Scavenger: Evolution: (Sand Divers, Book One)

by Timothy C. Ward

  Star’s face eased a bit, but her mouth remained shut.

  “I told him to go out and get his suit. I doubt—”

  “Can you just stop talking?” She walked toward where she’d slept. “I don’t want to hear anymore about it. Rush, do what you got to do.”

  Some of the anger had fallen from her voice, but plenty of pain remained. Exhaustion, too. Rush went after her. When he was close enough to whisper, as she bent down to lift her blanket, he said, “Star, I’m sorry.”

  “Rush, don’t.”

  “No.” He gently slid his hand over her wrist. She pulled away. He held on. “Please.”

  She gave in, then wiped off a tear below the bandage on her right hand.

  “It hasn’t been a secret that when we’ve been apart I’ve let my eyes linger too long on that woman, but on Fish’s life I promise nothing ever happened. Yesterday it got close...but before my appointment I was struck by memories of you and Fish. About all that you gave for him to be born. How much you loved him. The love we shared as a family. I’m so sorry I forgot. That I left that love, and you, alone. I walked out of the whorehouse as soon as I realized that, and now she holds a grudge. My love for you makes her feel small and she tried to destroy it by pulling the stunt you just witnessed.”

  Star looked away and he let her hand drop.

  “No matter what Av says, I’m staying right here until you forgive me. I don’t care. Denver be damned. You’re all that matters.”

  She lifted softer eyes toward his and a smile creased her lips. “I’m sorry. It just shocked me to see her touching you. It looked like you were kissing. I…” Rush went in for a hug and held her tight. “I thought everything good that happened in the last day between us was dust in the wind, exposing my naked life for what I’ve feared it to be.”

  Star’s sobs shook her from head to stomach. “I’ve been so lonely since Fish died. Since you stopped talking to me. Who was I supposed to turn to?” Rush took her hands. She formed the grip to keep his cast up, then looked him in the eyes. “Every day I’ve thought about putting on one of your suits and burying myself, but every time...every time I slipped one on, I felt Fish watching me. Pictured him sitting on the floor.” Her sobs took over and Rush couldn’t help but join her, tears burning from his eyes.

  “He never sat up by himself, but in my mind that’s how I saw him, watching…”

  “It’s okay, Starlight.” He brought her in, and they sobbed together for a long moment in each other’s arms. Slowly, their breathing calmed, and as it did, some of the burden on his heart fell away.

  “I’m here now,” he told her. “I’m never leaving. Please believe that.”

  Star nodded, her forehead rubbing up and down on his chest. “I do. I’m sorry. I do.”

  “Don’t be sorry. I abandoned you. I don’t blame you for losing faith in me. I get that it will take some time to earn it back.” He thumbed a tear off her cheek and kissed her forehead. “Now let’s go discover a city together.”

  SCAVENGER: Blue Dawn

  Chapter 9

  Avery assigned some of the stronger of the survivors to carry and pull supplies, then powered on his suit and donned his visor. Rush did the same, switching to dive view. The dimly lit cave glowed bright red all around him, like the belly of Hell filled with green bodies eager to escape. As he stepped closer to the wall and Av’s neon green body, the dark edges of the wall took shape before his adjusting eyes.

  “Okay, Rush.” He pointed at the floor to Rush’s left and traced his finger up to the ceiling. A faint black line came into focus as Rush stepped in front of it. “That’s our left crease.” He trailed the top and bottom to the right with his extended finger. “One heavy door. And you’re gonna help me move it. The original door is in another cave. I blew the ceiling and covered my tracks on that one.”

  Rush felt like they’d returned to old times, planting undersand obstacles for their students, or charting their dives for Danvar as they sailed toward their weekend getaway.

  “You ready, Pokey? Oh, should I not call you that anymore?” He slapped Rush on the arm. “I’m just kiddin’. Lighten up, okay, you guys made up. All right. I’ll push the top corner. You dig into the bottom edge.”

  “Sure.”

  “Man, no sense of humor. Okay, are you ready? Five, four...”

