AER (The Elements Series Book 3)

by Tracy Korn

  Contents

  Title

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Quote

  The Seam

  1. Phase Two

  2. Transferring

  3. Interra

  4. Admin City

  5. The Storm

  6. Debriefing

  7. Damage Control

  8. Evolving

  9. Eyes Wide Open

  10. The Beginning

  11. Cracks

  12. The Boneyard

  13. Breaking the Ice

  14. The Grid

  15. Funnels

  16. Login

  17. Sinking Feelings

  18. The Platform

  19. The Tunnels

  20. Dustbowl

  21. The Air Up There

  22. The Hidden City: Part Two

  23. Higher Ground

  24. One Down

  25. The Badlands

  26. Blackwater

  27. Southside

  28. Blackwater: Part Two

  29. Quid Pro Quo

  30. No More Water

  31. Sinking Feelings

  32. Into the Fire

  33. The Mountain

  34. Cannibal Planet

  35. Friends in High Places

  36. Marked

  37. Playing with Fire

  38. Infinitum

  39. Ghosts in the Queue

  40. Never Saw It Coming

  41. The Council

  42. Transcendence

  43. The Hidden City

  44. Transcendence: Part Two

  45. The Hidden City: Part Two

  46. Transcendence: Part Three

  47. Reset Register

  48. To Save the World

  Epilogue

  Continue the Journey

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  AER | Book Three

  Copyright © 2017 by Tracy Korn. All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events or locales is purely coincidental. Reproduction in whole or part of this publication without express written consent is strictly prohibited.

  Cover Design Copyright © 2017 by James Korn

  Photography by J.Korn Photographics

  www.jkornphoto.com

  www.TheElementsSeries.com

  Edited by Ryan Bachtel, Rachel Carpenter, and Deb Commons

  Summary: They wanted a chance; they were given a choice: follow the scripted path at Gaia Sur, or face the unknown to find their families. In AQUA and TERRA, Jazz and her friends took the risk, then battled the seven biomes of the "Rush." Now, from high above the earth in Admin City, it's clear their fight has only just begun. Told from two perspectives, the third book in The Elements series sends part of the crew to a topside world that isn't the way they left it and the rest into the virtuo-cine network, where truth is blurred, and time is running out.

  For those above, survival means going beyond.

  Digital Edition

  For James,

  the eye of the storm.

  "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."

  ~ Albert Einstein

  "We, the people of The American Preserve, hereby organize under the articles of the Global Civic Council as agents for public health and commercial responsibility. Herein, we shall investigate and hold accountable by legal due process any organization, regardless of affiliation, which interferes with ecological sustainability."

  Mission Statement for The Society for Environmental

  Accountability and Management

  (The S.E.A.M.)

  CHAPTER 1

  Phase Two

  Liddick

  I stumble into the port-carnate room at the Phase Two facility, but after all the mind games and illusions in the biomes, I don't believe my eyes.

  Riptide? I think when I see Jazz standing in the clear transfer cube at the bottom of the stairs, which seem to multiply as soon as I start down them.

  Liddick, come on! I hear her think…it's really her, not some whisper-echo on the breeze like in those trees I just left. Liddick, tell my dad to unlock the door so you can all get in! Liam said no one would be able to follow us!

  I go halfway back up the stairs to where Jazz is pointing and find Jack struggling to hold up Azeris, who is doubled over.

  "Is he OK? What's wrong with him?" I ask, trying to look for an obvious injury.

  "He's stunned from the neural baton, just like all these clones. Our transfer to Admin City was…interrupted."

  "We need to get him in the hub now then. Jazz said the doors are locked?" I step under Azeris's other arm, then nearly shout when Jack doesn't even move. "Come on, let's go! More of them will be coming!" I shoot a glance at the downed clone guards, who are now starting to wake up. A Badlander, who must be a tunnel shark victim like Dell was, kicks the one closest to us back to the floor.

