by Korn, Tracy
Reynolt was hiding something. You felt her shift, didn't you? I ask.
I felt that wave of guilt register after you told her people were missing, and then I felt her bury it.
That's what I got too, I answer, and there was something else I couldn't place as she was pushing us out of there.
That felt like damage control—her doing the math, you know? She may not like whatever happened to everyone, but she was way too underwhelmed not to be part of it somehow.
I think you're right. And Denison didn't even flinch. I add.
Exactly. If they are sending a team out after Vox and Fraya, I doubt it's to rescue them. Something else is going on, Liddick says, looking back just as Arco puts his arm around me, but then quickly rights himself and nods at something Myra says.
Why could we feel her but nothing from the others? I suddenly wonder. Is it because she's an Empath? Was she even a clone?
I was thinking the same thing. I don't know, but I'll see what I can find out before dinner, he answers, then disappears around the corner to drop off Myra at the med-bay. Arco exhales audibly when we pass him.
"What's that for?" I ask as we walk up the stairs. Arco closes his eyes for a few beats and shakes his head.
"He's just exhausting lately—and now all this with Jax."
"They're just worried. Aren't you? You're kind of in the same boat as they are with your si—" Arco's eyes go wide for a second, and I feel the same urgent rush I had from Ms. Reynolt. He shakes his head so slightly I almost don't see it, and I remember they could be listening, or watching, or however Arco thinks they're keeping tabs on everything. We move into our positions, and I sit alone on the back wall staring into the water and wondering where Vox and Fraya are right now, hoping that they're not terrified as Liddick comes up the stairs and meets my eyes.
This isn't over. We're going to get them back ourselves, he says in my head. I raise an eyebrow at him as Ms. Reynolt and Dr. Denison fall in behind him, and the Leviathan's engines roar to life under us.
CHAPTER 39
Rising
"The student center is right up here. Let's get a drink," Arco says once we filter back up from the docking bay. It's maddening not to be able to talk about what happened yet, but Arco insists that we can't risk being overheard.
The student center is nearly empty when we walk in, and I don't remember half of the things in there now from when we took our tour. The room is open like most of the other areas here, but this one also has several small seating groupings and three large screens floating in the air with different channels of scrolling news on each half. As we approach, one of them on the other end of the room fades, then appears closer to us.
"Whoa—" I say, startled. "Where is that?" I ask, now that I can take a closer look. The scene is from Skyboard North on the left half of the screen, and the right is of The State. "That's the Metro—that's under the dome down here."
"And that's supposed to be home?" Arco's eyebrows come together as he frowns, looking skeptically at the men on the other half of the screen.
"They're Fishers," I reply, reading the caption below the men: Seaboard North Fisher Minority creates new baiting system—revolutionizes the trade.
"But why are they so far inland and still hauling those nets like that? Where are the new helocarts?"Arco asks, intently watching them carrying nets of fish as they laugh and talk. He's right—the shore is so far in the distance I almost can't make it out, but the Fishers have been hauling their catches with the hovering carts that one of the Tinkerers invented for at least a month now.
"Maybe they repurposed them somehow for this new baiting invention thing. How do we find the whole story?" I ask.
"We don't. They're just feed clips. In my Systems class this morning, they told us we won't have full access to any mainstream media our first year. Part of their immersion protocol or something," Arco says, walking us toward the stack of cups and the tall, silver dispensers on the counter that juts out from the back wall. "Looks like coffee, tea, and water."
Arco pours hot tea for me and coffee for himself, then we walk toward the narrow tables along the bowed window that stretches the length of the wall just like it does in the Records room. The same endless expanse of midnight blue unfolds in the glow of the building's exterior lights, but there's no life to be seen out there now, only The State's covered dome, hazy in the distance, and closer up, the symmetrical, undulating lines of the rest of the Gaia buildings, all of them edged in the same light on the top and the bottom.
"It looks like the outline of a huge, hilly road turned on its side out there," I say, gesturing toward the window over Arco's shoulder as he takes a seat across from me. He turns to follow my gaze and then nods, sipping his coffee.
"This whole place is on its side," he replies, turning back to face me.
"Did you think this is what it would be like here—just weird classes and serving homesteads and State personnel?" I ask, blowing on my tea.
"I guess I don't really know what I thought anymore. Every perception I had about this place got swallowed up by reality as soon as they told us we got in…which seems like a lifetime ago already. What about you?"
"I thought it was the only chance we had," I say, trying to find better words somewhere in the endless water beyond the window. "I mean, I thought we'd finally be on the path we'd worked toward all these years, but now that it's gone, I guess I'm wondering what it was all for."
"We still have a path, Jazz. It's just a different one."
I look over at him and wonder how he can be so calm when we have no idea what happens to us from here on out—no promise of stability, no guarantee of any future that even remotely resembles what we've been preparing for all this time.
"How do you do that? How do you never worry about what's next?" I ask, watching his eyes warm with an immediate answer.
"I guess I'm too busy trying not to mess up right now," he says through a laugh that makes me feel lighter everywhere inside.
"I just wish I could do it," I say, smiling. "I wish I didn't feel like I had to spend every second trying to plan the future."