  Moving solid objects was harder than flowing sand because of the density, which was near to impossible to break up using a suit, and because you couldn’t build momentum like you could with sand. Rush had to direct his suit’s power at the point of the stone he needed to become. The five by five square with a one-foot frame buffer in the bottom corner locked in and gripped his temples like a bobcat’s mouth clutched over his head. Nausea hit him right away. He felt like he was on a boat rocking on a pond of powered sand. He clenched his stomach, fought against the tingling in his forehead and down his throat, and held on.

  “Push.”

  Rush leaned into his position. The weight transferred through his ears, down his neck, and into his shoulders. Tendons and muscles in his neck strained. Rush’s imagined body separated from his real body, and lowered into a four point, skinball lineman’s position. His conscience rode the imagined body, muscles tense in his backside and calves, and took his first step forward. The door inched forward.

  “There you go. Harder,” Av grunted.

  Rush’s back burned. His left Achilles stretched on the verge of tearing. You can do this. You’ve moved heavier. The physical pain was mental, but mental association had caused physical injuries before. Better that than snapping something in your brain. That’s happened before, too.

  The door slowed to a stop.

  “Come on, Poke.”

  “I’m trying.” Focus.

  His imagined body pushed it a few more inches, slowed, then a few more...the square’s edges blurred into multi-dimensional boxes overlapping each other in hues of red. A fizz washed through Rush’s forehead and danced over his tongue. He gritted his teeth and growled through the next step, the fizz turning into a double-edged blade spinning between temples. He eased back. The blur washed over the square and the whole wall rippled with waves of iridescent confusion.

  “Losing you, Rush.”

  Pinpoint your previous center and expand from there. Where is it? Dizziness and fear set him back on his heels.

  The target, he reminded himself, once locked, will return, if you focus. Believe that you won’t break.

  But he had known brokenness. He lacked the needed confidence not to fear it again.

  He fell to his knees and crawled. The crowd groaned at his weakness. Failure and shame let themselves back in and locked the door behind them.

  He reached his hand out. The suit released the wall as his focus had left the dive dimension and returned to the topside. A tower of darkness formed to his left, the narrow opening they’d created.

  “Rush…” Av’s voice strained.

  Rush placed his hand on the red wall, and felt down over the ridges and tiny peaks until he found where the center had been. He let go, sat back on his heels, and focused again into dive dimension and its red Hell. His connection to the wall clamped across his forehead, squeezing pain into his eyes and ears. He let his imagined body plow into the block. His shoulders burned as he pushed into the targeted square’s center. A dot of red shone clear and expanded like an enlarged pool of blood, overtaking the fuzz of multi-dimension sight. Nausea eased and the block became solid. One foot. Next step. Two feet. His shoulders squared and the tension washed away into his progress and mental drive. People cheered behind him.

  “Yeah, Rush,” Star called out, clapping.

  Her encouragement made him smile. His next steps gripped and pushed forward under half the weight. By the time Avery patted him on the shoulder to stop, the weight was barely a quarter of its original and the excited shouts behind him filled the cave. He could have pushed it all the way open, but Av let him stop when the opening was wide enough for all their stuf
f to fit through.

  He lifted his visor. Sweat dripped off his brows. His eyes ached and itched under his eyelids. Avery looked down on him. Rush was still on his knees, four meters from the end of the wall’s path. The drop into topside dimension—dock view—to his real body, was as strange as falling backwards off a sandscraper, crashing, and waking to no pain. Except the throbbing, rock-upside-his-head pain was clear and made his arms and toes tremor.

  Avery knelt and lifted one of Rush’s eyelids. “Follow my finger, Rush.” He moved it right to left. Rush’s eyes were too groggy to follow, then when they did, Avery had already begun moving his finger the other way. It took four times back and forth before Rush tracked the movement, and even that with help from his head.

  “I’m sorry, Rush.” Av let go and sat. “I underestimated how rusty you’d be.”

  “I’m okay. It took me a little bit longer than I’d like, but I got it.”

