by Gwynn White
Find the way? The draping of branches and thick cover of leaves meant not seeing much of anything but green and bark beyond two meters in any direction.
Sprinkles leapt down a small slope in their makeshift path, then bolted left and disappeared behind a large bush with orange and red cones dangling like a fireburst in slow motion.
"You have the memories from your training. You'll have to use them, since the easy way is saturated with rejects."
Emmit thought of finding the tiny scroll of Versteg that had opened his mind to the memory of getting on Sprinkles. He wasn't as scared now as he had been then, and he had Sprinkles on his side now. But this jungle was massive, and its weapons plentiful.
"You have to keep opening your mind, Emmit. Something happened not long ago where you completely locked us out."
Emmit reached for a branch to sturdy his balance as he descended a small slope, with only roots to keep his feet from slipping in the mud. At the bottom, he approached the bush with the fireburst cones. Had he seen this before? It didn't seem too unfamiliar.... He touched one of the cones. The buds covering them were soft, and broke apart like thick tufts of sand. The powder smeared sticky on his fingertips. Something told him it would have a sweet taste, and without much thought, he lifted his fingers to his tongue. The sweet citrus taste was too good to be satisfied by so little a sample. He cracked the cone off the hollow stalk. Sticky juice from the stalk ran over his hand as he stretched his mouth to take a deep bite. Powder coughed inside his cheeks as a bite through the stalk sent a rush of sweet juice that tingled on his teeth. His cheeks hurt to keep it all in, and as soon as he could swish it around, he swallowed some.
"Is that good?" Sara stepped beside him and reached in to take a cone.
"It's amazing," Emmit mumbled, spilling a juice over his chin. Already, the nutrients in the plant had his mind buzzing with excitement and a need to do far more. He chewed on the granules of hardened powder, receiving tiny spikes of sugar as they broke under his teeth.
Sara bit down on her cone and her eyes widened. "Mmmm," she mumbled, moving the mouthful around in her full cheeks.
Emmit swallowed his, and shared some on the end of his finger with Dy, tucked inside his pocket. The gecko's tiny tongue licked some pollen off his finger. "Yeah, you love that, don't you?" Dy's eyes closed in a moment of obvious pleasure. Wanting more of that for himself, Emmit shoved the rest of his cone in his mouth. The surge of sweet flavor somehow eclipsed the shock of his first taste. The scent could stick with him forever and he'd be completely at ease. He could bathe in it, stuff it in his nose and breathe it, if that were possible.
A blue bird smaller than his fist hummed past his face and hovered over one of the stalks. Its down was the color of a perfect sky. Its head had a darker blue dome to top the gentle cloak below. It turned one black eye at Emmit, then dipped its head into the cone, wiggled it for a bit, then flapped off, wings beating a vibrant hum.
As Emmit looked back at the beauty of the towering bush. The multitude of cones formed a different scene, one like the bush, but also another shape, like a mansion built out of forest. Dark holes made a multitude of open air windows, their sills stained white by bird and bat droppings as many remained perched or cast out for new adventures. Stone spires wrapped in green vines lined the top across a wall as wide as he could see.
"That's it." His father's voice broke the spell, returning the plant to its original form in a blink. "Share that with the bird, and let it lead you to me. I'll be there, waiting."
Emmit looked into the bird's black eyes, and recalled the picture of the jungle-covered castle. It hovered in front of him, then darted off.
He turned around to see Sara wiping her mouth. "Follow that bird!" He ran after it, waving her on.
She followed. "Really? Why?"
"It's going to Fel Or'an. Dad showed me."
"Okay." She scanned the jungle to her right, keeping a tight grip on her levitor pistol. Her thoughts returned to what would happen if she didn't get him there safely. Something blocked a probe into why—beyond the obvious that she liked him.
They ran side by side through and over knee-high plants. "What happens if I don't make it?"
"I don't want to imagine that." She swiped clear a branch for him to go under first.
