, and I grasp the back of his shirt once I realize I'm suddenly upside-down.

  "Put me down!" I yell into his shoulder blades as I try to kick free, but he wraps his long arm over my legs and pins me in place.

  "You should probably hang on now," he says, and starts attempting to jog, the constant bouncing preventing me from getting enough air to produce much more than clipped protests. "You're a lot heavier than you were when we were 13, by the way," he laughs, and the rest of my rebuttals fall on deaf ears as I watch his footprints appear, then disappear into the distance as the tide rises and the gulls swoop at the shore.

  CHAPTER 7

  Coming Home

  I know we're at our habitat complex a few minutes later when Arco's pace slows from a trot to a walk and I hear Jax and Fraya laughing.

  "OK!" I shout, and he releases my legs. I slide off his shoulder, my feet hitting the ground with a thud that sends a shockwave up through my teeth. I push the hair out of my face and punch Arco in the arm. He feigns a mortal wound, and I roll my eyes for what seems like the hundredth time today, then rub my pummeled ribs.

  "I better go up and help my mom with the food for tonight. See you in a little while," Fraya smiles, letting the expression linger on Jax an extra beat. "And thank you again for everything," she tells him, then stands on her tiptoes and kisses him quickly on the mouth before she turns to go inside. Jax's face explodes in a stupid smile as she walks away, and once she's gone, Arco pushes him off balance and makes some kind of accusation in the grunts and jeering language that only boys seem to speak before he collects himself and heads for the door.

  "I should probably go in too," he says as he finishes laughing at Jax, then angles his head in a quick nod to me before starting inside. I feel a stab of disappointment that takes me by surprise, and when I realize it, my face and neck flood with heat. I push away the random and completely wrong implication that I somehow wanted him to say more to me or look longer at me in acknowledgement like Fraya did with Jax, and shake my head to wipe it away as a warm breeze comes off the water over us.

  "This is my favorite time of year," Jax says as we head up the walkway, breaking the spell of my indignation.

  "Even though we're leaving?" I ask, and feel a sudden stabbing cold spot in my chest as I realize I don't know if he's leaving too. "Wait, you got in? You got in, right?" I reply, panicked and reaching for his arm in search of his bracelet cuff after the jolt of adrenaline hits my bloodstream. He moves a step ahead of me, though, then turns to face me with his hands behind his back as his face falls. "Tell me!"

  "Jazz, listen…" he starts, walking backward from me, and my stomach drops. "You know mom and Nann will have dad's package and yours now, so one more would just be…virtuo-cine money for Nann," he says without changing his conciliatory tone, then whips his bracelet from behind his back, another wry grin spreading across his face.

  "You got in!" I shout and jump up to hug him around the neck, then drop down and slap him in the chest. "You got in—crite, you chutz. Don't do that to me!" He throws his head back in a laugh, then skims his hand over the tips of the saw grass that line the walkway up to our habitat complex door.

  "Did you see the infobit about the new releases next week?" I ask him, wondering if he's thinking what I'm thinking.

  "The Willowers...I almost forgot!" he says, a new smile reigniting the one that had just been on his face as the door closes behind us and we walk to the end of the hall. "Nann will implode when she sees that giant bird," he laughs.

  The thing about being twins is that we can usually tell how the other feels, and I know he would give just about anything to see Nann's face light up when she sees a bird bigger than she is standing right in front of her for the first time. When you're older, being inside a virtuo-cine story may be surreal, but when you're young, it's magical.

  Jax opens the door with the retina scanner. The air inside is warm and smells like fresh bread, which makes my stomach clench as I realize none of us ate lunch because we left before everyone else. Nann is backlit by the sun beaming in from the small kitchen window as she carries a basket of cookies toward us, her brown pigtails bouncing with each step. Our mother follows just behind her with a covered dish in hand and her blue apron untied in the back. When she sees us, all the blood rushes out of her face as she stops in her tracks trying to force a smile.

  "Mom, it's OK," I blurt out, feeling compelled to push back the worry that crashes into me when I see her. Jax shoots me an expectant look, wondering if I'm going to give her the news. "Tell her," I say.

  "We both got in. We're both going to Gaia," he waits for an explosion of excitement and celebration from her like I do, but aside from Nann jumping up and down and rushing to throw herself around his leg, the room remains quiet. Color washes back into my mother's face, though, and a smile blooms, but that guilt from this morning clamps around my chest again, and I don't understand why. This is good news, isn't it?

