AER (The Elements Series Book 3)

by Tracy Korn

  "I don't know, that's all he said. The message just came about an hour ago," Corva says, gesturing to the viewer on the top of her head. She sets it on the clear desktop and stands, then takes a few steps toward me. "All right, you look like you're ready. Listen, I told Grisham that I was out now. This is the last time I patch up his crew. Tell him not to send anyone else here," Corva whispers as she walks me to the door on the other side of the little office. "Tell him I have a legitimate practice now, OK? I don't want any affiliations with The State or The Seam. We're even."

  "All right…" I say, but I have no idea what she's talking about. She opens the door. "Take this with you," she adds, handing me a small, clear bottle with a blue pill inside. "It will help with exhaustion by stabilizing your red blood cell count. Several were purged with the nanites. You need to rest, but I suspect you won't do that in the near future."

  "No, I need to get moving," I nod. "Thank you for helping me. You saved my life."

  Corva shrugs and attempts a smile, but it doesn't stick.

  "That's all I ever wanted to do. That's why I became a Biodesigner. Remind Grisham of that too," she says, then shuts the door.

  I stand there for a second trying to process who she thinks I am, but it takes too much energy. I turn toward the street, but then look back at the building, which is not the same one from last night. How did I get here? I think just as a heliocar lands across the street, and the door slides open. A man with sunglasses leans toward me from inside.

  "Mr. Wright?" he asks.

  "Yeah?"

  "Get in."

  CHAPTER 34

  Cannibal Planet

  Jazz

  They're not really going to send us in at night, are they? I think, not taking my eyes off the Platform level at the bottom of the swirling cylinder of colors.

  "This is not the beginning of the cine. We're sending you in about halfway through because that's where the algorithms are predicting you'll have the most luck finding the correct Glyphs," Tark says. "Remember, if you see or hear things that are familiar, but uncomfortable, that's the code's firewall at work. It knows you're trying to put it to bed, so be careful not to lose your focus in there," he adds, then nods to me. "Ms. Ripley, since you have already been identified, it would be wise to stick with a partner at all times."

  "I don't want to go in. I don't like horror cines," Myra whimpers in the chair next to Fraya. Her eyes are squeezed shut as she slowly shakes her head from side to side.

  "Can't she sit this one out? You were going to pull me out," I say to Calyx.

  "You all need to patch a Glyph, and we can't predict which of you will spot it in each cine. The one in Cannibal Planet may be the one that speaks to Myra," Eco says without missing a beat.

  "It's OK," Fraya says from the chair next to Myra. "We'll stick together, all right? You won't have to be alone in there."

  Myra nods and wipes her face, trying to regain her composure. If Liddick were here, he'd know exactly what to say to help her. Why can't I think of anything to help her? Maybe because I don't have any answers!?

  "Wait—" I say. "Before we go in, you're going to keep working on finding my dad, Liddick, and the others, right? When we come out, you'll be able to tell us something?"

  "We'll do our best, Jazwyn," Calyx says. "Your dad has our ports; if he's able to contact us, he will. And even if something happened, we're sweeping the Grid every few minutes for unauthorized access attempts. If any of them are trying to get to Admin City, we'll see them."

  I nod, then take a deep breath as Calyx leans over the shoulder of a woman at the console closest to her.

  "Queue cine, advanced to second act," she says.

  "Yes, ma'am," the woman seated at the console replies, and everything starts fading to white.

  ***

  It's dark when the bright light fades, so dark I can't make out anything for a few seconds as my eyes adjust. The ground under my hands is covered in smooth fabric…I'm sitting down, and the sound of the river current crashing and lapping helps ground me here in this cine—and it is a cine. I'm in a virtuo-cine, I think, trying to make the mental switch.

  "Jazz!" Arco whispers from somewhere close by.

  "I'm here," I answer, a few seconds later hearing the buzz of a zipper opening. I'm in a tent…

  "OK, good. I'm going to find the others," he says, then closes the zipper to my tent again.

  "Hey!" I call after him as I make my way out. Fraya and Myra are already walking toward the campfire where a few other people are sitting. "Have you talked to those two yet?" I whisper, catching up to Arco. He shakes his head.

