AER (The Elements Series Book 3)

by Tracy Korn

  It's OK, don't try to talk. Lyden says in my mind. These are just shifts…like the shuttles back home in Seaboard. We're not really stretching out, it just looks that way because of how fast we're going. I try to blink, but my eyes won't even close until Myra's head, neck and torso start reforming, and the whooshing air finally stops.

  "What was that!?" Avis shouts when we're all still again.

  "Outer ring, yeah?" Eco laughs. "They're shifts. It's how we get around here in Admin City. The distortion you saw was because of the speed…it's just warped light."

  I don't even know what to say in response to that when we step out of the bright column of light and onto another wide, illuminated platform. It turns into an illuminated sidewalk that runs along the base of several tall, rounded buildings with vertical windows that I can't see into. The people walking toward us are all wearing the same long, hooded white coats as we are. Some of them seem to be talking to someone who isn't there, and others just stare straight ahead with eye colors I've never seen on anyone before…bright purple…orange.

  "Admin City really is a city," Fraya says, her arm threaded with Jax's. "All these people make virtuo-cines?"

  "That's the official story," Calyx says, leading us toward one of the cylindrical white buildings to our right. We stop at it, but there doesn't seem to be a door anywhere.

  "How are we supposed to get in there?" Ellis asks just as Eco flattens his palm on the building, which fades into an archway, then disappears.

  "Coming?" The lights over Eco's cheekbones flicker as he smiles to one side, then moves through the arched doorway. Arco nods to me, then slides his hand over my shoulder.

  "They're going to help us," he says. "They'll help us find your dad again."

  I nod back at him, and for just a second his optimism and steadiness make everything feel normal again.

  I follow Eco and Calyx down the narrow white corridor…is everything in Admin City is white? It opens to a blank wall until Eco flattens his palm against it. An archway appears after a few seconds, which leads into a large kitchen.

  "You'll all stay here at my hab tonight. Tomorrow, we'll go to the Boneyard. Are you hungry yet?" Eco asks, walking through the opening to a brushed metal countertop that reminds me of the galley of the relay sub we boarded for Gaia Sur. Is that a—

  "You have a matter board?" Avis finishes my thought, then looks directly at Vox. "Don't even think about it."

  Vox smirks. "Want some ice cream, Jax?" she asks with a wink. Jax rolls his eyes.

  "That's not even funny," I say, remembering the parson fish she called up that almost disintegrated my legs. If it weren't for Joss—I start to think of how he speared the fish with that icepick, and then remember the zephyrs from the edge of the Rush….how they pulled him up into the air and devoured him. I close my eyes to block the thought.

  "You OK?" Arco whispers behind my ear, startling me.

  Don't worry, sand dollar. I'm not in the mood for seafood, Vox says in my mind. I narrow my eyes at her.

  "When can we scan for the others?" I ask again, then clench my teeth to keep from screaming at everyone. How can they be making jokes right now? We left our people down there…

  It wasn't your fault, Lyden thinks, but I don't want to hear his consolation thoughts. I want someone to do something!

  "I can only tap the hub scan from the Orion Complex to see if any signatures have registered since we left. We'll have to wait until we go to the Boneyard to widen the reach of the scan," Eco says, which I only halfway understand, but I think he's trying to say he can only partially scan for the rest of our group. That's not going to be enough. He pulls off his white knit hat and tosses it on the counter. "So, anyone hungry?" he asks again, then closes his eyes and holds his hand over the matter board, which looks like a small slab of white marble. After a few seconds, a pot of noodles appears. "Plates are in the cupboard," he adds, gesturing off his shoulder to the cabinet that suddenly pushes out from the wall.

  "Whoa," Avis says, walking toward it.

  "Just hold your hand up there."

  Avis complies, and the door disappears just enough to see where the plates are inside. He pulls his hand back in surprise, and the door solidifies.

  "Whoa!" he says again, and both Calyx and Eco chuckle.

  "It senses the heat from your hand—it's OK," Eco says. Avis reaches up again and disappears part of the cabinet a few more times before he finally pulls out a stack of plates. Eco puts a handful of forks on the counter from somewhere, then starts serving the noodles.

