After thirty minutes of walking in a silent, single-file line, the others following me with quiet confidence that makes me question every step, Gwen double-times her pace and walks next to me. She looks much more comfortable without Mandi slung over her shoulder.
“Can you smell it?” she asks, keeping her voice low.
“I can smell a lot,” I say, “but I’m not sure what it is.”
“Close your eyes,” she says. “Try to picture what you’re smelling.”
“Please don’t tell me Unity trained you how to smell.”
She grins. It’s weary, but not defeated. “I spent a fair amount of time in the woods. Most of this—” She looks around us at the lush greenery. “—is foreign to me, but some things smell the same no matter where you go.”
We’re heading up a perfectly straight incline of a switchback, so I indulge her, closing my eyes as I walk. I breathe deeply, taking in the world through my nose, trying to separate and identify each individual scent. The first is dirt. Decomposing things. Then flowers. Maybe fruit, but we haven’t seen any. What else is there? A hint of ocean. Salt water. Nothing that stands out as important. “I have no idea.”
My eyes are still closed when she says, “It’s coming from above us, rolling downhill on the cool air.”
I haven’t felt any cool air all day, so I’m not sure what she’s talking about, but I turn my face uphill and breathe again. I’m typically not one for guessing games, but this is getting my mind off grim subjects, like Sig’s potential fate and Hutch’s certain fate. Then I get a nose full of it. My eyes open wide.
“Water.”
“Uh-huh,” she says. “Running water. We’ll hear it at the top of the hill.”
I’m not sure how she could know that, but as we round the final switchback and approach the hill’s crest, it’s like someone has turned up the volume on a rushing water track, the kind people fall asleep to. There’s a deep roaring that suggests a waterfall. And a gurgling of rocks over stones. I might not be able to visualize scents, but I have no trouble with sounds.
And neither do the others.
Daniel is the first to react. “Water!” He rushes past me, but I manage to snag his go-pack and yank him to a stop. Neither Gizmo nor Mandi share his exuberance or energy. They remain twenty feet back, trudging upward at the same slug’s pace.
“Water is a good thing, but we can’t...” How can I say this without revealing the bodies Gwen and I found?
Thankfully, Daniel keeps me from having to lie. “We might not be alone. I get it. But one body isn’t—” He eyes me, suspicious. “One body isn’t enough to be this cautious, is it?”
I glance at Gwen. She shrugs. Apparently, these kinds of decisions are mine to make on my own.
“No,” I say to Daniel, meeting his eyes with a serious gaze of my own. “It’s not.”
He leans forward, whispering. “There were more, right? I knew it. You weren’t peeing. Girls don’t just pee out in the open. I’m not stupid.”
“First, if you ever see me crouched down in a field of tall grass, there’s a good chance I might actually be peeing, so don’t sneak up on me. Second, there were more, but...” I glance back at Mandi and Gizmo. He’s a little older than they are, but not much more emotionally mature than Gizmo, and far less than Mandi. Still, he thinks I’m letting him in on something that’s just for the big kids, which gives him a sense of responsibility and keeps him from freaking out over the news.
“Right,” he says.
After cresting the switchback, it’s hard to keep from breaking into a run. The sound and smell of water calls to me like the mythological Sirens singing to Odysseus. But unlike those beautifully dangerous creatures, the water source ahead promises life.
But that doesn’t mean it’s safe. When the loud rush of water grows so loud that I have no doubt its source is just ahead, I stop the group. “You guys wait here. If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, or you hear gunshots, bolt.”
“And then what?” Gizmo asks.
“We’ll wait on the far side of the landing pad valley,” Gwen offers.
I nod. “And if you see anyone other than me...” I don’t finish the sentence, because I have nothing to offer. If I’m subdued while armed with a pistol, there is little hope for this lot. I know it and so do they.
“Great,” Mandi grumbles, but she sits herself down on a rock, rubbing her head.