  "No, I woke up lying on the ground right there and came over to your tent when I heard your voice."

  "There's Lyden," I say, nodding to the edge of the riverbank.

  "Where's Vox?" Arco asks, scanning in every direction.

  "I don't see her. She has to be here somewhere. They sent us in all together, so we should all wake up in the same place, right?" I ask, but Arco just shakes his head, having just as much virtuo-cine experience as I do.

  "Lyden will know, come on," he says, heading toward the river.

  "Stay in the light," the woman sitting on the far side of the campfire says. She pushes her long, tangled hair behind her ears, and I see the dirt smeared all over her face.

  "What happened?" Arco asks, but the woman just keeps looking into the fire.

  "There were 12 of us this morning," the man next to her answers. He puts his arm around the woman and pulls her closer. They're about the same age as we are now that I can see them in the light.

  Fraya and Myra take a seat on one of the logs closest to the fire.

  "What do you mean? Where did they go?" Myra asks in a pressed voice.

  "They didn't leave," the girl says without looking away from the fire, but then looks directly at me. "They were taken."

  Myra threads her arm around Fraya's and presses her lips into a tight line. The fire pops, shooting sparks into the air, and I jump.

  "Taken by what?" Lyden asks, now climbing over one of the log benches, then taking a seat next to Myra.

  "They separate you from the group, then chase you down," the girl says. "They're too fast."

  "Who?" Arco insists, turning his back to the fire and scanning the woods around us again.

  "We don't know. We never saw them coming. They chased us into the woods; we managed to get away, but our friends…" the boy trails off. He scrubs a hand over his face and takes in a breath, then shakes his head at us.

  "I want to get out of here. Tell them to pull us out," Myra pleads with Fraya, then turns to Lyden. "Call Calyx. Tell her I want to go back."

  "Myra, it's all right," Lyden says, gripping her hand. "Just stay focused."

  She starts to argue, but then a crash in the woods cuts her off.

  Vox, I think. "We have a friend out here somewhere," I say. "We need to find her."

  "Don't go in the woods. They'll come back. You have to stay here by the fire," the girl says, panic rising in her voice as she struggles to her feet.

  "Ava, stop," the boy says in a quiet voice. "It's OK…don't—"

  "No, I'm not going through that again. I'm not…" The girl collapses into sobs on his shoulder, and Myra goes ghost white, the fear rising in her like flood water that is about to drown us all.

  This is a virtuo-cine…this is a virtuo-cine…it's not real…it's not real…I think. Vox, where are you?

  "We need to stay focused. We'll go together. You said they isolate first, then attack, right? We won't let that happen," Lyden says.

  "No!" Myra shouts.

  "OK, OK…Fraya, you and Myra stay here with…Ava? And…?" Arco asks.

  "Rand," the boy says.

  "Lyden and I will go look for Vox. Jazz, you should—"

  Arco starts, but stops abruptly when he meets my eyes, resigned that whatever ideas he had about me staying behind just aren't going to happen. He blows out a breath, then turns to Myra and the rest of the small g
roup. "We'll be right back. Whatever happens, just sit tight. Don't run off alone," he adds, looking straight at Myra.

  "We'll be all right," Fraya nods, pulling Myra in closer. Lyden gets to his feet, and the three of us make our way toward the crash we just heard.

  The air gets colder as we get farther from the firelight, and I wish we still had the Vishan ability to generate our own flames…especially if there really are cannibals in these woods.

  "Why would she not wake up with us?" I ask Lyden. "Why would Vox regenerate in here apart from us? We were all sent in together."

  "I don't know—it shouldn't have worked that way," he answers, then stops in his tracks as little sparks start jumping at the base of the tree line just a few feet in front of us.

  "That looks like static," Arco says, taking another step toward it.

  "No, stop," I say, feeling something heavy settle over my chest. "Something doesn't feel right in there."

  "Vox can't be anywhere else, Jazz. It's just water over there and the clearing behind us. Everything else here is woods," Arco says just as we here another crash. The sparks along the tree line flash again a few seconds later. "That is static," Arco decides, then scans the sky. Thousands of stars speckle the dark with the exception of one spot where it's entirely black.