  Av looked up to Rush’s right. Dixon had his suit and visor on, and sweat glistened on his forehead. He took thick inhales, but was able to remain standing.

  “So that wasn’t me moving it?” Rush asked. He felt like the boy had stabbed him in the heart and air was wheezing out.

  Dixon shrugged. “I mean, I helped. I think you just needed an extra hand.”

  Avery didn’t look convinced. The divemaster he’d hoped for was not there, and a better prospect, a kid a fifteen years younger was going to replace him.

  Rush put his hands on his temples and pushed into the throb. No. Things were supposed to be getting better. I moved the damn wall.

  He tried getting up, but the movement was faster than his balance could catch up to and he swerved left. Someone wrapped their arms around him from behind, but his weight was too much and he hit his knees hard on rock.

  “Rush, stop.” Star took off his visor and unzipped his suit past the dive button to help cool him off.

  His sweaty hands smeared dirt over the rock below him. He wanted to fall forward and lie on his face. The idea gained appeal and he started dropping.

  “No, Rush.” Star tried lifting him, but his body was as powerless as the stone he face-planted on.

  The cool surface helped, as did the rest from holding himself up. The room swam around him and he wasn’t sure if he’d stopped moving or not.

  Rush woke to the creaking of fabric under his weight. A red dive light cast long, bobbing shadows on the ceiling of the dim tunnel. Boot steps echoed along with a faint smattering of voices. It sounded like a somber group.

  “Star?”

  Something brushed behind him, and his bed shifted his head left of his feet. “Rush!” Star grabbed his arm and leaned down to kiss his head. She smelled like she’d been sweating for some time. “I was so worried.”

  “He’s awake,” one of four men carrying Rush said.

  They stopped. He was on the stretcher Avery had used to carry the rolled tarp. “D.M. Hawes,” one of the young men called to the front of the line. “D.M. Stenson’s conscious.”

  The four young men carrying Rush set him down.

  “S’cuse me,” Avery said after a moment, walking toward him from the front of the two-person-wide line. People had to push their packs against the wall to part and make enough room in the narrow tunnel.

  His head felt like tree roots had grown in from his forehead. Dried snot caked hard inside his nostrils and his ears itched. He stuck a finger in the right ear and recoiled at the soreness.

  “Hey, Rush.” Avery knelt at Rush’s feet. “How ya feelin’?”

  “I could use a few cap-fulls of water.”

  Avery took his canteen off his belt and handed it to Rush. He had changed out of his dive suit into pants and a dirty white shirt. “Take a long swig. We passed a spring I carved around when I made this tunnel, so all our canteens are full.”

  Rush prepared himself for the joy of cool water, slowing the top at his mouth to ensure he didn’t spill any, then tipped it back. The cold stream washed away his sore throat. He stopped to take a breath and coughed a little on the drink.

  “Go ahead. Have another.”

  Rush did, and felt a little better for the gift. “Thank you.”

  “Of course. I’m just glad to see you awake. Scared the ticks out of me back there.”

  Rush’s throbbing brain reminded him of the strain to push the door. They’d succeeded. Then Dixon appeared on his right and Rush was falling.

  “What happened?”

  “I guess it was too much,” Avery said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Have I been bleeding?”

  Avery nodded. “From your nose, and your ears.”

  A student of theirs, Justus, had done that while freeing himself from coffining on a two-hundred-meter dive. Over a month after, he still hadn’t been able to dive half that without the bleeding returning. He quit after the last time.

  What am I gonna do? I can’t wait that long without diving.

  Dixon had helped move the wall. Maybe he didn’t even need Rush.

  “Thinkin’ about Justus,” Rush said.

  “Yep.” Avery took it as a question to be answered.

  “We can’t wait long, can we?”

  “Not really, but we might not have to. Dixon did a great job back there. Helped me push the wall back so our tracks are covered in case someone sees our ships and comes in looking for our trail.”

  “And he didn’t suffer any bleeding?”

  “Nope. I even let him take a bit more of the load on the second leg, started feeling the fizz in my nose. But he did fine.” Avery stood. “I want you to stay on this cot. You boys rotate.”