"Everyone tries to picture an eventually for themselves, at least to some degree. Before things blew up, I read a tutorial about the pod training rotation, and how when we graduate, we can keep traveling, or choose a base career…one where we can go home every night, and I wondered what I'd do, what I would want then," he says, taking a long sip of his coffee, then wraps his hands around the cup and leans in, resting his forearms on the small table between us.
"Did you decide?"
"I did today, yeah. I'd want my eventually to be a base career," he answers, then hesitates a second before looking up from his coffee to me. "I mean, I'd like to have a family at some point," he smiles as much as he can, consciously holding my eyes for a beat before looking out the window next to us.
A wave of heat hits me in the chest just as if he'd aimed a blower at it. I can feel it rushing up my neck to my cheeks as I look into my cup, then clear my throat and focus everything I can to push him not to ask me the same question. It's not fair to be able to feel someone else's emotions in a situation like this, especially if he doesn't even realize that I can tell his intended context is possibly a family someday with me—I'm not supposed to know that yet. It's too much pressure. What if I don't know what my eventually is? What if I don't even know what I'm doing about tomorrow in light of everything that's happened today? Our friends are missing, and we may have found family members who have been missing, which we didn't even realize until now. I want to say all of this, but it's not what comes out.
"Yeah," I say. "That might be nice." I bite my lip, take another sip of tea, and stare again into the expanse of nothing outside the window as I wait for the warm liquid to hit my system and tell me what to do.
After a minute, Arco reaches for my hand. I look down at his long fingers folding around mine, and something about it makes my throat close up.
"You don't always have
to have a plan, Jazz," he says in a quiet voice, which makes everything at the brim in my chest spill over. I think of the marlin…that its message has actually been my father's, and that he's alive. I think about how I've been wrong about Liddick for years, and about how I don't understand this weird duality I have with Vox, who's now missing along with Fraya and the others. I think about these vacillating feelings of wanting to throttle Arco to…this feeling all in one afternoon, and not even knowing what this feeling is.
A hot tear starts down my cheek in my exhaustion, and I watch it dot the smooth metal finish of the table. I still can't swallow. I can't even take a decent breath, but I can sit here and let him hold my hand because I do understand that. The world won't end if I don't know anything else yet, he's right, but if I'm supposed to be able to figure out other people's feelings, I should probably start with my own.
"Arco…" I start, but lose my nerve. His fingers tighten around mine, and I take another sip, which is too fast, but at least the burning sensation on the roof of my mouth helps me steel myself enough to talk again. "Arco, what's happening? I mean, this, with us now? It all feels different from when we were home, even different from this morning," I finally say, the exhale lagging a few seconds after I finish the sentence. He waits before he answers, letting a smile arc along the side of his face that isn't bruising as we sit here.
"Not for me," he says into his coffee just before he takes another sip. He swallows, then swallows again, tracing his thumb over the back of my hand as he searches my face for what to say next, then looks back down at the table with a muffled laugh. "It's funny because I always thought it was so obvious. How I was so clumsy around you all those years, all my bad jokes and awkwardness," he says, his sandy brown waves falling over his forehead and into his eyes. I shake my head at him because none of that stood out to me as strange at all. He's always just been…Arco.
"I never—" I start, but he picks up my hand and brings it to his chest to stop me, folding his hand around mine.
"I know you thought that was me, and I guess it was, but it wasn't who I wanted you to see," he says.
"Arco, you're one of my best friends," I say, trying to find a way to let him know I've never thought anything but good things about him. He nods as he leans in, my hand still entwined with his, which is held so tightly against him that I can feel his heart pounding against the back of my wrist. "We've known each other since we could walk," I smile, lowering my chin to find his eyes.
"And I've probably loved you since then," he says, looking up at me warily. He takes a quick breath, exhaling almost as quickly, and I feel relief wash over me, but then a terrible sense of loss that wrestles against whatever this is that's exploding in my chest right now…which feeling is mine and which is his, or are they both mine? "So there it is…" he says, letting go of my hand and backing away in his seat, "…and I don't expect you to—"
I lean over the small table between us, trying to aim for the side of his mouth that isn't cut and bruised. I don't think about doing it, and am actually surprised to see myself doing it like I'm watching someone else in my skin, but I kiss him. I kiss him. It feels right, easy…I didn't plan it, and it's the one thing I'm sure about in this whole stupid place.
I rest both my forearms on the table and feel his fingertips along my jaw, his right thumb brushing my cheek as his tongue slips over mine. His fingers slide through my hair, gently pulling me closer, more deeply into the kiss, which makes my stomach feel like it's just been caught by a fast-rising hot-air balloon soaring up from the ground. Cold tingling like the oxygen dose Dame Mahgi gave me earlier spreads into my fingers and toes as I lift my right hand to touch his face. He winces for an instant, and I realize I've skimmed over his bruised cheekbone. I start to pull back, but his fingers close in more tightly around the back of my neck as he slides me out from behind the table and to my feet. I vaguely realize I'm on my tiptoes as his hand brushes over my ribs, then wraps around the back of my waist, pulling me against him while his other hand moves through my hair. The side of his thumb brushes against my jaw as he brings me closer, restrained, but firm, and I can feel his heart pounding under my hands, every muscle tensed and hard pressing against me in a surge of feeling that makes my head swim. I'm doing this to him? Just me?