  Jack looks at me blankly and presses his lips into a hard line. "We can't go yet," he says reluctantly, pushing the dark hair out of his eyes like we have all the time in the world. He braces Azeris against a nearby console station, then clears his throat. "The transfer hub doors can't be reopened. I programmed the launch for Admin City to initiate as soon as they closed."

  "Why would you do that!?" I ask, feeling the blood drain from my face.

  "Because I didn't want to take the chance that anyone could interfere with us reaching The Seam," Jack says, then nods to the glowing hubs. "They'll be safe now. Calyx is waiting at the bridge in Admin City."

  "Who?"

  "Calyx, our contact at The Seam—your brother connected us. She'll keep everyone safe until we figure out what to do next," Jack starts to explain, but stops abruptly when a few of the nearby guards try to stand. They fall back down, and he moves quickly behind a console nodding to me. "We'll get there too, don't worry."

  I push my hands through my hair and try not to yell at the top of my lungs.

  Liddick! What's happening!? Jazz shouts in my mind. A weight settles over my chest, and I want to crash straight through the floor when I look at her again. I take a deep breath as the light from the transfer hub surges and the ground starts to vibrate. Their transfer to Admin City is starting.

  I scramble to tell her we'll find a way to follow them—that I'll find a way to her…she just needs to get to the bridge connection and not worry about me—but even in my head, I can't seem to say the words fast enough. She pounds against the clear door of the cube enclosure, and my throat tightens. I press my teeth together as the light surges again, blowing out everything in the lower level of this white room, then nearly fall over as Dez's arms suddenly lasso my neck. I grip her shoulders to move her out of my way, but it's too late. The transfer light swallows the hubs, and my blood goes cold.

  "What are you doing? Come on, we need to go!" Tieg says, storming up the stairs after Dez.

  "You made it! I knew you'd make it!" she says too loudly next to my ear as she hugs me again. I move back and hold her directly in front of me.

  "They're transferring! What are you doing?" I say, fighting to keep from screaming in her face. I scan the room behind her for my brothers, but can't see anything in the blinding light that reaches halfway up the steps.

  "We've got company," Zoe says, walking toward us along the back wall. She pulls her machete from its sheath on her back, then blows out three sharp whistles. A second later, Cal runs up the stairs toward us while shoving something metallic into his shirt. He draws his machete, too, just as a flood of guards in white uniforms push through the doorway next to me. They're all wearing helmets except for one, whose red hair appears like a gash in the saturated white room. />
  Rheen…I think, then turn to Jazz's dad. "Jack! She's going for the hubs!"

  "I'm almost done!" he says, already typing furiously at the console. Azeris stands next to him pressing a big hand against the back wall to steady himself as Rheen's red hair moves down the stairs, then disappears into the shock of white light. Several of the guards follow while Zoe and Cal fend off the few others who try to engage us.

  "Get off me!" Dell shouts from somewhere below in the white haze, and I start down the stairs again as fast as I can.

  "It's set! Stand clear!" Jack yells, and immediately, all the clone guards and even the Badlanders fighting with them collapse, then lie motionless on the floor.

  The white light finally dissipates, Rheen's red hair slicing through it first. There must be 20 unconscious people littering the ground at her feet when Dell suddenly lunges at her. He tackles her, but she just laughs at him, her image flickering several times before it ultimately disappears. Dell slams his fists into the floor and swears, then screams like something wild…like something in pain.

  "It was just a port-call image," Jack says, shaking his head. "That means she's still at Gaia Sur. That's good. It buys us time."

  "Then let's go!" I shout up the stairs to him as I get into the transfer hub cube enclosure, the energy field of the last transfer still buzzing in the walls. "Come on, they're not that far ahead of us!"

  Jack smiles weakly at me from behind the pillar console at the back of the room. "We can't transfer from here with the neural freeze I just launched. Everything is locked down."

  "What are you talking about? You said we would follow them!" I yell.