“Stay quiet.” I draw my handgun, trying to look confident, trying to fill the enormous shoes these kids expect me to. “And stay here.”
Only Gwen nods, but she tends to speak for them all. I return her nod and leave. The path goes further than I would have thought, and I shift from walking to jogging, so I don’t miss my self-imposed fifteen-minute deadline.
Earth gives way to rocky terrain, the soil long ago eroded by flooding. Then the trees thin, and all I can hear is the roar of water.
And then, all at once, I see it. It’s a river, flowing downhill from high up on the volcanic mountain. It’s at least fifteen feet across, but only a foot deep, the glass-clear fluid slipping smoothly over large slabs of stone. To the right is a lagoon, fed by a waterfall. Even from here, I can see to the bottom of the crystal clear waters, and I can see the fish that reside in them. Food and water.
But all of this natural beauty and the promise of survival only holds my attention for a moment. The wooden bridge, crude but solid, crosses the river to a continuing path on the far side. It looks like something out of a summer camp catalog, the wooden boards thick and moss covered. The path leads up a short hill on the far side, atop of which I can once again see that the trees have been cleared. There’s something over there. Something put there by the builders of this path, and the landing pad. By Unity.
With time to spare, I cross the bridge, trying to pay equal attention to my surroundings and the slick mossy wood, still holding water from the previous night’s deluge. Gun raised, I sweep back and forth, while I follow the path. Ahead, the trees give way to open sky.
The man-made clearing stops me in my tracks. This is what we were meant to find on the first night. The jungle floor has been cleared of debris and the trees thinned, but not fully removed. Hanging between many of the trees are a network of hammocks, spread out in bunches. I don’t count, but if I had to guess, I’d say there are thirty.
At the center of it all is a hut made of branches and roofed with palm fronds. I can see what it was supposed to look like, but it’s in shambles, torn apart by the storm. My perspective begins to shift. Had we arrived on a clear day, without crashing, and we hadn’t found the skeletons apparently overlooked by Unity, this might have all felt like a grand adventure. It would have been like one of those old TV shows, leaving a bunch of strangers in a remote location, watching them come together or tear each other down.
Is that what Unity wanted? Bonding through extreme circumstances? Harsh life lessons experienced as a group? If so, I have news for them. Even with everything that’s gone wrong and the potential for far worse, this still feels like a positive turn for me.
As I move through the campsite, I’m struck by a warm, much drier breeze. My weapon lowers as I approach the far end of camp. An unused fire pit lies in wait at the precipice of a cliff.
I shuffle up toward the edge, stopping when dirt turns to stone. We’re a good thousand feet up, looking over the west end of the island. A ring of pale sand is surrounded by endless ocean. At ground level, a person’s view is three miles to the horizon. From up here, it’s closer to forty miles. The vast emptiness of it makes me dizzy, and I lower my eyes to the island below. The jungle, while far smaller than the endless ocean, feels just as vast. It’s a roof of green, protecting who knows how many secrets.
Or killers.
But the canopy isn’t perfectly solid. It’s pocked by clearings, which could be ponds, campsites or any number of things. There’s no way to know from here. We’re going to have to explore this island. There’s no way around that.
My eyes follow a winding line that I think must be the river’s course. It leads out to the coast, smearing a stretch of beach and darkening a patch of ocean with dark soil and stones. But there is no damage from the tsunami on this part of the island. All of that is behind us. There is, however, a straight line extending out from the river below.
Or is the line heading toward the river?
I trace the line with my finger, extending it back and turning around, pointing toward the East, where the transports came from. Lost in thought, I nearly scream when my extended finger stops between a pair of eyes.
13
“Are you trying to get killed?” I shout at Mandi, whose foot-shorter-than-mine head is directly in the path of my pointed finger.
“I don’t think you’re capable,” she says, raising an eyebrow.
This kid...
I turn my pointed finger down to the gun in my hand, the one that’s aimed at her chest. “I nearly shot you.”