"Right, me neither, but..." he paused to consider vocalizing his concern.
"Emmit, you need to focus," his dad said, interrupting his thoughts.
A prick of fear hit him deep, in a small, hard to reach pore in his spirit. Then another. Something had found them. Dad?
"Yeah." His voice calmed Emmit, but only for a moment.
Emmit needed to reach his dad, needed to show him that he could meet his expectations. What if I don't make it?
"You will. I've been training you for this moment for years. I'm so proud of you already. More than you can know."
Emmit felt it feeding back into him, love and pride, a knowledge of life beyond his years and experience, but also there and very real. I lost Adi. Dad. Emmit choked out a sob as tears wet his cheeks.
"I know," his father said. "It'll... I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't protect him better."
The fear prick opened up a gash of flesh. What if you can't protect me?
"Son, that is the thought that has haunted me since the first time I held you. And every day since has been a gauntlet of acceptance that there'll be a time when I can't, and all I can do is prepare you to protect yourself in that moment."
The blue bird dipped under a branch and flew up the other side like a fish coasting through the ocean. A connection to its movement and path could not be refused. This would be his guide.
Sprinkles's head popped out of a bush ahead of him as his eyes tracked the bird and his nostrils took a taste of its scent.
That's right. We follow her, Emmit told his wolverine and his doctor friend. Then he took off with a grin and a strong swipe to clear a branch from his face.
28
When Willo and then Ehli entered the room where Cullen lay on the floor, resting his head on his interlaced fingers. He smiled and greeted them as if they were old friends visiting for a lazy afternoon.
Ehli didn't seem so pleased to see him. She glanced at Willo, "He looks high!" She hurried to Cullen, bending over and forcing, grunting as she tried, to get him to his feet.
Cullen laughed, found a handhold on a drawer handle, and raised himself. "And so what if I am? Been a long day. Did you want something to drink?" His pouch of juice was on the floor, flat and twisted from his last drink.
"No, thank you," Ehli said. To Willo, her tone sharpened. "What kind of plan is this? He's not fit for anything but falling on his face."
"It's not that bad." Willo crossed the room and stood before Cullen.
He straightened his back and looked down on her, slightly disoriented from the sudden rise from the floor.
She pressed on both arms to steady his stance. "This is just a temporary adjustment to the drug. He's chipped, so his brain will figure it out."
Cullen winked and saluted. "Ready to ship out, Captain. Oh, wait. That's me."
Willo didn't smile at his attempted humor. "You better be."
He shook his arms out, loosening his muscles, and tweaked his neck left and right. "I am. Let's go."
After a short round of silent glances among the group, Willo broke the silence. "This way. Ehli, go ahead."
Ehli had been waiting in the doorway, but moved out into the hall at Willo's command.
Cullen kept his thoughts light and free, pretending he was at a bar with Torek after a successful mission, with nothing on his mind except having a good time and hoping that whomever Torek wound up with that night wouldn't want to sabotage their ship in the morning. "Have you heard anything of Torek?" he asked Willo.
Her lips moved, but he didn't hear her words. He didn't hear the clap of his boots on the floor, or the swish of clothes. Not even his breath.
Willo watched him. He nodded, not wanting to alarm
her or cause suspicion—as least, not until he knew the cause wasn't in his best interest.
Ehli didn't look back as she walked astride Willo. She glanced over and offered short replies.
How long before he was figured out as not hearing them? He didn't want to reach out to Ehli in case this was her doing and Willo would hear him, but with every passing second where Ehli didn't speak to him, he grew more anxious that it wasn't her.
Hello?
"Hey Captain!" Schaefer. Not too strong, but what he lacked in his bellow, he made up for in a wily kind of confidence. "Miss me?"
Cullen had a hard time maintaining the facade of loose and happy. Not particularly. What are you doing?
"It's okay. I've got you covered."
Willo took a left at a turn in the hall, and he found he remembered this portion. The cafeteria was not far.
