AIR Series Box Set

by Amanda Booloodian

  Blinking the movement away wasn't working, but I gave Boone an incredulous look. "They drugged me and locked me in a room. Yes, it was necessary."

  "And now?" Boone asked.

  "As soon as the room stops moving, I'm going to take your advice and rest up while I can. You should do the same." I gestured at the windows and the door where gremlins stood, examining the damage. "I'm pretty sure we're well guarded now, and the bed is way more comfortable than it looks."

  Boone shook his head and held out his hand. "Come on."

  Reluctantly, I took Boone's hand, and with his help, I made it across the room and fell back into the bed.

  "I'll take the floor," Boone said.

  I looked at him as though he had grown another head. "That's stupid. The bed's not long, but it's big enough for two."

  "I don't think—"

  I rolled my eyes and interrupted. "You don't think that we should both get some sleep in comfort. This may be the last chance we get for a while."

  Boone didn't look convinced.

  "I can keep my hands to myself." I moved over to the other side of the bed and turned over on my side, away from him. It wasn't long before he joined me.

  I'm not sure how long I slept, but it was the best sleep I could ever remember having. It had to have been because I had been deprived of comfort for so long, but I didn't care why. When I woke up, I felt refreshed for the first time since entering this world.

  The ceiling of the room was wooden and I stared at it, following the grain of the wood and letting my mind wander while Boone snored next to me.

  Everything about the gremlins was backwards. The old people acted like kids and the kids acted like adults, taking charge and following the rules strictly. They probably even sat on their porches and yelled at the old people to get off their lawns.

  They were smart, though. Smarter than I had given them credit for. I wondered if anyone back at the agency knew about the younger gremlins.

  Maybe, but they wouldn't hear about them from me.

  Boone might be a different story. I still had no idea what he would do or say about the gremlins or about what I had told him regarding myself.

  It had been a mistake to tell him, I knew it was. Unfortunately, it was a mistake I knew I would repeat.

  My thoughts veered toward home to friends and family, but I firmly stamped them back down.

  Gremlins, they were interesting. Wyna, she was a puzzle to figure out. Those were things I could focus on that wouldn't threaten to consume my mind.

  Getting out of bed without waking Boone turned out to be a chore, but like me, I think he found the bed more comfortable than he had originally thought and he was sound asleep. Taking a quick look out the windows, I saw a guard posted at each one.

  The door was shut and I didn't bother trying to open it. At the table, I puzzled over the pieces of metal for a short time, but it was only a passing idea of filling time. I drank some water, and then when it looked like the sun was starting to hang lower in the sky, I went to wake up Boone.

  He had been sleeping easy when I left him, but now his face was contorted.

  "Boone," I said. I'm not sure why I whispered it. I was trying to wake him up, after all, but still, I didn't raise my voice.

  When I didn't get a response, I shook him.

  Boone gripped my arm and launched himself out of bed, trying to pin me to the floor. My response was automatic, having been etched into my mind by what seemed like countless hours of drills. From the ground, using my hip, I leveraged Boone up enough to draw up my feet, which I planted directly on his chest and pushed as hard as I could while still holding one of his arms. When I let go, Boone fell hard and I rolled away, bounced to my feet, and backed away.

  Shit, I had made this mistake once before with Rider. He'd been sound asleep, and I had woken him and received an unintentional punch to the chest.

  Boone didn't get up and I didn't get closer. The adrenaline burst that I had received had already drained away and I felt tired. I knew I'd recover quickly, but my hands were shaking, and I decided to make my way over to the table and sit down. While I got myself back under control, I watched Boone do the same.

  "Are you alright?" he asked, more formally than I had expected.

  "I'm fine," I said. "You?"

  He sighed. "Yeah." He got to his feet, making no quick movements. I got the feeling he was doing that more for my benefit than because he was sore in any way. "I apologize."

  "No big deal." I said.

  He raised an eyebrow at me.

  I forced a smile. "Have you ever woken up a werewolf from a deep sleep when he was expecting trouble?"

  The eyebrow raised farther and the other joined it.

  "No harm, no foul," I said.

  I grabbed the water bottle for something to do and drank what I could while Boone sat down on the bench and stretched.

  "That was unexpected," Boone said, still being careful with his words.

  "Huh," was the only response I could give. Yes, it had been unexpected, but it wasn't like he had meant to do it.

  "I've studied your file."

  "You've mentioned," I said.

  "Your training was rushed and rudimentary."

  I could feel my face turn red. "So?" I said trying and failing to make it not sound defensive.

  "It happens a lot in cases like yours," Boone said dismissively. "What I didn't see on there was anything that would lead me to believe you could defend yourself. Did you use your abilities to help you out?"

  "You're asking me if I attacked you using my powers? You're kind of an ass, you know that? I wouldn't have thrown you using my powers. Keep you away, yeah. If someone attacks me on purpose, sure. Believe it or not, I don't need to use the Path for everything."

  My voice was heated, but Boone seemed to take no notice of it. He only nodded.

  "You taught yourself?" Boone asked.