  "We will—we just have to go another way, and we have to go now, come on!" Jazz's dad waves Dell and me toward the doorway, then he and Zoe both take one of Azeris's arms to help him off the wall. I take a deep breath, and it feels like my teeth will shatter any second with as hard as I'm clenching them together.

  "What other way? Another hub?" I shout up to them as Dell and I take the stairs two and three at a time.

  "Yes…eventually," Jazz's dad says.

  "Eventually? What does that mean?" I catch up to him but he doesn't answer me as we move quickly through the white, sterile corridor. "Jack! What does that mean?"

  "Can you stand?" he asks Azeris, who nods weakly.

  "I've got him," Zoe says, under his arm.

  "We need to find the panel hatch. It should be in this corridor somewhere, but with the neural freeze, the coordinates will be scrambled, and the hatch will jump," Jack adds. "Just feel for a pocket of warm air…a disturbance in the energy field. When you find it, push. That will be the hatch."

  "Where are we going? There's no hub outside; there's only the Rush—the Woods biome!" I say, confused. Jack steadies Azeris with Zoe, then starts feeling around in mid air like some kind of mime.

  "I know, son," he says. "I'll explain after we find the hatch. Help us."

  "No, explain now!" Tieg fires at him. "Why are we going back out there?"

  "Crite, we have to get to my port-carnate hub. It's our Plan B," Azeris says, coughing as he holds up a hand and starts feeling the air in front of him for the panel. He nods to Zoe, who releases his other arm and does the same.

  "Your hub? In the Badlands?" I ask, narrowing my eyes at him.

  Azeris laughs, then coughs again. "Well, it ain't like I got a fleet of hubs."

  "But that's topside? How are we supposed to get topside from here?" I ask, but then the answer hits me from nowhere, seeping into my head after a minute like cold, heavy rain. "We're going back through the Rush?" I barely whisper, hoping that if I don't say it too loudly, it won't come true.

  "No, please," Dez begs. "Don't make us go back through that. Please!" She grips the shoulder of Jack's white jumpsuit, and he stops feeling for the hatch. He turns to her, meeting her eyes.

  "I'm sorry, it's the only way. We'll explain the details after we get out of here, all right? It won't be like when you came through the first time," Jack assures, but Dez just shakes her head in disbelief, her face now paler than ever.

  "No…no…" she says over and over again until Zoe spins her around and shakes her.

  "Listen, the man just said we ain't got a lot of time, so you need to bottle cap all this, wise?"

  "Did you forget what's out there? Did you forget the voices?"

  "I heard 'em the same as you, but we can't stay here. Those rubber necks are gonna wake up any minute and be on us like flies on a pile. You just gonna sit here like a pile and wait for 'em, or are you gonna run?" Dez stares at her blankly, and Zoe gives her shoulders a jerk. "Well?" she asks again, her freckled forehead wrinkling when her copper eyebrows fly up, demanding Dez's answer.

  "No. I'll run…we'll run…" Dez finally says, nodding. Zoe makes a clicking sound in the corner of her mouth and lets go of Dez's shoulders.

  "Damn right. Now help us find the hatch."

  CHAPTER 2

  Transferring

  Jazz

  In the dark, I hear something heavy land on something soft. The muted thud echoes from below until each impact falls into a pattern…a heartbeat, which just as quickly slips into the background of deep breathing. Of my breathing.

  Dark haze blurs patches of movement when I open my eyes, but I can see that there's a woman in the distance.

  "Try to be still for another few minutes," she says, but her words sound muffled. "Then, we'll open the doors."

  The tips of my fingers are tingling and burning, which makes me realize how cold every other part of my body is. My arms and legs are stiff, and I can't turn my head.

  "Just take slow, deep breaths. You won't be able to move anything yet," a man says next. I struggle to clear the fog from my mind…to remember something. What am I supposed to remember? I think just before the transparent doors in front of me open, and freezing air rushes in.