  "I'm so proud of you both. I couldn't make my parents proud like this, but I always knew you would," she says, tears starting in her wide brown eyes. I walk over and put my arm around her.

  "What are those?" Nann asks, pointing to the cuffs Jax and I both wear on our left wrists.

  "They're kind of like the medi-credit bracelet we put on to go to the clinic if there are no medi-droids available to come here. You know how we put those under the light and it tells the surgeon all about you?" Jax kneels in front of her to explain while letting her touch the cuff, and she nods. "This does the same thing for us—it's a ticket to get on the shuttle sub tomorrow morning that tells the people who we are…you know, since we... got...in...to...Gaia!" he sing-songs this last part as he lifts Nann up into the air and swings her around, the basket of cookies now also in orbit around his head.

  "Jax, the basket!" our mother says through a gasp as she reaches up, and Jax slows to a stop. "We're just on our way to help set up. Now you can come with us," she laughs after her initial alarm, and it's a good sound to hear.

  Jax settles Nann onto his shoulders where she balances the cookies on the top of his head, then leans over and feeds one to him. He ducks through the door holding her legs down tightly so she doesn't wobble with the shift in altitude as we all start toward the center of town for the festival. My chest tightens when I hear Nann giggle in front of me as Jax makes chomping monster noises. I'm going to miss so much of her life, and I'm reminded again of my frustration with why no one talks about this part.

  I think about asking my mother, who's walking at my side, but I finally know the answer the second I ask myself the question this time. It's because no one wants to burden anyone with the sadness. We all just maintain, pretend that everything is perfect, we've been accepted into Gaia and have therefore fulfilled our responsibilities as children. Our parents have fulfilled their responsibilities as parents—we have all won, and that's what we're going to focus on today.

  I catch my mother's eyes, and this time I see pride in her smile. She's always been there for us, and all at once I understand the strange, guilty feelings I've had today. I know it hasn't been easy for her on her own these last several years, and it never occurred to me before today that she would bear the weight of Jax or me not getting into Gaia on her own as well.

  She would blame herself, and so would others. She and everyone else would think that she failed us. No one talks about it, but everyone in our community thinks it's always the parents' fault when someone doesn't make the cut, even though so many don't, and no one wants to bring that kind of shame onto his or her family. That doesn't stop it from happening, but living in quadrants makes it more difficult to fail. I read that when we still had states, schools failed because they were too large and run by people too far away, but the way it is now, you have to fear failure because everyone in the stacks knows you, knows your family, and you could lose more than just an opportunity for
a better education if you don't do well. You could lose the respect of your whole community.

  The only way to minimize the whispers if you don't get into Gaia is to graduate from secondary studies here at Seaboard, and then apply for an apprenticeship program in energy at the hydrogen plant like my father did, or in education, medicine, or agriculture like my mother did, but since most families keep to their own for apprenticeships, it's hard to break in. We were lucky that my grandparents ran the covered greenbed field that feeds our stack complex and three others, but if you can't get an apprenticeship, you wind up studying with the Fisher or the Tinkerer clan, which is looked down upon even though there are never enough people to catch fish or to fix and invent things. I've always wondered why we don't associate much at school with the few of them who are there, and why we don't interact anywhere with them outside of the marketplace where we meet to trade for goods once a week. They all disappear into their boathouses near the shore, or into their factories on the edge of the quadrant on other days, and we can forget the smell of the sea on their clothes and the grease stains on their faces, and that were it not for one particular set of expectations, we would be no different from them at all.

  CHAPTER 8

  The Others: Part Two

  Strings of shells timber and echo in the breeze while hanging from the open rafters of the community center's covered walk. I watch the sun peeking out from behind the clouds, knowing it will soon sink into the horizon in a fever of orange and purple , and like so many other things today, I feel a pang in my chest knowing it will be the last time I will see it. Not just from the shoreline, but ever see it again. How have I prepared for something my entire life—even made conscious progress toward it—only for it to feel like I never saw it coming? Something from just beyond that horizon reaches under my ribs and squeezes until I can't take in a full breath, and after I exhale, I feel as hollow as the strings of shells surrounding me.