AQUA (The Elements Series Book 1)

by Korn, Tracy

  Ellis nods, apparently satisfied with Arco's explanation. Arco is apparently satisfied with his explanation too as he finishes off the last bite of his sandwich and smiles at Tieg, who just narrows his eyes in return.

  "So you'll be learning to drive a vessel that can read the stars in any direction…even through the earth's core?" Vox asks almost obnoxiously, then turns a loaded eye on me. At first I glare at her, but then it hits me. My father and the others, of course, I think. She sees the realization dawn on my face, then, pinches the bridge of her tattooed nose, and I suddenly feel like the stupidest person in the world for not making the connection earlier. I turn to look at Arco, who's expression has gone from smug to resolved.

  "Has anyone seen Liddick?" he asks, and rises to go check in his tray.

  CHAPTER 29

  Endurance and Survival - Part One

  After lunch, the guide arrow stops at the mouth of a set of steel double doors, the light placard on the side reading Endurance and Survival 1 — Tark. There's something different in the air here making it thicker, or warmer, or both, and I find myself standing for a minute before reaching for the handle to open the door, which is dense, and heavier than I anticipated.

  "Is something wrong?" Tieg asks, coming out of nowhere at my shoulder and pulling the door the rest of the way open for me.

  "Nothing, sorry. It just feels different here, doesn't it?"

  "How so?"

  "I don't know, just…"

  "Harder to breathe," Vox says, now at my other shoulder. She crosses in front of me and takes Tieg's arm, escorting him down the stairs as he looks over his shoulder with wide eyes and smiles.

  Inside, the air is even thicker—so thick I expect to be able to see the difference when I look across the room. There are no individual chairs like in the last class, only a long, arcing bench that runs around the perimeter of the room with little foot locker-sized spaces underneath, each about a foot apart. The floor in the middle is black and multileveled, and the ceiling is a labyrinth of thin cylinders, lenses, and nozzles with tubing attached. What a wild room. I think.

  I bet we haven't seen the half of it, I hear Liddick's voice in my head, and jolt.

  Can you just always listen to my thoughts or what? I answer.

  You're the one transmitting. I only hear what you send out.

  What do you mean what I send out? Vox said I'm a 'sponge.' I can't send anything out.

  Well, you just did.

  Where are you? I think, impatient to tell him about the Leviathan and what it can do.

  "Sit by the door," Liddick says, instantly and from nowhere at my side, scaring about a year off my life.

  "Crite, why does that keep happening to me?" I ask, feeling the adrenaline hit my bloodstream and my heart begin to pound in my chest.

  "Because you're nervous. Everyone is nervous the first day of classes. It's in the air," he says, nodding matter-of-factly.

  "If you know that then why did you sneak up on me?"

  "Because I got to watch you jump," he replies with a smirk and a wink before walking toward the bench along the wall. I shake my head. "Come on. I've heard this teacher hooks the first person he sees for a demonstration, and we don't want that to be us."

  I follow him to a seat near the door and start scanning the room for people I might know. Jax and Pitt are sitting directly across from us talking energetically about something, but Jax looks up almost immediately and waves, then gestures for me to look to my right. When I do, I see Tieg and Arco about 10 feet away, still not acknowledging the other's presence, and Vox has disappeared into the sea of faces.

  I don't have time to scan any more of the room for her before a circle of blue lights appears in the black floor down in front of us. The panels beneath the lights open like a flower from left to right, and a platform with a tall black man in a green jumpsuit rises up through the circle. I know this must be the instructor, Mr. Tark, and swallow hard, pressing as far into the wall behind me as I can. Liddick looks over at me and raises an eyebrow, almost as imperceptibly as the new smirk fighting with the corner of his mouth.

  Stow it, I think, not sure if he'll even hear it or not.

  What a jelly.

  You said we shouldn't get picked. I don't want to get picked. That doesn't mean I'm a jelly.

  Liddick's smirk breaks free, but he is quick to reset his face before turning his eyes to the platform.