  They did, shuffling left to right to switch arms. One tightened his canteen lid and hooked it on his belt.

  “Okay.” Avery faced the front of the group. “Tal-hup, aya!”

  The quarter carriers lifted Rush as he extended the canteen back to Avery, who took it and popped the lid on top.

  “Lay back, Poke. We’re still an hour or so away.”

  Another long sleep after using the suit. How worthless could he be?

  Star stroked his hair off his damp forehead. The tunnel should be cooler than outside, but his skin dripped as though he were staring the sun straight in the eye. She patted a cool wet cloth on his forehead and softly around his temple, flaring a hotspot of pain.

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. Thank you.” Rush laid his head back and closed his eyes. The cot jostled as his carriers began moving. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  Her steps slid sandal bottoms across the stone. “Me too.”

  “Are you going to mind staying by my side if I can’t dive anymore?”

  “What? Don’t say that. You’ll be fine.”

  “Justus wasn’t.”

  “Justus was sixteen. His brain hadn’t grown anywhere near the ropes yours has over the years of diving. You’ll be fine.”

  “I love you, hon.”

  “I love you, too, even when you’re being a bit dense.” She smiled sideways at him, the red dive light tinting her face, then continued looking forward on their march. “You had two years to mope over a mug and whatever else to distract you. Now’s your time to focus and keep your chin lifted high. We’re going to do this.”

  She took her canteen off her belt. “Finish what’s in here, then rest until we see sunlight.”

  “No, you need some.”

  “I’ll take some off one of these gentlemen, won’t I, Will?”

  “Sure thing, Mrs. Stenson,” the one at front right said.

  “See? Now drink my water and shut the hell up.”

  “Prep your suit, Dixon,” Avery said. “Exit’s just ahead.”

  Rush’s head still ached as much as it had, if not more, than when he woke.

  A different, faster set of footsteps rose up from the back of the line. Offset...like a pair of twos at a gallop.

  “Star. Bobcat.” Rush pushed up on his cot and looked back, but the waists of the two young men behind him blocked
his view.

  Someone screamed from the rear of their party. With the two dive lights at the front, the cave was pitch black when they were in that deep. Rush’s cot tipped and he fell into Star’s legs.

  “Move!” a small group shouted. A wave of screams flowed his way as people shoved into the light. Rush’s bed tossed him forward, a sharp appendage jabbing him in the back of the head. He only had time to brace his arms under his face before his jaw slammed into his cast. A weak cry escaped his lips at the sudden jolt of pain in his wrist.

  A bobcat’s growl rumbled a shiver across Rush’s shoulders. Kerrraaaooo!

  “Help me. Stop!” Star called out, grabbing Rush under one of his arms and trying to lift him. The cot bars clanged on the ground. She dragged his leg across the rough rock and he propped a hand under himself. A knee hit him in the cheek as someone squeezed between him and the wall. His head swam and bounced painfully on rock.

  No.

  He was not going to succumb again.

  The cat lashed out. Claw tore through flesh. Tendons snapped. Blood spray landed warm on Rush’s bare foot. Someone behind him coughed and wheezed into her last breaths.

  Rush had his suit on, but his visor was nowhere in sight. Survivors leapt and ran past, blocking even an attempt to reach out to the floor to find it. The crowd thinned. Red light reflected green off the cat’s eyes as it looked up from its low position.

  No time for a visor. Rush pounded the dive button. His suit stiffened and vibrated power deep into his muscles. He rose. The cat blinked. In his next step, the cat had climbed past waist height. The suit’s juice sent a tremor over his fingertips as he forced a fist. He planted his left foot. The cat’s eyes neared neck level. He dropped fast and bounced, his right fist shooting straight up. The cat squealed as his knuckles broke ribs and smashed its belly into organ soup.

  Footsteps ran toward him, the dive light bounced red light after the backward falling bobcat. Suspended in its defeat, and yet eternally cast. It was a complete absence of will. The ultimate victory of defeat.