My feet firmly planted on the ground, I was skeptical that this was an official entrance to the shell. My guess would be that nobody even knew it was there.
“What was that?”
“A backdoor,” he said slyly, swinging his backpack over his shoulder.
Of course, it was. While my mind was on the subject of back doors, it occurred to me that Adam might know something about what Kerry had mentioned earlier. “By the way, where do the tattoos come from?”
“The badges? Oh, well I suppose the devices are manufactured in one of the Alliance Factories.”
“No, I mean where do new soldiers get their badges when they come to the Shell?” I clarified.
“From the Office of the Defense Coordinator usually.” He said casually. It was clear that he was avoiding the topic. I was disappointed that there seemed to be more secrets. We walked in silence for a time.
“Are you from the Western Coastal District?” He asked me randomly as our path was winding towards the forest.
“Yeah,” I answered. It surprised me, but I was trying not to show it.
“We don’t have to talk about it.” He said. The sky was clear above the dense foliage. “I just noticed, since I was the one who did the paperwork your badge.”
“It’s okay. I just haven’t been back in a while.” I said, thinking about the implications of what he said.
“Your folks live there?”
“My mom.”
“Mmm. It won’t be much farther.”
The route that Adam was following, seemed to almost be a trail. The foliage was thinner where we stepped. It felt impossible to look away from him, so I trained my eyes on the ground, taking care not to trip over a root or stone. My stomach felt suddenly fluttery. I didn’t have my respirator, but Adam didn’t seem worried. The people living in the forest had seemed okay anyway, so I’d probably be fine. Still, it made me nervous.
The villagers who I’d seen before were waiting for us when we reached the center of the sector. It wasn’t hard to see why Adam had brought me here. Mothers and children embraced him, bringing him into the village. His smile usually pulled down at the corners of his lips, stretched wide and illuminated his face. An older woman took his hand and placed it over her heart. He pulled a listening device from his backpack and moved to put it in his ears. The woman, realizing she’d been misunderstood, put her own hand on his heart. Adam nodded to accept the greeting. It was the same woman that I had seen Adam treating. Her condition was much improved but she was clearly still very weak.
Two villagers stood behind her and assisted her when she spoke to them. They grasped her frail arms, then helped her sit on a small pad on the ground. That’s when she turned to me. She spoke to Adam in a tongue, I couldn’t recognize. Its sound was jarring and immediate. Adam returned a much slower response, that was labored but still intelligible. He gestured me forward, bestowing his smile on me. We sat down opposite the woman and he whispered in my ear.
“This is the leader of the people. She is a Medicine Woman.”
Was I supposed to touch her heart, as she and Adam had greeted one another? The woman had the most beautiful soft black eyes. They reflected the jungle behind me as if it were inside of her looking out.
I wanted her to reach out and touch me. It felt like a need, to be embraced as by a mother. She spoke softly, whispering more than talking aloud. She wrapped her arm around me, pulling my forehead to her own. Her chant echoed in my ears, filling my head with a dizzying thrum. It was both inviting and terrifying, but it was over in flash. She pressed her cheek against mine and released me. She stared at Adam and me, her gaze shifting between us, before finally taking his hand and placing it over my heart, and my hand on his heart. To my horror, my face flushed red. After interminable minutes of Adam’s hand on my accelerating heart, the woman finally spoke to him, and he stuttered out a reply in the same language.
“What’s she saying?” I tried to remain still, though my heart would not slow.
“I’m not catching all of it,” He admitted, not meeting my eyes. “She says you are beautiful.”
I almost choked, and he pulled his hand away. It left heat behind, despite the thick insulating material of my shirt.
Achi came up from the winding stairs at just the right moment to rescue me. “Ah, at it again,” She murmured something to the woman who responded with an argumentative tack. Achi didn’t explain. “Lane, this is my grandmother.”
“Will you tell her, that I am so happy to meet her?” The words brought up genuine emotion. Pull it together, Lane, I chided myself.
Before Achi could say anything to her grandmother, the woman turned to respond to me.
“She says she knows.” Achi shrugged. I must really be wearing my heart on my sleeve recently. “And she wants you both to stay and eat with us.”
How could it possibly benefit these people to bring us, two strangers, into their community? Achi seamlessly transitioned from tour guide one day to member of the hidden tribe the next. They had so much to lose by trusting us, more than even we did. That’s saying something because we had a lot to lose.
These hidden people did nothing quickly. I learned that soon enough. They had a huge fire that was smoking in the center of the circle, it was burning thick green leaves. The scent was like citrus fruit mixed with campfire. The men and women all sat together, rolling up some kind of meat into the wide leaves. Adam and I sat down next to Achi where she showed us how to scoop the sticky mixture into the leaves and wrap it so it would not unroll. All around us, the conversation grew as the communal task brought us together. Achi tried to teach me a few words in their language, and I hopelessly stumbled through it. A small girl, probably no more than 11, sat across from me and giggled.