  "Cadets," Mr. Tark's voice is deep and quiet. "Welcome to Endurance and Survival. You are here today because your career paths involve travel, and you will need to know how to operate in the event you become stranded," he says in a slow, even tone as he looks around the room like he's choosing which one of us he's planning to eat. He stands with his chest pushed out and his hands clasped behind his back, his lanyard catching whatever breeze must be up there flicking it back and forth. He takes a few steps off the platform and taps something into a metal cuff he wears on his forearm. In seconds, the walls shift from the opaque gray with white trim to a frontage of beach that surrounds us, which gives way to a wide sky and rolling sea.

  "Whoa," I say, not realizing it is out loud until I hear my own voice.

  "This is our arena, our continent, our world. When you come to this class, you will not be practicing survival, you will be surviving," Tark continues, louder now over the sound of the waves crashing. It's all so real, even down to the smell of salt in the air. I feel my throat tighten at the memory of home, everything there now seeming like it happened in another lifetime.

  The temperature cools with the breeze blowing in over the water…well, from what must be the tubing in the ceiling. I look up to find it so I can confirm my speculation, but those tubes and cylinders have been replaced by a wide open blue sky, a bright, blinding sun, and wispy swatches of white clouds. It's like we've been transplanted here, teleported. Has that happened? Are we still in this room? I'm still sitting on this bench, aren't I?

  "Wh—!" the girl next to me jumps up and looks at where she's just been sitting to find that it's a rock, not a bench. I look across the room at where Jax and Pitt are sitting and find a sand dune. Everyone has been repositioned.

  "Are we still in the room?" I ask Liddick, hoping his virtuo-cine expertise will pay off as we abruptly stand.

  "I think so," he says, touching the rocks behind us. "The rocks are cool. Real rocks would have been baking in this sun all day."

  I feel myself exhale in relief, but just as I do, everyone on Jax's side of the beach suddenly gasps as they look in our direction. Over my shoulder I see 10 large, angry looking men running toward us in the distance. The wall has disappeared completely, or expanded out to accommodate them coming at us from what must be a hundred feet away, but I don't understand why, or what has just happened. Why are they so angry?

  Everyone gets to their feet at once, and as soon as they do, they start searching for their tablets, but everything has turned into sand under our feet. I stumble backward and am sure I will fall until Liddick grabs my upper arm and sets me right.

  "What's happening?" I ask him. "Why do they look like they want to kill us?"

  "I don't know, but we need to move," he says.

  "Where? And why do we have to move? This isn't even real, right? The rocks were cold," I hear the panic in my voice, but I'm not sure why. I know this isn't real. I saw Tark call it up on his wrist control. I know I am not afraid, even though the hammering in my chest suggests otherwise.

  Where are we supposed to go?

  We didn't do anything…what's wrong with them?

  I can almost hear the voices, almost believe they're actually my own thoughts, but they're not. They're not Liddick's either, and Vox can only push me to express something I'm already feeling…this experience is something new. People are beginning to cry, and some have started running down the beach only to be chased back by people running from that end too. Some try to jump into the water, but waves roll up and force them back. My heart feels like it is going to jump out of my chest
now, and my lungs begin to burn. Tears well up in my eyes and blur my vision, and I realize I need to get control of the chaos. These are not my feelings, they are everyone else's—they have to be because despite the way my body is responding, I am not this terrified.

  I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and replay the image of Mr. Tark tapping his arm panel. I replay the image of the walls falling away and this beach terrain appearing. My heartbeat slows down and the tears that threatened to choke me start subsiding, it's working… Relax, they're not real. They're all part of a cine he brought up. I say to myself.

  I open my eyes, and some of my classmates have stopped scrambling. I turn around to face the oncoming drove, and see that Jax, Arco, Pitt, Joss, and Tieg have crossed to our side of the beach. Their faces are stern and their eyes are set on the approaching men.

  "It's OK. It's going to be OK. It's a cine," I say to the people skittering around me. "Touch those rocks. They're cool. How could they be cool if they were sitting in this hot sun all day?" It comes out all at once, and I don't even know from where. All the panic I had been feeling—other people's fears—all of it is gone now, and I just feel compelled to get the truth out as fast as possible. I look over at Liddick and concentrate as hard as I can.

