The Dark Water

by Seth Fishman

  “My Keeper,” Palu whispers.

  “I sent emissaries to speak to their clan leaders, but they have no one Keeper in charge. Feileen’s people fight amongst themselves. There has never been a need for a succession and they are not prepared. But what they do believe is that if they do not hurry, Keeper Randt or even I will take their place with a clan member of my own. There is still time to convince them that we are their allies, not their enemies.”

  “Allies against whom?” Rob asks.

  “My father,” Lisa says. Another building—a smaller one—is burning; this time the flames are visible climbing up its edges.

  Arcos doesn’t disagree, and it makes sense. Feileen and Randt have apparently always been at odds, and Arcos moderated. With Feileen gone, their clans could unite with Arcos to check Randt. But if Feileen’s Keepers believe Randt and Arcos worked together, they’d come with weapons ready.

  “This is not the course of events I had hoped for,” Arcos says. “The remainder of Feileen’s people will attempt to control the source. We must hurry there now.”

  Brayden leans over to me, his voice soft. “I have no idea what’s going on.”

  Suddenly Arcos goes still and closes his eyes, but I can see movement underneath his painted red lids, the orbs rolling beneath the skin. “Your father calls for you.” He opens his eyes, the wide pupils slimming down. He looks at Lisa. “He knows where you are. He can feel you. If we do not return you to him he will think I have taken you. With Feileen passed, he will want you to take her place. This has always been his wish. Now he will believe I have aligned with Feileen’s Keepers.” Arcos grunts, deep in thought. “Maybe I should prove him right.”

  “You cannot join Feileen’s people,” Lisa says, desperately. “You cannot attack my father.”

  “Tell me, Lisenthe,” Arcos says, his voice curious. “What would you have me do?”

  Lisa’s tiny compared to him. I’m not sure if Arcos is really asking her opinion. Lisa runs a hand through her blue hair, something I haven’t seen a Keeper do. She looks at Rob, then out into the streets where Feileen’s clan members come ever closer.

  “I do not need the source, I do not need to become like you and Father,” she says finally. “But still we must go there.”

  Arcos considers. “Why’s that?”

  “Because I need to convince my father to allow a clan leader of Feileen’s to join the Three. Not me. It is the only way to stop the fighting.”

  Arcos looks impressed. “Daughter of Randt but Keeper of herself. I like this one.”

  “Wait,” I say. “What happens if you try to have someone else drink the source?”

  Arcos stares me down with his enormous eyes, making me feel small and stupid. “The source is not some puddle for drinking. Not anybody can even take the source. But it does not even matter, as the Seven are alive, somewhere. This I know. This Randt knows. Even if no other Keeper but us know—it is enough. There can be only ten; it is all the source will allow.” The streets fill with shouting as a group of Arcos’s Keepers round a corner and smash into Feileen’s. Arcos waves an arm and the Keeper guards inside rush to the deck. I think, at first, that they are here for us, but they don’t even look our way. Instead, two of them pull a large slat of wood from the balcony, revealing a dark maw below us. One of them jumps in, feetfirst, and disappears. What, is it a slide? I guess we are at the top of a giant sphere—if this is an escape route, running down forty sets of stairs would be the slow way of doing it.

  “Down we go, all of us,” Arcos says. “We must be careful. The streets and the tunnels are filled with foes.”

  He jumps, his wobbling body keen on its feet, and then he’s gone.

  Jo’s next, and in true diver style, she shrugs off her guard and goes face-first into the passage. Even with all that’s going on, the guard grunts in respect. He jumps after her. We all do. One after the other, Palu presumably saving herself for last—a good captain.

  I send Brayden in front of me. I imagine getting stuck and I want my feet to smash into him, not the other way around. I wait a beat for his black hair to disappear and then follow, and suddenly I’m in complete darkness, sliding quickly down a chute that’s curving the entire time as it circles its way down the building’s edge.

  It doesn’t feel like a ride. It feels like a trap. We fall for long enough that I start to lose my sense of time, of place, and imagine us tumbling down and down, below the city, forever.