How? Why? His thoughts drifted to Torek, and an anger rose that this man was behind his best—former—friend's backstabbing. If this is your plea for mercy, you can save it.
Laughter mocked him from inside the walls. "Oh Captain. You know, you really have no idea what's going on here."
Cullen let him play his game. Okay, so I'm guessing you're dying to tell me how smart you are. My dad was like that. Not his most endearing quality.
The cafeteria appeared below the white glow of the ceiling lights. This time, he didn't see anyone at the tables. Ehli's backward glance showed a hint of concern. Cullen didn't want to lose the opportunity of Schaefer contacting him and breaking that if Ehli caught on, so he subtly put his hand up and nodded as though everything was okay.
"Your dad... he was a smart guy. I really do hope you get to see him again. Do you?"
Cullen couldn't hide his feelings about going home. He added a touch of a threat so that Schaefer read that too.
"I'm glad you're up for a fight. And that your father trained you from a young pup."
As they neared the cafeteria, Cullen spotted the group standing around the center row of tables. One of the rejects yanked Cullen's rifle away from the prying hands of two rejects nearby.
"Because what stands between your present and you piloting our small group back to save your home is going to require perfect execution of everything you've ever learned."
The group standing around the table parted as Willo approached, Ehli close behind. She glanced back at Cullen, and he played it off as though finding out what was on the table was all he was thinking about.
"What's on that table is your first step. I hope you're limber enough for a long sprint."
What is it? The group made enough room for him to fit in, with Willo between him and Ehli.
Justin popped the heavy plastic latch and lifted the lid. Set on the foam cushion inside was another box with a hard-plastic shell.
"Inside is what we need once we get to Vijil. If you let them waste it on fueling their invasion of your father's outpost, it will be too late to use it to save your people. Adi's father is not far away."
Justin pushed a button on the front of the smaller case, but nothing happened. The lid didn't open at his tug. He pushed the button over and over. No access. He smashed his fist on the top of the case, causing it to bounce back before resting again on the cushioned inside.
Willo cast out a hand to stop him. Her lips moved, but Cullen couldn't hear her words. Justin settled down and gave her room to look at the lock.
Ehli glanced back at Cullen, but he broke eye contact to pretend interest in Willo's examination of the lock.
"If our lock holds," Schaefer said, "—and it should—it will mean them bringing the cases to me in hopes of making me open it for them."
What's inside?
"Our newest strain of the ultra serum."
I've seen your experiments. I'm not going to help you do that anymore.
"Oh, you have? Would you like me to share what a Thirteen looks like, the insect the Osuna use that enters the nose and slowly eats at your brain until you tell them what you want?"
His vision filled with a close up of a long container full of black, gleaming insects crawling over each other in the tens of thousands. The vision cast back to the container, closed and stacked in a room with at least fifteen of its kind.
"They have enough to drop them from the sky and let the people scream while they wait for your leaders' inevitable surrender. I don't have to share the sound of an infant's helpless cries, do I?"
No.
"What I did was hard, but your home is the key to unlocking the mystery of the Ancients who brought you there. Only their power and wisdom will flip this universe and the Osuna on their heads."
Justin opened the second crate.
"Yes, people have died under my care. Yes, I could have used more help, but you know as well as I how hard it is to slip under the Osuna radar. I've done everything possible to get this close to even hope of winning the war. Without my plan, it isn't even a war. It's slavery and slaughter."
These are my people, Cullen thought, reflecting on the bond he'd felt with them as he and Scanis had run through the jungle.
"Cullen," Schaefer said, his tone calming while Justin failed to unlock the second smaller case. "I may have had to play the heavy hand with some of them, but we're talking about the survival of hundreds of billions."
Justin only gave the third inner case a quick effort before slamming his fist on the table. Willo had her knife's tip on a nearly invisible crease that surrounded the first locked case.
"I have a message for Willo."
You can't give it to her yourself?
"No. We're communicating via your neuronet, and they've blocked my access."
Cullen wondered if he could block him.