  "Well, no, I take lessons. And a friend from the city teaches me some things when I get the chance to visit him." Taylor knew more about fighting than anyone I had ever met, aside from Logan. "Are we done with the third degree? You're the one that attacked me, remember?"

  It wasn't a very nice thing to say, but Boone let it roll over him.

  I took a meditative breath to try to unwind my aggravation. "Besides," I said after a few moments, "you didn't put up any resistance. You let me throw you."

  "It took me a minute to realize where I was," Boone said.

  I knew that feeling well. Nightmares would rear up and when something wakes you up, you think you're still living the nightmare.

  "You seemed to have spent a lot of time reading my file," I said, trying to change the subject.

  "Your whole team." Boone leaned back against the wall and stared at the ceiling. "At least what my clearance level covers. There are a lot of blanks. Some facts removed, and as I'm learning, some stuff left out of the official records."

  "So, you read about us and you came to study us?" My nose curled up in distaste. "That seems strange to me."

  Boone shrugged. "I thought it would be the best way to learn."

  "You're human, right?"

  Boone lifted his head and eyed me quizzically. "Can't you tell by reading me?"

  "If you want me to, sure. But I don't automatically read everyone around me."

  "Yeah, well, that seems strange to me. The few men I've worked with that have abilities use them to get every edge they can with those around them."

  "Huh. You've worked with a lot of idiots, then? Doesn't matter. Look, people's lives are their own business. I don't automatically read my partners, family, or friends when I see them.”

  "And coworkers?"

  "That gets more complicated. It depends on what they're doing, but when I read them, I have my reasons. Why do you want to know all this?"

  Boone shrugged. "What else do we have to do?"

  "Fine. Let's flip the tables."

  Chapter 13

  For once, he didn't look un
easy about the idea.

  "Fair enough." He didn't sound enthusiastic.

  Now, what did I want to learn about Boone? "Where did you learn survival training?" It seemed the easiest place to start.

  "Military."

  I rolled my eyes at the one-word answer. "How long have you been in the agency?"

  "Officially?"

  "That just opens a whole load of other questions, but it's a place to start."

  "Two years. Unofficially? For most of my military career I was part of a small group assigned to work with the Lost in other parts of the world."

  "I thought other governments had their own agencies that work with the Lost."

  "Most of the places I went didn't have what you would call a real government. There were other countries where the government wasn't exactly in control. Or in some cases had too much control."

  I had never thought about what must happen to the Lost in war. "What did you do for them?"

  Boone leaned forward on his bench and gripped the seat, but his voice remained level. "It depended on the Lost. We did what we could for them."

  "I don't know what that means."

  "Some needed more help than others. Some refused to leave their homes, and others had lost their homes. We discovered a few were forced into one sort of slavery or another. Usually to fight, but not always."

  Slavery. Not always. Most of my questions died away for fear of what answers I might get.

  "In a few areas, the Lost fought against us on their own," Boone said. "Like I said, we did what we could."

  "That sounds awful. What did you do when you rescued them?"

  "Some found a place in nearby countries. Others came here." Boone shook his head. "Came to the US, I mean. The European nations took in some refuges. Many settled in South America. Then there's an island in the Pacific that's almost all Lost. They live openly with humans. We took a few there."

  "Vincent mentioned the island once. That would be interesting to see."

  "It's something else, but not always easy for them. It's not the only place that's set up like that, but they are few and far between."

  "And when you left the military, you came to work for the agency?"

  "Something like that."

  He didn't seem sad, but I could tell talking about his work for the military put a heavy weight on his shoulders, so I decided to steer the conversation away. "And you've never worked with gremlins?"

  "No. When I knew there was a chance of being around them, I looked them up, but this is the first time I've actually seen them. That portal is the only one AIR has on record that comes to this world. The details were sketchy, but it's interesting that it reopens all the time." Boone sighed. "Or at least it did."

  "They'll get it open again," I said.

  "It's possible. There's a lot of red tape with that sort of thing."

  "You don't think they'll be given permission to open it?"

  Boone took his time answering. "No," he said at last, "I don't think they will."

  "Even with two agents trapped on the other side?"

  "The people that put us here are the only ones that can say what happened. The agency may decide it's better we're here."

  "There's not a story they could tell my friends to convince them not to come after me."

  "Even if—"

  The door to our room opened. Glancing out the window, I could see the sun had started to set. The gremlin at the door spoke, but since Wyna wasn't around, I had no idea what the gremlin said. When he stood aside, opening the door wide, we got the hint.

  "Do you have any idea of what we might expect here?" I asked.

  "Wyna said it was a formality. A protocol of some sort."

  "That doesn't tell us much," I said, trying to be cautious as we left the room. "But, we got some sleep and there's a feast later. That's a plus."

  "Maybe," Boone said.

  We went down a hall and out into the dying light of the day. It was the first chance I had to look at the village. The entire landscape looked carved out of the woodland area. I had pictured it in one of those strips of field, but now that I saw the houses nestled into the trees, it was hard to imagine a gremlin town being anywhere else. The houses, the paths, the trees, and the little open area where we were headed, fit together like a puzzle.