  "Are those meatballs?" Jax's brows shoot up. I shake my head and close my eyes in a long blink. How can he even care about stupid meatballs when our father is still stuck at the bottom of a volcano under the ocean floor!?

  "You should eat something," Arco says, putting his hand on my back. Eat? Is anyone listening to me? There's no way I can eat right now. I take a step forward and push my hand through my hair.

  "I'm not hungry," I say, trying to keep my voice level. "Can we please just scan now?" I try to stare a hole through Eco, and he finally stops forking noodles onto the plates. I feel a hand move to my shoulder and look up to find Calyx looking down at me like she has bad news.

  "There are some things you need to understand first, Jazwyn."

  CHAPTER 5

  The Storm

  Liddick

  Crossing the ravine is easy this time, considering the mind-jack it was before with the voices…with Jazz's voice in my head telling me I was unstable, that I wanted too much from her. I shake my head to clear the thoughts. They weren't real then, they're not real now. I saw the look on her face when she figured out how to use the Vishan's NET device to find me out there in the Woods biome. I saw the relief on her face when I finally made it back to the Phase Two facility under that volcano, and then again the panic that took over when she screamed and pounded at the transfer hub door, realizing I was locked out. You don't fight like that unless you love someone.

  "Liddick? What planet are you on?" Dez asks me, startling me back into the here and now.

  "Wh—? Nothing. I mean, I'm not. I'm fine. Just focusing on getting out of here." I stumble through the words as we approach the end of the ravine and cross back into the tall pine trees on the outskirts of the ice caves.

  "Crite, it's at least 30 degrees colder on this side," Zoe says, hugging herself against the wind. Dez curls herself under my arm. I clench my teeth and take shallow breaths to keep my irritation about her proximity in check. It's not her fault we're stuck here…It's mine.

  "The clouds are gathering into ribbons…" Jack says, craning his neck back. "That's not good."

  "Those aren't the zephyr things again, are they? Like over the Bale field?" Dez asks.

  "No. Those don't come this far out," he answers, then shakes his head at the ground. "They shouldn't even exist at all. None of these creations should exist at all." He pushes a hand through his hair, temporarily straightening the thick, black curls.

  "Let's keep moving," Cal says.

  "Isn't this the same mineral rain that fell back in the Sand biome?" Dez asks, tightening her grip on my arm.

  "Best not to find out, wise?" Dell answers, clicking the side of his mouth and winking.

  "Those clouds really are starting to twist and fold like the ones over the Bale field," Dez whispers to me, but all I can bring myself to do is nod at her. I need to channel my focus.

  "How far away are the caves? When we came out before, the ravine was almost directly in front of us…we barely walked at all," I say, scanning everyone until I see Azeris off to my side. I fix my eyes on his and wait for him to say something that makes this all seem less impossible.

  "They should be just beyond that evergreen line, but that's based on the map I made before all the neural hooey got turned off."

  Azeris's last word is swallowed by a blinding flash of light and a crackle that feels like crumpling paper behind my eyes. The crashing sound that comes next is so loud I feel it ricocheting
in my chest. Floating black dots distort my vision. The wind picks up with a high-pitched gust, and I try rubbing my eyes to clear the spots.

  "Let's move!" Jack yells, but he sounds like he's underwater as he ushers everyone toward the evergreen tree line.

  "Look!" Tieg shouts, pointing to a smoking, charred patch of earth not far in the distance. That must be where the lightning hit…

  "Move! Move!" Azeris waves everyone on, and for a second all I can think about is Joss being jerked up into the air just a few inches from me as we all tried to outrun the zephyr tornado creatures. One second he was right there, and the next he was yards in the air being tossed and peeled until he was just…gone. I shake the image out of my head. We need to get out of here.

  We make it to the trees just in time for the second impossibly bright flash of lightning and thunder crash, but this time, it's muted a little by the cast of trees behind us now. The few raindrops that start to fall are heavy and cold, and it isn't long before the smell of sulphur fills the air.