"Whatever you're thinking, don't. They need to hear this message."
Willo smacked the butt of her knife in an attempt at busting open the box at its seam.
"Tell her that if the case opens without the lock being disengaged, the vials inside will be crushed."
So then what? I can't hear anything. If she responds—
"Just tell her, before she wastes a precious amount of serum. We need it all."
Okay, Cullen thought, unable to come up with a reason to hold back. "Willo, stop."
The commotion of the room returned to his hearing as suddenly as if he'd come up from underwater. Willo spun on him, knife tip still poised over the seam.
"Schaefer says that if you break the seal without his code, the vials inside will be crushed."
Willo's face scrunched in an interrogating glare. "Your neuronet. He should be blocked. It doesn't matter. We have three." She glanced over the cases, landing on the one in her hand. "So if he's bluffing, we can take the other two and force him to open them for us. If he's not—" she winked at Cullen and jammed her knife into the thin seam.
Cullen's suit collar stretched and shot up over his head as a green gas billowed out from newly-opened holes in the case in Willo's hand.
"Grab the other two, Ehli, and go!" Schaefer shouted into his mind.
Willo dropped the case. It landed with a thunk on the table, tipping over as it spewed a thick green cloud into the crowd of rejects, who swatted at it, but soon doubled over in coughing fits. Ehli coughed a sharp, wet gasp beside him.
Willo was on her knees, shaking, as Cullen guided Ehli the other way. He shoved the reject holding his rifle and snatched it, then grabbed the two smaller cases and pushed Ehli away from the table. Her back jerked in a spasm that shoved her elbow into his rifle. She grabbed that elbow and looked up, weakly, in a silent, coughing apology. He shook his head, wondering how Schaefer may have just sacrificed his wife to get the two cases.
You said we needed all three.
"We did. Just get her out of there."
They made it out of the cafeteria and into the hall he'd entered by. Ehli threw up as she stumbled after him.
The cases slipped out of Cullen's grasp as he reached out to catch Ehli around the waist. He kept her off her knees, but she was a deadweig
ht. Keeping her upright was a losing battle, and they fell together. He rolled off, trying not to crush her face into the floor.
She cried out and stretched a shaking arm up to examine it.
"Get outside. Now!" Schaefer commanded.
A twisted chorus of screams erupted from the cafeteria, wailing for a revenge Cullen didn't want to wait around for. These were his people, but that sound denied peaceful negotiations, even if he wasn't responsible.
He clipped his rifle to his vest, picked up the cases and turned back to Ehli, who was flopping around on the floor, clutching at her head. He quickly removed his backpack, shoved the cases inside, and almost tore the zipper off its seam as he zipped the full pack shut. Shifting his arm back through the strap, he tightened it on his shoulders, then heaved Ehli up by her armpits. Her water repellent jacket was slick with sweat under her arms, and she slipped back down. He turned to wrap his arm under her knees and swung her up into a fireman's carry.
A shadow passed behind him in the cafeteria. He glanced back to see the figure stumble and fall, hands pressed to its face. Scanis.
Ehli let out a shrill cry. He had to get out. A spike of agony shot through his head. He turned back to see Scanis lying on the floor, stretching a shaking hand that might have pointed at him if it wasn't so contorted in pain.
"The gas won't kill them, if that's what's holding you up," Schaefer said, his words suppressing the pain in his head. "But Ehli will be useless to our escape if you don't get her out right now."
Ehli retched. He didn't know if leaving was his preferred option, but she sure needed out of this hallway. He didn't look back as he jogged toward the exit, but did wonder if Scanis watched him still.
He climbed up the rungs to the very welcome sunlight, however close it was to dusk. Ehli's chest rose and fell with hurried breaths. The back of her neck was wet with sweat as he gently lowered her to a patch of matted vegetation.
"You don't have time to rest," Schaefer said.
Ehli opened her eyes.
Cullen wiped the bile from her chin and neck. His helmet receded into its collar at his mental command.