  "Look at that," I say, pointing. "It's like…a hole in the sky." A hole in the sky? I think, feeling like the phrase isn't really mine somehow, like I've borrowed the words.

  "It's not a hole," Arco says, finding a rock on the ground, then hurling it at the empty blackness. Seconds later, a hollow metallic clang sounds, then the thud of the rock hitting the ground. "Something is up there."

  "I saw starships flying around a planet in the Platform before we came in here," I say. "What if we're not on earth here…what if—?"

  "No!!" Myra screams, and we all start running back to the campsite to find out why.

  Fraya is swinging a partially charred log at Rand and Ava while Myra throws whatever she can find at them. Spotlights from the sky start flooding the ground all around us, but there doesn't seem to be any reason for the chaos.

  "What happened? What's going on?" Arco shouts as Rand tries to shield Ava from Fraya's wild swinging and Myra's rock throwing. "Stop! What's going on!?"

  "It's them! They're the cannibals!" Myra shouts.

  "We're not cannibals! You're split!" Rand yells in reply. "She just started screaming all of a sudden and scrambling backward. We were just sitting here!"

  "Stop! Fraya, stop swinging! What happened?" Lyden says, putting himself between the burning log and Rand.

  "I left for two minutes to see if there were any supplies in that tent, then Myra started saying they had pointed teeth. They got up, and I just thought…I thought they were trying to attack her," she explains, lowering the smoking log when she sees how terrified Rand and Ava are. "I'm…sorry…"

  Myra shakes her head and wrings her hands. "No, I saw them. I saw his teeth. She said we shouldn't try to come here. We should leave before they take us too, but then I saw his teeth," Myra says, even louder now than before. She picks up another rock and throws it at Rand.

  "I don't have pointed teeth!" he shouts, then shows them. Myra screams and throws another rock.

  "He's a cannibal! He's a cannibal!"

  "No! Myra, stop…it's the code! This must be your cine…" Lyden says, looking at Ava. "She told you they would take us too, those were her words?"

  Myra nods furiously. Lyden looks at me and nods. That's the part of the code about Gaia. That's the Glyph, he thinks.

  Myra has to transfer the code…she won't go near them like this.

  "Ava, would you step away from Rand for a second. Just cross over to us?" Lyden says, but Ava violently protests.

  "No, no…I'm not leaving him. She's split. We didn't do anything."

  "Just for a second, please," I say taking a step toward her.

  "Stay away from us! You're probably the cannibals!" Ava yells, clinging to Rand, but then he screams and starts thrashing. When Ava moves away from Rand, I see Vox biting his shoulder in the firelight!

  "Vox! What are you doing!?" I scream. Arco's eyes are wide, and Lyden looks just as shocked as he does. Vox wraps her arms around Rand and pushes him as hard as she can toward Myra, who starts hysterically screaming. Fraya freezes, then remembers her log and starts hitting Vox with it, embers scattering to the ground with each blow.

  "Let him go! Vox! What are you doing!?" I shout again.

  Vox growls, her yellow eyes flashing in the firelight, which also shows that her teeth are bloody…and pointed. I gasp, frozen where I stand. How can this be happening? Is everyone seeing this?

  Ava shrieks at the sight of Rand's blood in Vox's teeth, but Vox just bites him again and runs him straight into Myra, shouldering Fraya and her log to the ground in the process. Rand falls next to Myra, and Vox straddles his back.

  "Give me your hand!" Vox shouts at Myra, wrestling her wrist away from her body and pressing it against Rand's neck.

  "Stop! I don't want to die! No!" Rand yells.

  "You are a cannibal! I knew you were a cannibal! You're all cannibals!" Myra sobs, just as the bright light from the spaceship hovering above us washes the whole thing away.

  CHAPTER 35

  Friends in High Places

  Liddick

  I look at the man in the heliocar for a second, then look up and down the metallic street. The engineered palm trees stretch out in each direction, but they're the only other company I have out here. I have a bad feeling about this.