  "Don't let any of those drops get into your eyes or mouth—they're acidic…like lemon juice, but even more concentrated," Jack shouts above the roll of thunder that is still rumbling in the distance.

  "Where are the caves?" Tieg shouts, looking from Jack to Dell, then finally to me. I squint at him, then shake my head. Mollusk…how would I know where anything is down in this hell hole? I think.

  "Not too far from here, we just need to keep moving," Jack answers over his shoulder, but doesn't slow down. His white jumpsuit stands out against the trees with the clouds darkening everything around us, so I try to keep my eyes on him.

  "In there! In there!" Dell shouts, pointing to the cave opening just ahead. It has to be where we came out the first time.

  Heavy drops of rain fall like tiny bags of sand from the sky, pelting my shoulders and back. Some of the water gets into my eyes and makes them burn. I wipe the drops away with the back of my hand, but there are too many, so I try to shield my eyes instead..the threshold of the cave is right there.

  "I can't see!!" Dez yells from somewhere next to me. I stop running and find her a few feet back, lying on the ground with her hands over her eyes.

  "Bring her! We need to get out of this!" Azeris yells at me, which snaps something in my head and makes everything around me louder. I cross to Dez and lift her shoulders.

  "Hey! We have to get out of this, come on!" I say, but she just keeps screaming.

  "Liddick! I can't—I can't see! It burns!"

  "I know! It's the rain! That's why you have to come with me now! Let's go!" I pull her to her feet only for her to fall to her knees. "Dez!" I shout, trying to keep the rain out of my eyes, but I can't, and it's almost impossible to keep them open. I grab her around the waist and lift her back to her feet, then pull her toward the cave opening. "We're almost there!" I yell again, a message to myself just as much as it is for her.

  I don't hear her sobs again until we finally cross the threshold of the cave, and the roaring rain moves to the background.

  "Here, sit her down here! Give her some room!" Jack says, taking Dez's arms and guiding her to the floor of the blue ice crystal corridor.

  "What's wrong with her!?" Tieg yells, pushing past Azeris and grabbing my collar. "She was with you—what's wrong with her? She insisted on being with you!"

  "The rain got in her eyes—it got in mine too. You see it out there, don't you!?" I shout back, barely able to see, then shove him away from me. I can't keep the anger out of my voice any more than I could keep the rain out of my own eyes, let alone out of Dez's.

  "Stow it! It's no one's fault. It just started coming down," Azeris says, exasperated.

  "He's right. That's how it works down here, there's no big build up or taper—everything just starts and stops. We can't see it coming," Jack adds as he tilts Dez's chin up. "All right, kiddo, I need to look. You need to let me see your eyes. Let's move these hands, OK?"

  Dez sobs again and rocks her head from side to side.

  "No…no, it burns. They burn too much."

  "Dezzie, listen to him. He has to see. Come on," Tieg says, kneeling next to her. He takes her hands in his and tries to pry them away from her face. She cries louder, but finally lets them fall. Before I realize it, I'm covering my mouth to keep the gasp in. I look at Azeris, who blows out a breath.

  "It's all right," Jack says, pushing the wet blonde hair from Dez's face.

  "What happened? Why are they black!?" The panic in Tieg's voice shoots straight down my spine.

  "What's black!? What's wrong?" Dez tries to scramble to her feet, but Jack braces her shoulders.

  "You need to be still for a minute. It's just a chemical reaction—you're from Skyboard North, right?" he asks, and Dez manages to nod erratically. "OK, are your eyes genetically engineered?"

  She doesn't nod; she just keeps crying.

  "Of course they're GE. No one naturally has eyes that light blue. Why does that matter? Why are they totally black now?" Tieg almost yells again.

  "My eyes are black!?"

  "Listen, just sit here and get some breathing done," Zoe says, elbowing past Tieg to kneel next to Dez. She pulls her close just like she did for Myra in the hollow tree after…after Joss was killed by the zephyrs.

  "It's just a side effect of the encoding. DNA takes millions of years to develop. When we poke around in that code and start reprogramming it, there can be a ripple effect," Jack sighs.