She glances down, unimpressed. “Your finger isn’t even on the—”
“Because I took it off when I saw your dumb face staring up at me.” If I make it off this island without punching her, it’s going to be some kind of miracle. I lean around Mandi, drawn by the sound of running feet on hard-packed earth. For a moment, my pulse races again, as I imagine a horde of serial killers bearing down on us.
Gwen leads the charge, followed by Daniel and Gizmo, who stop short, breathing hard and taking in the web of hammocks with wide eyes. Gwen doesn’t seem to notice the campsite. Her eyes are on Mandi and Mandi alone.
And she’s not happy.
Not at all.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Gwen looks huge. Frightening even. She puts her hand on Mandi’s small shoulder and shoves. The girl stumbles back, past me, toward the cliff. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
Shove.
Gwen glances up past Mandi, double-taking at the view, but her anger doesn’t waver. “You know how this works. How we work. We’re not on the carrier. We’re not in a computer lab. We are in the wild, and that means our Point is in command. Right now, that’s Effie and only Effie. And if she’s not around, Support is in charge. And when she came up here, that was me. Do you understand what that means?”
Mandi’s lip twitches, but she doesn’t reply.
“It means that if you had run off this cliff, or if Effie shot you, or a hundred other possible outcomes that end with you dead, it would have been my fault.”
Shove.
“So if you’re going to continue being insubordinate, putting your life at risk, and ours, I might as well push you off this cliff right now. Then I could at least start dealing with the guilt now. Maybe be a functional part of the team again by morning.”
Holy... Gwen is hardcore. I thought I’d seen her angry, but this... This is drill instructor material. She’s just leaving out words like, ‘maggot,’ and ‘pissant’.
Mandi looks back over her shoulder. The dizzying drop is just a few feet away. A hard hit from Gwen really could send her over the edge. The girl’s hard edge wavers.
“Maybe Effie can shoot you,” Gwen says, “and we can share the guilt. That might wo—”
“Okay.” The word is mumbled. Barely audible.
“Louder,” Gwen says.
Mandi purses her lips, crushing them white for a moment. “Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
“I’ll listen to you.” Mandi looks from Gwen to me. Her nose crinkles. “And Effie.”
A good portion of Gwen’s mania slips away, like rain from a waxed surface. If it was an act, Gwen missed her calling as an actress. But I think she’s just satisfied. While Mandi’s acquiescence isn’t anything close to an apology, I suspect it’s the closest she’s ever gotten to one.
Gwen takes Mandi’s right hand, lifting it up to reveal the brand. “You’re a Base, Mandi. You might get a chance to tell both of us—” She glances over at me. “—what to do. But only if you survive long enough.” She pulls the girl away from the cliff. “Stay away from the edge.”
The scolded Mandi storms off. For a moment it looks like she’s going to leave the campsite, breaking protocol once again, but she stops at a hammock, climbs inside and lies back with her arms crossed.
“You’re still holding your gun,” Gwen says.
I look down at the weapon that very nearly took Mandi’s life. I holster it on my hip. “I nearly shot her.”
“She’s lucky you didn’t. Most Points wouldn’t have hesitated.” Gwen puts her hand on my shoulder, turning me to face her. “Next time, pull the trigger.”
“What?”
“You didn’t know it was Mandi. Next time it might not be.”
“I would have killed her.”
She nods slowly. “But if someone kills you, the rest of us won’t last long.”
I’m not sure that’s true. Gwen has shown herself to be equally tough, if not tougher and more resourceful than I am. The only reason I’m leading this bunch is because they’re insisting I do so.
“I don’t think I could recover if I—”
“We both know you could,” she says. “It’s part of what makes you a Point. You get the hard calls because you can live with them. Your job is sometimes heartbreaking, but...that’s nothing new to you, is it?”
And there it is. Why I’m a Point.
The fact that my life has been so miserable makes me the right person for a position that sometimes requires pulling a trigger without hesitation. And she’s right. I would have felt bad about shooting Mandi, but I wouldn’t have blamed myself. I’d have compressed the pain, locked it up in a box and filed it away to get lost in the mental warehouse of other bad memories.