“This is nice,” Adam leaned back, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath.
“Thank you for bringing me here.” I smiled, feeling more at ease than I had in a long time.
“Of course! I wanted you to see it.” I’d already seen their home already. He knew that.
“See what?”
“The beauty of the culture they have,” He sighed. Only Adam could say something like that and actually sound genuine. Was I right in believing that we were both souls adrift? We shared something, even if it was simply a profound sense of being lost.
“It really is beautiful.” I felt that we understood each other, but the moment could certainly not last.
The rolled up leaves roasted in the fire, producing a wonderful smell. I felt a real hunger for the first time in a while. The food they served in the Shell did not do much to stimulate the appetite.
Achi seemed to be watching us, and I drew closer to Adam. There was something unnerving about the way we were being scrutinized.
As everyone finished, and the food was left to cook, a young boy pulled out a drum and started tapping out a beat with his hands. The women joined in, singing some well-known song. I relished the strange sounds, each word its own island with hills and valleys accentuated by a haunting melody. Finally, another voice joined in. It was soft and low, the old woman. Achi’s grandmother. The other voices faded, everyone trying to hear what she would sing.
Achi reached out to get my attention, “She is thanking the Great Spirit for our lives, and asking for us all to be given a gift.”
“What does that mean?”
“In our language, a gift is a message from the Great Spirit. To be given a gift is to be shown the true path.”
I didn’t want to miss any more of the song, so I held my questions. There were too many anyway, more than Achi could ever answer. The grey-haired woman chanted, throwing her arms into the air, an act of a woman truly free. After the song ended, the people all began eating the hot food without much ceremony. Adam took some from the coals and handed it to me. I bit into the wrapper leaf and the flavor of the spiced meat burst onto my tongue.
“Why didn’t you take me to lunch before now?” I moaned through bites of the delicious food.
“Honestly?” I was feeling brave. “Probably not.”
He jerked his body back, pretending to take a bullet to the chest, “I’m wounded.” He took a dramatic pause.
“Well, I’m glad I’m here now. No thanks to you.” I raised my eyebrows at his theatrics.
Achi was passing around hollowed out wooden cups of something. Adam took one, sniffing the steam pouring off the top. Hot tea in this heat? I watched him swallow a mouthful.
The little girl who’d been sitting across from me handed me a cup as well. The thought of drinking a hot beverage was not appealing, but once I caught the light floral scent I decided to try it. I tentatively took a sip and was pleasantly surprised. The flavor was subtle but almost naturally sweet. It had an earthy taste that was not bad at all. Surprisingly, the heat did not seem to affect my own temperature, if anything it made me feel cooler. Perhaps, the tea contained some type of compound that could regulate body temperature.
“What is this?” I asked Achi.
“It’s the gift of the Great Spirit. It’s made from the Vines that grow all around us.” She pointed out the heavily woven vines that formed the circle. “We drink it after every meal.”
I sipped more of the tea, enjoying the complex flavors that swirled in my mouth. When I turned to mention to Adam what she had said, I found him leaning back against the wall staring at the trees above. He patted the ground next to him. Did he want me to sit that close to him? It was clear that I would never figure him out. The bare ground felt soft, more comfortable than it should. The proximity of Adam next to me felt like an electrical field. There was a current passed back and forth between us. Was I noticing it more than I should? I felt nervous and somehow excited.
My body was relaxed, but my mind felt like it was rushing through a tunnel. I turned to Adam. I almost thought I could see something shimmering around him, some type of strange aura. Was I seeing things? I blinked and shook my head. It was still there. Everything was kind of hazy. It was hard to focus. I should be nervous, but I could only feel a sense of well-being. That’s odd.
“What’s happening?” I fought the urge to giggle.
“I don’t know.” His voice sounded like an echo, a birdsong from far away.
My mind was spinning. The field around Adam grew, like a shimmering mist that clung to his form. Then I saw that everyone had it. I was floating away, lost in the beauty of the rising mist. It was pulsing, alive with movement. How could this be? I had an awareness that all was not normal, but it was so hard to keep my thoughts from wandering.
Visual distortions. I watched the shining material that drifted in and around everything. It pulled me in. Adam was speaking to me, but I could not catch his words in the midst of the singing. Not like any singing I had ever heard. It was a wind, blowing through my mind, carrying a song of deep longing.