  "So what does that mean? She's blind now? Both of her eyes and the sockets are black!" Tieg shouts again and takes a step toward Jack. Azeris puts a forearm in his chest and pushes him to the wall.

  "How much exactly do you think you're helping your sister right now?" he says under his breath just beyond Tieg's ear.

  "Look, it may just be temporary. I can't do anything about it here. I need a lab, a molecular reader…the only thing we can do about it now is keep the area cool to slow down the spread," Jack says. "I need some cloth."

  "The spread?" Dell asks quietly, tearing the bottom lining out of his satchel and handing it to Jazz's dad, who picks up a fallen ice shard and begins scraping shavings from the blue wall into it. I feel my blood freeze in my veins and move my hand to my own face.

  "Your eyes aren't modified, don't worry," Jack says, shaking his head to me to address my unspoken fear. My chest falls in relief.

  "Mine are—I got rain in my eyes in the Sand biome when we were fighting the tunnel shark. So did Dez—why didn't this happen then?" Tieg asks, glaring at Jack.

  "Listen, every interruptor is off now because of the freeze I launched. Every piece of code that kept things controllable down here, just like those neural echoes—those voices I'm sure you heard crossing the ravine the first time—every piece of that code is connected. To shut down control of one part meant shutting down control of all parts. Things are in their natural state down here for the time being…well, as natural as they can be. The good news is this rain will do the same thing to the tunnel sharks now." Jack presses the cloth with the ice shavings over one of Dez's eyes and ties it under her ear, then around the back of her head. "I need another cloth."

  CHAPTER 6

  Debriefing

  Jazz

  Calyx moves in front of me too slowly, like she's trying to postpone saying whatever it is she has to say. I'm about to crawl out of my skin if I don't start getting some answers right now.

  "Jazwyn, there could be a reason we didn't see your father on the first scan back at the transfer hub bridge. He had a back up plan if something happened with your transfer. If we don't pick up the others on the feed, it doesn't mean they're not out there, all right? I just need you to know that." Calyx nods several times, making her white, darkly streaked hair fall into her eyes. She flips it back.

  "So where would they be then? What was the plan?"

  Calyx glances over at Eco, who raises dark eyebrows at her. He returns a long shrug as he forks a meatball into his mouth.

  "If something happened wit
h the transfer, your father planned to launch a neural freeze into the Phase Two system. That would drop the guards and give you time to make your way back to the tunnels that lead to the Badlands. Your friend, Azeris, has a port-carnate hub there."

  "Wait, they went back into the Rush!?" I lose control of my voice and take a step back from Calyx. Arco is already behind me and catches my elbow. "We barely made it out of there the first time!"

  "Jazwyn, it's all right," Liam says from across the room. "The neural programs that made everything down there so much worse would be off—no voices. No mind games."

  "But the monsters? Those zephyrs and the enormous bugs? What about those, Liam?" I ask, searching his face, which is too much like Liddick's, for an answer. When he doesn't give me one, I turn to Eco, and finally to Lyden.

  "One of those giant pincer bugs ripped my entire sleeve off," Vox says around a mouthful of meatball. She sucks a strand of spaghetti into her mouth too quickly, and it whips her across the face, splashing her with sauce. I pinch the bridge of my nose.

  "All right, we need to scan right now. I need to know what happened to the rest of our group," I say, stepping out from Arco's arm.

  "We can only see if Jack is still on the Grid—the others were never on it, so we won't be able to see them," Calyx answers.

  "Unless…" Vox speaks up, and everyone turns to her. "I gave Cal back the NET. He knows how to use it. I mean, Jazz and I had no idea how to make it work, but we did."

  "Maybe he'll use it to let us know where they are," Myra nods.

  "How do we start a scan for them?" Arco asks, lifting his chin to Eco. "I don't see a console in here."

  I scan the room again only to realize there is just this kitchen…where's the hallway? The living room?

  Eco smiles. "It's through there." He nods toward the solid white wall off to our right.

  "It's like the volcano Gaia, isn't it? We just walk through?" Myra's laugh laces her voice as she takes a step toward the wall with her hands already in the air trying to push through it. Ellis follows.