  15

  WE LAND IN WATER, A DEEP POOL IN AN UNDERGROUND room, glowflowers planted all along the edges of the walls, lighting up the place. Dad pulls me and then Brayden out onto a slick ledge covered in moss. I’m cold, but no colder than any of the other thousands of times I’ve gotten out of a pool.

  “Where are we?” I ask.

  “With the gastrains,” Arcos answers, squeezing water from his long hair. Behind me splashes Palu, and then we’re all here. One of the Keeper guards is a stocky woman with tight braids down to the center of her back; she’s ahead of us, cautiously tipping her head through a door and into a tunnel when suddenly she jerks her head back and a bright flash of silver hurls by, gushing wind into our little room like a full-body air-dryer.

  Before I even have a chance to process what’s happened, Arcos grabs Jo—the nearest Topsider to him—and shoves her toward the door.

  “Go!” he shouts, and he follows. The stocky Keeper’s already out of the room. Palu pushes me in the back and I turn on her.

  “Hey, stop it. I’m going, all right?”

  It’s Rob, though, who understands what’s happening. He’s already at the door, frantically signaling us to follow. “Mia, we’re running through the gastrain tunnels! If one comes and we’re inside, we’ll be ripped in half.”

  That’s enough for us Topsiders, and we all hustle out the door and into a square tunnel that’s dark and, like Arcos’s building, has an immediately noticeable curve to the walls.

  There are no train tracks. We run, all of us, as fast as we can for a few hundred yard; even with the water, my throat burns and my lungs ache. Dad’s falling back, so I grab his hand and pull him with me.

  Behind us, first, there’s a noise. It’s faint, like air through a vent. Then the wind picks up, a cold trickle that races by.

  “It comes!” Lisa shouts, and all of the Keepers pick up their pace. They’ve been going slow for us.

  The wind comes faster, physically pushing into me, a wall of air. I can’t hear the gastrain, no squeak of metal or horn from a conductor, but it’s right behind us.

  Suddenly, the stocky Keeper sticks her head out from a door on the right about twenty yards up. I had lost track of her. She motions and everyone pushes even harder, Arcos managing his bulk, Dad sprinting like a pro, Lisa pushing Rob ahead with her hand in the small of his back. I’m second to last, Brayden behind me, and we’re in.

  The gastrain slams by. Brayden, eyes wide, the closest to the door, falls into me and I hold him because if I push him off he could fall backward, bump into the train and splatter.

  “What kind of plan was that?” Rob asks, panting.

  “No time, we go again!” Arcos shouts.

  Again? I think, but I leap into the tunnel anyway, thinking of all the seconds already wasted. My body’s gassed and desperate to stop; everyone’s running ragged. This time, though, the air moves quicker, builds sooner.

  “It’s already here!” Jo says.

  “Not much farther,” Arcos replies, pointing up ahead. There, I can make out a platform, like the one we stood on when we first took the train. The ledge seems impossibly high from here, but we have to try. Either this works or we die.

  Brayden gets there first and pulls himself up, then takes my hand and hauls me in. Palu leaps up with ease and so does another Keeper and they manage to get Arcos onto the platform after a few strong tugs. The wind’s howling down the tunnel.
One of the Keeper guards picks up Jo and throws her onto the platform. Lisa and Rob make it fine and then the gastrain comes, impossibly fast but slowing, apparently set to stop here.

  “Dad!” I take his hand and it’s warm and big and his cheeks are pale and I’ve never seen that face before. It gives me such a surge of strength that we get him halfway up the platform before the gastrain, like a bullet of steel encompassing the entire tunnel, slams into him.

  The next thing I know I’m on my back, Dad beside me, totally fine. The gastrain has stopped in front of us and I can see blood smearing its front and side. I do a mental count, confused at what just happened, but come up one Keeper short. The one who threw Jo, I didn’t even know his name. He must have pushed Dad up. And was hit.