  The whole town looked like it belonged—as though it were a part of the forest as much as the forest was a part of it.

  We entered the open area, which was surrounded by gremlins. They stood formally, almost as though they were at attention. No one peeked around anyone else or jostled for a better view of us as we entered the clearing. They stood still, but some watched us, and some watched the line of gremlins we faced.

  I noticed no one stood behind those gremlins. It was difficult for me to tell one person from another, since only the old ones had gotten close to us, but I was betting Aghrah was one of the gremlins that was being watched by the crowd.

  One of the gremlins to the side spoke and someone up front responded.

  "You must move to the center."

  I jumped. Wyna was at my elbow. I hadn't seen the woman approach, and I hadn't heard anyone let her through the formal wall of gremlins.

  "How do you do that?" I asked out of my own surprise and frustration. It unnerved me the way she kept coming and going without notice.

  She grinned, but only gestured to the clearing.

  I didn't mean to hesitate, but something about being in the middle of all those gremlins made me nervous. I'm sure it was because I didn't like being the center of attention. It probably had nothing to do with the fact that we were on trial.

  Boone walked to the center. It would be worse if someone had to prod me forward, so I followed on my own.

  That was all it took for the proceedings to start. The gremlins up front spoke, mostly to the crowd, but sometimes their focus was on us. There was at least one gremlin from each side of the square surrounding us that spoke.

  "What are they saying?" I asked Wyna, who stood off to one side.

  Apparently, that was the wrong thing to do. Arguments broke out, or maybe it was only that they were yelling at us. It was hard to tell.

  "They are speaking charges and debating the action to take," Wyna said. "You should not talk at this point."

  "We're not even allowed to know what they are accusing us of?" I asked.

  "Accuse is harsh word. More a suggestion of what is possible, what you have done, and what you could do."

  "They're blaming us for stuff that hasn't happened?"

  "Not blame. They are weighing the possibility. This should be over soon."

  "Then what?"

  "A feast, rest, and tomorrow they sent you back."

  "That's it?" I crossed my arms and glared at the gremlins. "This is crazy."

  "Protocol."

  "Let's let them get this finished," Boone said. He sounded as testy as I felt.

  Glaring at the gremlins, I didn't say anything. When we stopped talking, they stopped yelling at us and went back to their statements, or whatever it was they were doing. I couldn't speak gremlin, and the screeches, howls, and chittering noises they made were completely indistinguishable to me as a language. However, after a while, there was a feeling of monotony to the proceedings. Maybe it was better we didn't know what they were saying, because they sounded quite bored with it.

  The sun had fully set and lights were set out. While the gremlins spoke, I studied the lights. It wasn't flame, and it didn't look like electricity, but it glowed steady and the area shined with a lovely blue tinted light.

  Unfortunately, I couldn't get closer to investigate. I took one step away from the center of the square and squabbling broke out again. I rolled my eyes, moved back, and then they began to drone on again.

  It's hard to imagine screeches as a droning, but that was definitely what was happening.

  Yawning widely, I looked around at the gathered gremlins. They could have been watching a tennis match as their eyes bounced
from one speaker to another without moving their heads around.

  When they stopped talking, it took me a few moments to realize that they were waiting for something from us. Boone looked at Wyna and waited for her translation.

  "Say..." Wyna seemed to search for the right word. "Closed.”

  I wanted to ask why, but it looked like Boone wanted to be done with the whole affair. He said the words, Wyna translated them, and the gremlins broke rank. Many gremlins disappeared, but others came up and patted our arms. They screeched at us, but it seemed to be in an odd, friendly sort of way.

  Gremlins that had left reappeared carrying tables and chairs. After several had been set up, we were guided over to take a seat.

  Across from us, Wyna and the gremlins that had run the trial sat down.

  Looking at Boone, I saw that the gremlin-sized chair and tables weren't working well for him. They were small to me, as well, but Boone looked like he was being folded in half.

  "I'm so confused," I said as what might have been food was sat before us. My stomach growled at the smell, but I couldn't identify anything. "Why did all that happen?"

  "Before the gremlins sentence you," Wyna said, “they must first be convinced of a crime. With no crime, they cannot sentence you."

  That idea made me cranky, but before I could talk, Boone broke in. "So they trumped up charges to sentence us to something."

  Wyna frowned. "I do not know that word. Trumped."

  "They made stuff up," Boone said.

  "Young ones have very little ability to make something up, and it’s against their beliefs," Wyna said. "You eat while you have chance."

  Looking around, I saw that all the gremlins had settled down. They were eating, and I stared at their plates trying to determine what it was. Boone already had a plate full of food. I added small scoops of stuff to mine.

  A blue gelatinous substance that had little pockets of steam inside, sat in front of me. Something that had to be a meat of some sort was being passed around. It almost looked like BBQ chicken, but since I had seen no birds, I couldn't hazard a guess as to what it was. A thick, pasty substance, something that looked like crumbly dry stuffing and a thin brown sauce that everyone seemed to pour on top of everything else, rounded out the meal.