But I’m not as cold as they think, or as cold as I would like to be. Hutch’s death, despite the fact that I had nothing to do with it, is still nibbling at my psyche, like a rabbit with a lettuce leaf. Ceaseless munching.
“Whoa!” Daniel’s exuberance seems undaunted by the drama that just played out on the cliff’s edge. When I see him and Gizmo standing at the ruined hut, pushing through fallen palm fronds, I wonder if they even noticed. The boys have an excited air about them, like they’ve just stumbled upon a magical land. And maybe that’s how they see it. All these hammocks. Signs of civilization. Of what should have been our welcome. There might even be an acoustic guitar hidden around here, with sticks and marshmallows and the lyrics for Kumbaya.
As Gwen and I walk toward the pair, Daniel and Gizmo become a flurry of motion and words, totally focused on whatever it is they’ve found. I can’t understand a word they’re saying, but it sounds like sped up techno-babble. Daniel grabs several large palm leaves and lays them down on the ground, flattening them out into an even surface.
“Here,” I hear him say as I approach. “Put it here.”
Standing above them, I immediately recognize the device they’re pulling out of a thin, black bag. It’s a Featherlight.
“Is it working?” Gwen asks.
“We’re about to find out,” Gizmo says, laying the touch-screen device on the palm fronds like he’s handling an ancient relic that might crumble from his touch.
“What about the EMP?” I ask. “We weren’t that far from here when it hit.”
Daniel taps the now empty black bag. “It’s a standard Featherlight bag.”
“Is that supposed to mean something?” I ask. Outside of school, I’ve never handled a Featherlight, and I’ve certainly never seen the packaging one comes in.
“They’re waterproof, and their packaging, thanks to a thin layer of flexible metal foam—copper and nickel mostly—makes them safe from an EMP’s E1 energy.” He pushes and holds down the power button. A Unity logo appears, the color shifting from blue at the bottom, to orange on the sides and red at the top, momentarily displaying each insignia as the device boots.
“Sounds like they should have coated the transports in the stuff,” I say.
“It’s prohibitively expensive,”
Daniel says. “To effectively coat all vehicles would require an astronomical amount of money. EMP protection is generally limited to high-end, small electronics and military vehicles and systems. But our go-packs are similar to the Featherlight bag.” His excitement dwindles. “If I hadn’t taken my Featherlight out on the transport...”
I place my hand over my chest where the photo of my parents still safely resides in its pocket. It’s just one old photo of people I’ve never actually met, but it’s more than he has now. Of course, he has years of happy memories locked away in his brain. I still just have the one photo.
The seven-inch screen blinks and then shows the standard operating system, which has very few icons displayed. This thing is bare-bones. Daniel tries to open a folder, but nothing happens. He taps it several more times with no luck.
“It’s fried,” Gizmo declares.
Daniel shakes his head. “It’s working fine. It’s just—”
The screen turns black for a moment, and then the frozen first frame of a video appears. It’s a generic backdrop. White wall and a Unity logo featuring all three colors mixed together. But it’s the woman that holds my attention. She’s older. Her brown hair is cut short. Her smile is gone. But it’s her.
And I’m not the only one who sees it.
Daniel whips around toward me, eyes wide. “Eff?”
My guts churn in time with my spinning head.
I stagger back a step.
Mom, Dad and Euphemia.
My shock morphs into anger.
This is the woman who gave me up.
The woman who set me on a dark path.
And she’s not downtrodden, or frail or suffering from any of the dozen conditions—including death—that I would have found acceptable reasons for giving me up. She’s healthy and physically strong. The look in her bright blue eyes suggests she’s mentally competent, too. As does the Unity uniform she’s wearing—a tight, black, leather, Unity flight suit.
“Play it,” I say through grinding teeth. “I want to hear what my mother has to say.”
Unity Page 8