We were hallucinating. That was it. What had been in the tea that I drank? I wanted to speak, but the words would not come. In the mist, I reached out for Adam. His hand was there. Was he reaching for me too? His face came into to focus after a moment. The question in his eyes told me that he also knew we were hallucinating. The perception of time was gone. We stayed like that for hours, or maybe moments, just trying to anchor ourselves to reality. After some time, the song in the wind grew, encompassing the rustling of the trees and the humming of life in the forest. I had the clear perception that it was singing to me, telling me a story. Of what, I could not be sure. The whole of the forest was alive and breathing the melody. The moment had arrived. There was a deep tension filling my body, an anticipation of something great. Adam’s grip on my hand tightened. He could feel it too, like some part of myself was about to be exposed or some part of someone else. The ground beneath me fell away. No, it was not falling--I was rising. My body, or soul, suspended in the air above. I rose higher. The whole tribe was gathered below in an intricate spiral pattern. I was alone, hovering out of my body.
The circular dwelling began to warp, shifting and spinning. It grew larger. The vines that composed it, dancing in patterns before my eyes. Everything passed before my mind like a blur. The vines were growing and sprouting, small delicate flowers blooming along the surface. Before too long, the flower became larger, and the edges of their petals turned a deeper red, like blood. They were opening and closing, almost imperceptibly like a chest might rise and fall with a human breath. It was beautiful and terrifying. I could no longer see anything else, just the vines with the brilliant flowers. The singing continued and I knew it was coming from the flowers. I knew at that moment that I wasn’t alone. I couldn’t see who was singing, but I could feel their presence. I called out, “Who are you?” but my words came out like the sound of a rushing wind. The whole jungle vibrated with power that I could feel in every cell of my body. It was her, it was the Jungle itself, calling to me.
How long was I there? I knew in my mind that I would be dead long before I returned. My body would become part of the soil, the rainforest would swallow me whole. I laid there like that until I woke up.
Chapter 16
Adam was beside me. It was dark, evening already. I could remember everything, so as quickly and quietly as I could I took out my notebook. My hand shook as I scratched out the notes of what I had seen. A rough sketch of the flower in my vision filled an entire page. It was strange, like nothing I had ever seen.
The entire village was sleeping, everyone having their own dreams or possibly feverish visions like my own. Someone had put a blanket over me. A rustling next to me alerted me that Adam was awake. His eyes had deep circles under them.
“Did you know that the tea was drugged?” It came out like an accusation when I really hadn’t meant it as one.
“No, I didn’t. I’m sorry, Lane.” There was shame on his face. I
“It’s fine,” I said, a deep sorrow pressing hard against me.
“What did you see?” He asked.
“I saw the vines,” I gestured to the foliage that supported the villages dwelling structure. “They were moving and shifting in such unusual patterns.”
He nodded understanding, “And the song, did you hear it too?”
“Yeah, I did.” I had almost forgotten the ethereal music. What had Achi said to me that day?
Adam began to hum, perhaps trying to recreate the otherworldly tune. It was already fading from my memory.
“We’ll have to go back early in the morning, so we don’t get caught.”
“Won’t they have a record of us re-entering the shell?”
“Not if we use the back door again.”
He reminded me of my earlier questions. “How do you know about that exit anyway?”
“I like to be aware of my surroundings.” His gaze was unwavering, but I knew he wasn’t telling me everything.
“And another thing…” I paused with uncertainty.
“Go on.” His eyebrows were raised with curiosity.
“Where did our badges really come from?”
“Oh, I-” It seems I had caught him off guard for once.
“And I don’t mean where does anyone get a badge, I mean where did our badges come from?” I narrowed my eyes.
“What makes you think there is anything different about our badges?” He straightened his expression out, but it was too late to mask the anxiety in his eyes.
“Answer first where they came from.”
“Commander Marshall got them for us.” He seemed wary of me, and I felt a strange sadness spreading. We always seemed to be at odds with each other.
“Where did he get them?”
“I’m guessing from the Security Officer…” He trailed off before asking, “What are you getting at exactly?”
“I met the Security Officer. She’s Ellis’ friend, Kerry. She didn’t have any civilians registered to the Shell database. Which makes me think that our badges are off the network for some reason.”
Surely Commander Marshall would have
had them registered.
“It must be some type of clerical error.” Was he being defensive or was I? It was hard to see his expression in the low light. The fire was burning down to the last coals.
“Yeah, It must be.” I would have to let it go for now. Everyone around us was sleeping and there would be time for more questions later.
“I’ll look into it,” He whispered as we both laid back down on our mats.
I stretched out my arms above me feeling the heavy vines of the dwelling space. Even as I fought against sleep, I thought that I could feel the velvet curtain of vines give way to my touch just as they had done for Achi. The veil pressed dark over my eyes and I didn’t know if I would remember this in the morning. I slept fitfully, waking from terrible nightmares.
Emergence: Threshold Series Book I Page 12