  I don’t have time to even think about this, to ask Dad if he’s okay or to get my bearings because the train doors open and inside, standing crammed into the space, are ten Keepers in black and white. They’re armed with wicked-looking knives and spears and are clearly surprised to see us.

  Palu recovers first, pulling out her ribbon weapon. She slashes at the door, whipping the edge of the ribbon toward them, pushing them even deeper into the car.

  One of the Keepers in the train dips his hand into the bag of water at his hip and on Palu’s next swing he grabs the ribbon, immediately slicing up his hand and arm, but he grits his teeth and holds on, using his other hand to yank the ribbon away. He falls to the ground, the pain too much, but now the others are free.

  Arcos waves his hand and the black-and-white Keepers stagger, as if tripped by an invisible wire. He’s doing something with the source, he’s a Jedi. We’re up and running, from a nearby set of stairs out into the streets, but not before we lose another Keeper to Feileen’s troops.

  There is chaos and noise. Feileen’s Keepers move in the intersections. There’s a haze of hot smoke drifting in the air. Behind us, bounding from the stairs, come six Keepers. We follow Arcos, but a part of me knows I can’t go much farther.

  A white hand grabs my arm, turning me, but then Dad is there, shouldering into Feileen’s Keeper and knocking him off his feet. The Keeper lashes out and Dad stumbles to the ground. I stop, help him up but everyone—Jo and Rob and Arcos and the others—they all just run right by us.

  One Keeper pulls up and whips his spear into the air. A figure, one of our dwindling group, falls to the ground. I can’t tell who. They’re too far away and the smoke too thick. I moan involuntarily, and the spear thrower spins to follow the noise. Behind me, the other Keeper—the one Dad tripped—gets to his knees.

  We’re alone between two Keepers. My muscles ache, and I’m breathing so hard my lungs sear in pain. I’ve nothing left. I search around frantically and see a stairwell, shooting down into the dark.

  “This way,” I grunt, dragging Dad to his feet. He’s heavy. I hate that I have to carry my dad.

  “Mia, leave me,” he says, his voice ragged.

  “Don’t be stupid,” I growl. And we stumble, deep into the darkness.

  • • •

  The Keepers are close. My eyes have adjusted to the faint light of the tunnels, enough to guide us, but not enough to spot them. I hear their footsteps, and the sounds of others down here. But we keep moving, turning when we can, trying to find safety. Dad’s wheezing, and I notice blood dripping from his chest. My body goes cold.

  “How bad?”

  He rubs the blood between his fingers. “I’ll live.”

  Great. Dad, the confidence booster.

  It gets brighter, and suddenly we’re in the Exchange. That much is clear. I’m not sure what district this is because the stalls are closed, shuttered by thin metal sheets, but at the very least it’s like a maze. Easy to get lost in, but also easy to lose the Keepers behind us.

  I take a left and see it, a small gap in one of the sheets, as if the stall owner closed up too quickly.

  “We have to hide,” I whisper to Dad, and he doesn’t argue. He slides under, leaving a smear of blood behind. I need to cover our tracks. The stall ends up being full of books, so I grab one off the shelf; it’s thin but weighs a ton, its cover made out of something like metal. But the pages within are soft and empty, like a journal, and I use them to try to wipe up Dad’s trail of blood. It sort of works. Finally I lean back next to Dad, against a shelf. It smells like a bookstore, musty and full of dust, something I love. Except there’s no comfort here.

  Dad reaches out a bloody hand and puts it on my arm. “Good job, hon.”

  I swallow my fear, my queasiness at his blood. His skin’s ashen, his lips pale and trembling. I can see now where the knife sliced him open, tearing apart the fat in a thin line from his nipple to his waist. It’s parted, almost neatly, and I see his muscle stretched and tight below.

  “Okay, Dad, okay,” I say, trying to comfort myself as much as him. “It didn’t go so deep. We can take care of this. We just need some water.”

  There’s a noise in the alleyway, feet squeaking. I hold my breath, my eyes locked on Dad’s. Then the feet keep going.

  “Mia,” he says, trying to sound normal, “do you know why I came down here?”

  I don’t say anything. I’m scared to.