Everything is stopped, yet spinning at the same time. His lips press against mine again in a new rhythm, this one not as slow or easy. I feel his tongue slip over mine again, and the balloon under my stomach hits a pocket of wind that sends it up in another burst of momentum. As soon as I make the conscious realization that I'm standing here kissing Arco Hart, the boy who used to put sand down the back of my pants, the boy who carried me up the beach with a jellyfish sting, the flailing boy on the shuttle who accidentally split my lip, we're still again, almost frozen in place, too afraid to move. His fingers are trembling against my throat, and I feel like I might fall through the floor again if he weren't holding me up, just like by the moon pool.
It suddenly all comes together in that moment. I see him as he really has been all these years: constant, honest, thoughtful, brave, and I'm speechless. Almost.
"I see you," I say against his lips. At least, I think I say it. My voice is so quiet, it could be a thought. But I must say it because he exhales quickly and abruptly like he's been holding his breath all day, and his fingers close around the back of my neck again as he angles my chin up to meet his eyes, which flicker that same green-gold color they did by the water. I feel that sense of calm again, that certainty and safety standing there folded up in him. His arms wrap around me, and I rest my cheek against his chest, which rises and falls as he takes in another deep breath and exhales, his heart still pounding. His chin touches the top of my head, and we stand like this for a minute more watching the endless dark blue water stretch out before us, which doesn't seem so empty anymore.
CHAPTER 40
Truce
He holds my hand in his as we walk to the cafeteria, firmly, like any second he thinks a passing wind might blow me away from him. Everything is still spinning around inside me, but for the first time in months, I feel sure about something. I try to figure out when this all changed for me. When did I start having feelings for him like this? Just a handful of days ago, even just this morning, everything was different, but he's the same as he was then, isn't he? That can only mean I'm the one who has changed, but I'm not sure how. Maybe these nanites that are supposed to expedite our learning, our natural classifications, have sharpened other things too—blown off the dust somehow, or just shone a light?
I try not to think too much about it, but it's hard not to wonder if this is how love works…something just happens, and all you can do is watch yourself take action because everything inside you knows before you do that it's the right thing to do—that love is a sense of safety and certainty for once when so much else seems to be going in different directions or dependent on so many things out of your control—but whatever it is, you feel like you can trust it.
"I'm not even hungry," Arco says, grinning as we approach the cafeteria. "Are you?"
"Not even a little," I answer.
"I guess we should get something, though—it's going to be a long night," he says, scanning the room for the others. We grab a few trays and walk toward the selections, picking out some grapes and potato wedges. Jax, Ellis, Avis, Pitt, Joss, and Myra are at our table already, and tension suddenly sweeps over me. It's coming from Arco having seen Jax, or more specifically, having seen the absence of Fraya and Vox. Then reality hits me again—we've been lost in the last 45 minutes, but our friends are gone, we don't know where, and it's probable that the only people who can help us are in on it. My stomach clutches, and I swallow hard, trying to brace myself for the full effect of these feelings that I know will hit me like a tidal wave as soon as we get to the table. Jax, Avis, Myra, and Ellis weren't supposed to talk about it, but I can't imagine how they were able to keep quiet when Jax and Fraya have been inseparable for months, and Vox is one person
who is definitely hard to miss. I scan the room for Liddick and Tieg, but don't see either one. Dez is sitting at a table with some other Skyboard students I don't recognize, decipherable only by their physiques at this distance.
"I don't see Liddick or Tieg. Do you think everything is OK?" Arco asks as we head toward the table.
"Liddick is probably trying to find out more about what happened earlier. I don't know about Tieg," I answer, now a little nervous about where they could be. Tieg was going to ask me something before he walked away there in the corridor, and I wish he would have. The unsettled feeling gnaws at the corner of my consciousness, and I try to push it back because the suffocation from the table has already started closing in.
Jax eyes Arco and doesn't even blink. He hasn't calmed down at all, and in fact, I think he might even be angrier now than he was earlier, though that's hard to imagine. I walk in front of Arco to try and break the line of his stare. It works, and his eyes flit to me, warming a little. I sit in the empty seat across from Jax, and Arco sits to my right, a wall of ice forming instantly between them. Arco tries to talk with Ellis about something, but I can feel his anxiety radiating off him with the obvious space for Fraya next to Jax, and the space on the other side of me for Vox.
"Hey," I say to Jax, testing the water.
"Hey," he responds flatly, then starts poking at his untouched food.
"Tieg isn't here," I say, scanning the room again. "Have you seen him?"
"He came to my room looking for Pitt, but then left again," Jax answers. "I haven't seen him since." He looks up at me, glances at Arco, then back to me, raising his eyebrows. I shake my head slightly to indicate that I'm not upset with Arco anymore, and he takes a resigned deep breath, exhaling slowly. "He wasn't happy earlier," Jax continues, referring to Tieg.