  "Welcome to Admin City," the woman says again. Patches of blue, mottled light give way to the blurred outlines of two people in long, white coats with hoods, and the woman steps through the door toward me into this…cube? The walls are clear, connected by some kind of steel frame, but that's all I can tell when I look around to see if others are in here with me. The woman extends a hand to help me up, her long lapel blowing toward me with the sudden gust of chilled air, but I can't make my arm reach for her. "Take another minute," she says, and I can hear the smile in her voice even though I can't see her face clearly yet. "I'm Calyx Fromme."

  I blink hard to focus my eyes, then see that she's probably in her late twenties. Her hair is almost white with thick, erratic streaks of dark brown shooting in different directions, and she has a silver cuff piercing through the center of her bottom lip. "We're going to take you somewhere warmer, don't worry," she smiles, which makes the lip cuff glint as it catches the light from somewhere behind me. Her eyes slant upward in the corners, and are the same shade of icy blue as the Vishan's—

  —The Vishan! I think, feeling a rush of adrenaline as the fog in my mind finally starts to clear. In a deluge of information, I see flashes of my father, Azeris, and Liddick being locked out of cube enclosures—the port-carnate transfer hubs…I'm in a transfer hub. We transferred, and they're still back at the Phase Two Gaia facility…at the bottom of a volcano under the ocean floor!

  Coming through the Rush, making it to the transport hubs…everything that has just happened reconnects in my separated memory.

  "My…dad…" I manage to say as my thoughts gel, but my voice comes out in a cracked whisper, then seizes in my throat and nearly chokes me. The room starts spinning, and my head falls back against someone behind me. I turn as much as I can and see Arco's sharp profile. It's still and backlit, casting shadows over his angled features. His eyes are closed and he's not moving beyond the rise and fall of his chest, but his arm is still tight around my shoulders.

  "This must be your first transport?" Calyx asks, raising her dark eyebrows when I look back at her. "Reconfiguring vocal cords always scrambles equi
librium—it will pass as you get used to hearing your own voice again. The more you transfer, the more your body will remember where all its pieces go," she chuckles. "Next time, it won't take so long to feel like a human being again."

  "I have Liam," the man says from the other cube enclosure, which is huge—about ten feet tall and wide. "Are Liddick and Jack with you?"

  "No. We're missing Azeris and his daughter too. Check the feed," Calyx says, then reaches down again to help me up. I manage to lift my arm this time, but it feels like it's filled with sand. My reaction must show on my face because Calyx abruptly smiles at me. "I know, the lag is terrible up here, especially after a first time transfer, but it will pass once you warm up," she says, pressing her lips into a line as she nods. "Eco, throw me a wrap." She catches a long, white coat like hers a second later and drapes it over me, then pulls me to my feet. "Just stand for a second before you try to walk, all right?" she nods again, which is good because I couldn't take a step now if I tried. I turn around and see the others starting to rouse as Calyx makes her way to Arco, who is now awake and trying to push to his feet without much success. Watching him sway makes me brace against the door frame to keep the nausea at bay.

  The room beyond the transport hub is dimly lit, but otherwise looks exactly like the one we just left at the Phase Two facility. Three rows of metal console stations arc upward toward the back of the room like amphitheater seating, and the wide steps spill down toward me from the white doorway.

  My stomach lurches as I remember everything now…the thought of my father standing near that doorway, then holding out his hand to me as the transfer light engulfed us. I let my eyes fall on the exact place Liddick stumbled into the room—where he stood helpless to stop us from transferring…where he shouted in my mind that he'd find us once we got to Admin City.

  Before I intend to, I skim over the smooth stretches of seated metal console stations that descend toward where I saw Dell in the final seconds of light: the console just a few feet in front of me where the guards in white grabbed him, and where I saw Ms. Rheen's—what had to be Ms. Rheen's—red hair before the light washed everything away. I squeeze my eyes shut for a second to clear the images, then turn my attention back to Calyx and take a deep breath.