  Are you pushing me? I think, Are you making me say this stuff?

  He shakes his head. You're doing it. I hear, and he nods to our classmates behind us, who are now taking steps forward, calmly. You're doing all of it.

  When the charging people are about 20 feet from us on all sides, they stop. I hear a few people in the class still sobbing, but everyone else seems to have regained their composure. If I did that, I don't know how. I was just trying to make myself and the few people near me feel better, but maybe that's all it takes?

  In seconds, we're all pushed into the center of this growing circle of wild looking strangers. I still don't see Vox anywhere, but Jax has found Fraya, and rejoins Arco, Joss, Pitt, and Tieg just behind Liddick and me.

  As the strangers get closer, they remind me of the Fringe back home, only instead of tattooed skin, theirs is decoratively scarred. Their clothing is a combination of leather and canvas, small bones, and woven fabrics, and they all still look angry.

  "Vahg!" One of the larger men growls and points to me. "Vahg ipsti!" the man yells again and starts toward us. I jump, not recognizing the language as even one of the Tinkerer's dialects, and my heart pounds against my ribs again as Arco pulls my shoulder back, which makes me stumble right into Jax's chest. The man begins walking quickly toward us, but I wriggle out of Jax's grasp. Liddick catches my arm and pulls me back again. I tug, but his grip closes around me more tightly.

  "Are you split? Where are you going?" he whispers.

  "Let me go," I say, wrenching free and pushing my way back to the front, ducking between Arco and Tieg as I hold up my hand to say stop. This makes the man approach even faster, and I don't know why I step toward him, but I do.

  "Jazz!" Arco yells as I rush past him. I wave him off, then show both of my hands to the oncoming man. It's suddenly very important to me that he sees them empty.

  "See! You see? Nothing's there," I say, and he stops advancing. My mind races from thought to thought. I can't talk to this person. He won't understand anything.

  But I didn't do it…I feel from somewhere deep, a need to protest, to defend myself, but…what didn't I do? I look back at Liddick, whose expression blanches.

  I don't know either. Just breathe. They think we're hiding something. You feel that?

  But it's more…not just hiding something; they think we've taken something, I respond.

  "Ishti, wah!" the man juts out his chin and lowers his eyes to my jumpsuit pocket, which I pull inside-out to show him that it's as empty as my hands.

  "Nothing, see?" He starts looking around at the others, his eyes darting, hunting, then takes several more steps toward me, but I know I can't back away even though every muscle in my body is pulling in that direction.

  Letting my eyes drop from his is a mistake. The man pulls a long, sharpened stick from his belt and grabs my throat with one hand while sticking the tip of it just below my ear. I can feel the sharp, biting point pressing in and wonder how this can be a virtuo-cine…if that's actually what it is?

  All of the other men brandish similar sticks and take a few steps toward us as I suck in a breath, barely feeling the ground under my tiptoes. From the side, I see Jax spring forward with Arco, but I hold up one hand to them while holding onto the man's forearm with the other.

  "Stop—stop! It's OK," I try to say, stretching my neck for air. "They think we've… taken something. Show your…hands…and get down."

  The man's icy fingers loosen just a fraction, and I pull in as much of a breath as I can. I move my eyes back to his, and realize that we're so close that I can see the tiny balls of chalky powder and clay in his eyebrows that make up his pale coloring.

  "Listen to her, she's right," Liddick says, moving toward me now as the first to follow through. "Everyone get down, show your hands." Most in our group comply immediately, and the strangers relax their stances and sticks just a little. "We just have to explain to them somehow, so everyone just be still—no sudden movements," Liddick continues.

  The man doesn't release me, but he relaxes his grip on my throat when the last reluctant few drop to a knee, except for Jax and Arco, who are crouched like they're on a G-ball defensive line.

  "It's OK, you especially. Stop looking like you want to fight and just trust me," I insist, and Jax finally, slowly takes a knee. "Show them your palms—empty hands."