  “I had been sure of the source. Once you stare at the map long enough, there’s no way you couldn’t believe. So I always planned on trying to come, though ideally with some help. I don’t fully understand what the source does, why Arcos can only sort of read minds.” I know what he’s saying. Randt’s powers seem so absolute but when you really think about it, it’s like he can only gather impressions of the future or people’s thoughts. Why is that? “But I found something in the past few months that stuck with me: I think I found the key to the map. Remember how in the bottom corner of the map, in the last image, there’s that miniature map, the map within a map?”

  I nod. He had told us, when we first saw it, that there were some seventeen smaller versions of the map in that bottom corner. Close mirrors of itself. A potentially endless cycle. Dad’s wheezing a little, clearly in pain, but he keeps going.

  “Well, a year or so after we kicked Sutton out of the program for creating the virus, I was up late, I couldn’t sleep, and you were off at a swim meet in Colorado Springs. So I went to the Cave and took out slides of the virus we kept for research. Sutton really is a genius. I mean, I could literally see how close the virus mimicked the water—it implanted itself into cells, even weak ones, and made them vital and healthy. It basically replicated the effect of the water except that the cells would then go into hyper mode, replicating too fast, growing old and burning out. The fact that the virus can spread makes it, in some ways, even better designed than the water. I mean, imagine if the water was a good virus and spread all over the world on its own, healing everything?”

  He pauses, looks at me to see if I’m still paying attention, and I am. The virus and the water were never just opposites, but now they seem like brother and sister.

  “The thing about that last image of the map, it’s just the map in replica, over and over again, with only minor variations. Like what the virus does. But each map begins with the water from the well. I wondered if I had it wrong, if the virus was not a bastardization of the water, but actually an inherent part, if they worked together. What if the water kept the virus in check, stopped it from killing people, but the virus was supposed to help the water spread?”

  “How could it do that?”

  “I’m not sure, but I just kept wondering why the well exists in only one place on Earth, and in the middle of nowhere? To just help the random person who found it? It doesn’t make sense. Maybe I’m missing something, but I believe the map was put there to tell me: go for the source, and you can get this water all the time, not just every seventeen years for ten days.”

  “So you think the source is like a tree made out of water? If you take some of it—a sapling—and plant it elsewhere, it grow
s. It becomes another source. Over and over again?”

  “Right,” he replies. “So when Sutton came, the only thing I could think was, Get the source, bring it back and then nothing Sutton can do will hurt us. Then we’ll have our own source.”

  It’s strange listening to him talk like this, with such conviction. He sounds like a fanatic, taking small bits of evidence and turning it to his favor. I don’t like it. Not at all. This weakness is not what we need right now. I want my dad to be my dad. To take care of the situation we’re in. To act rationally. “Dad, stop talking. You’re wasting energy. I have to get you some water.”

  He smiles, his lips ticking lazily upward. “Your hair.”

  I’m getting impatient. Maybe it’s the loss of his blood that’s making him talk this way. “No, Dad, stop talking. You stay here, just be quiet, and I’ll be back, I promise.”

  He shakes his head. “No, your hair.”

  I frown, touching my wet hair. Oh man, I’m an idiot. “You’re a genius,” I say, relief burning through me. I squeeze my hair tight over his wounds, getting a few drops out. It’s less than I want, but I know it’s something. I manage to force another couple onto his lips.

  “Yum,” he manages, and I laugh.

  “Okay, that should buy us a little time.” I stand up and scan the shelves, looking for something to cover his wound. A part of me envisions finding some thread to stitch it closed, but that’s probably too ambitious.

  We hear another noise outside, something falls to the ground. Then nothing. My heart is in my throat. Dad’s breathing too loud. I imagine a Keeper walking by and hearing him. We sit and don’t move for a moment, but there’s no other sound. I don’t relax, not really, but I can’t just stay frozen.

  I finally find a cloth on a table that smells relatively clean, and bend over Dad. He’s sweating a lot, and his hair’s sticky. He stinks, the smell of his sweat becoming unbearable.