  "Who are you?" I call over to the car. The man lowers his sunglasses to reveal a white patch over his left eye. "Eddie?" I ask, squinting in disbelief. His greasy dark ponytail is gone, and his white tunic is not only clean, it actually looks new.

  "I clean up all right, yeah?" he says with the same Badlands accent. "C'mon, already."

  I make my way to the heliocar and get in. A keypad and two large screens wrap around the front of the rounded, white console, which flashes as a whole once the door slides closed behind me.

  "Why are you here?" I ask as Eddie pushes a few buttons.

  "Siam's," Eddie says to the car's console, which flashes again as we lift off. I press my teeth together and take a deep breath…I hate heliocars.

  "Eddie, what the—" I start, but he interrupts me with a hard slap to my back.

  "I don't know how ya did it, but Grisham is back in action. He's back in the game."

  "What? Eddie, where are we going?" I say, forcing my teeth apart.

  "Grisham sent me. Said you have a package to secure."

  "What does that have to do with you?" I ask, making the mistake of looking at the tops of the palm trees swaying underneath us. My head starts spinning, and I quickly look away.

  "Grisham said you might need some assistance. I'm here to take you to the assistance. He's in a hurry for you to deliver that package, wise?"

  "I can't deliver anything until I find my friend. She was heading to Sundial City—that Biodesigner back there told me Finn found her," I say. "Are you taking me to Finn?"

  "No, man. I said I'm taking you to some assistance," Eddie says, pushing up his sunglasses.

  "Get Grisham on the comms—I'm not doing anything for him until I find my friend. That was the deal."

  "You think Grisham is gonna put himself in the air like that? He just now surfaced—sit tight. Your assistance is in Sundial City."

  Eddie tells me every conceivable detail about this heliocar for the rest of the trip, but at least he doesn't reek of spoiling oranges anymore. How did Grisham managed to dry him out in 24 hours? I think. Eddie must have run straight to him once he sobered up to remember seeing me.

  He sets the car down in front of an oxygen bar with a line of Cloudies winding out the door and around the limestone building. The word Siam's hovers in neon blue letters over the storefront, and the windows on each side of the door stretch from the ground to the top of the roof. Each of them project 3D holog
rams of Cloudies getting various treatments like blue light skin peels and pheromone sea salt scrubs. An interactive pink, female coded hologram even walks up to us and starts laying out her spiel.

  "You look like you could use an Insta-Z, Liddick and…Anonymous Channel—free five minute sample; guaranteed REM cycle, or your credits back! I'll book you with Brexta, inside now…" she says, tapping into her hovering pink palm display.

  "No," Eddie says, holding up a hand. I narrow my eyes at him…Anonymous? How did he get an opt-out neural channel? "No thanks, doll. Maybe another time," he says as we walk through the hologram girl and under the chrome plated archway of the door. Inside, every oxygen bed is occupied, each enclosed by a carbon hologram wrap. Some still look like giant black eggs, but others have surreal coral reefs turned on, and some show a sweeping pan of miniature snow-covered mountain ranges. On the other side of the bar, three plank tables are set up with a line that winds around all the way back to the door. The technicians are painting dirt streaks on the customers' faces…what the?

  "Eddie, where are we go—?" I start, but am interrupted when we walk under another chrome archway into a back room. A tall, blonde woman with lavender eyes and long red nails turns to us and smiles. Her bar wedge teeth are so white they almost glow, and her pressed white suit looks like it's probably too tight for her to sit down.

  "Eduardo! Your milled grade soil is a smash! You must extend my thanks to Griswald. I appreciate his shipping direct from Admin City so we could be the first boutique to offer servicing. And this must be…Ludwig?"

  "Lidd—"

  "Yes, this is Ludwig, Charisse. Griswald says to extend his thanks for your…cooperation. His hub is currently being serviced, and we need our best man back in the storyboarding room as soon as possible," Eddie adds, nodding at me. I give him a sideways look, but he just keeps smiling like an idiot.

  "Of course, of course…right this way," Charisse says, waving a hand over a section of the wall that falls away just like the one at the Phase Two Gaia facility. "And here we are. I'll just be out front if you need assistance with this old model…I'm sure yours are the latest upgrade."