  "Do it," Liddick says to Arco and Jax, who begrudgingly follow suit.

  "Ipsti. Vahg ipsti…" the leader, with his matted locks of brown hair and diamond pattern scarred skin repeats, not as violently this time, but his hand is still around my throat, and I can still feel the needling of the stick in the soft tissue below my jawline.

  "Nic ipsti, vahg stolis," a voice from somewhere behind me says, but I don't recognize the guttural tone until she comes into my line of sight.

  "Vox?" I whisper.

  She sends me a quick, warning glance and a subtle head shake. The man says something long and complicated to the others, sheaths his stick, then looks back at Vox and holds out five of his gold ringed fingers like he's expecting her to give him something.

  "Nic, ya nori ipsti wahg," Vox replies, her tone cold and firm as she pulls up her pant leg to reveal her tattoos. She points to her face, and finally, unzips the front of her jumpsuit to show the network of tattoos on her sternum. The strangers gasp, then take a step backward and immediately lower their eyes. The leader finally lets me go, and I stumble backward as my feet connect with the ground. He raises the small shell around his neck to his lips and blows, creating a high-pitched tone, which seems to be the cue to retreat.

  We all watch them go, and no one from our class breathes, let alone moves until the men are about 50 feet away. As soon as I can, I cross quickly to Vox in the general scramble of everyone murmuring about what just happened before either of us can be intercepted.

  "Where were you, and why do you speak barbarian?" I ask, my throat tight and sharp on the inside.

  "I had to listen to some of the others muttering in the back. They weren't saying enough for me to completely learn it, though."

  "Learn what?" I ask, coughing as I see Jax, Fraya, and Arco moving toward me.

  "Their language."

  "You can do that after a few minutes? I thought it took you most of the night when you fell into that hole in The Badlands," I ask quickly before I have to answer a hundred questions for the others. She shrugs.

  "I thought so too, but it was easier just now. I felt like all I had to do was listen."

  "The nanites…" I say to the ground as I continue putting the pieces together, then look back at Vox. "What did they think we took?"

  "They thought we were here stealing eggs or something. Or maybe it was stones?" she says, her eyebrows digging in a
s she thinks back, then abandons it. "I don't know. I just told them we weren't thieves. Oh, and that I was a god," she says through a crippled laugh, then swallows, and for the first time I see that she's breathing hard. She was afraid. "Then he said we had five minutes to prove it, or die," she continues, holding up her hands dramatically and rolling her eyes, and I smile at the realization that I am finally able to see through her masks. "And I just—what?" she stops abruptly, then quirks her eyebrows and makes her way past me to pick up a handful of sand rather than waiting for my reply. "This is surreal—touch it."

  I follow her and move my hand under the sand, which is cool like the rocks.

  "Jazz! Are you all right?" Jax bounds into our space and squares my shoulders with his big gorilla hands.

  "Let me see your throat," Fraya says, gently moving her fingers over my neck.

  "I'm fine, I'm fine," I say as she takes a deep breath and hugs me once Jax lets me go. I catch Arco's expression over her shoulder, his eyebrows drawn together and up, and his jaw clenched so hard I can see the striations of the muscles under his cheekbones.

  "I can't watch you like that again," he says so quietly I almost don't hear him, then nods once before backing out of the fray and making his way to the outer circle, out of earshot even if I did know how to respond.

  "Are you sure you're OK?" Fraya asks, taking one more look at my throat.

  "Yes, it's a little sore, but I'll live," I say, then move a step back. Ellis and Avis stumble over each other to give me some space, and I look around for Vox to finish my questions while everyone starts to dissipate. I turn around and find her crouched over what's become a small pile of sand as she scoops and spills it onto a tiny mountain.

  "So it was your tattoos? That's why they thought you were a god?" I ask her.

  "The scars," Liddick says as he walks up behind us with Tieg, Myra, and Joss as Jax and the others filter back and watch the men get smaller in the distance. He turns to face Vox once he's close enough and repeats himself. "It was their scars, wasn't it?"