by Tim Kaiver
"She says she knows where Emmit is."
"It will mean I can say less," Willo 'pathed, "but I'll share with both of you so he'll stop interrupting me. Cullen, nod that you hear me."
Cullen's eyes sharpened, and he nodded.
"Good. Now stop interrupting. Ehli, I told you to touch the snake because you aren't ready yet. Emmit is safe where he is. Schaefer is no doubt trying to help him develop his abilities."
"You said you're the girl with the answers," Cullen thought. "Prove it. Prove how you're the only one I can trust, as you claim. And explain what you meant by being Schaefer's failed experiment."
"In time. If you want to survive this jungle, Ehli needs to develop her abilities."
Do you accept Willo's task to touch the hawk snake? Yes or no?
As though aware of Ehli's mental preparation, the snake coiled tighter into its s-shape, black and gold eyes firmly locked on hers. Its body was thicker than her arm. She rejected thoughts of how powerful it would be when it sprang, instead imagining what it felt like to tighten its thick muscle.
Yes, she responded to the Cipher.
*Task to touch the hawk snake – Activated.*
The snake's tense posture connected like a dull ache in her head. She inhaled as though to breathe life into muscles she shared with the snake, and as she did, the sensation of strength spread. Like slipping on a glove, she gained possession in increments. That's right. The snake's black pupils shifted to her hands, as though tracing the connection of its strength and asking, Is that me too? Don't worry, Ehli 'pathed back. I just want to touch you. I won't hurt you. She took a step closer. It hissed, a steady rattle of anger, mouth open as it pushed air through the circular glottis in its throat. She lifted her hand, palm up. The snake's scales flushed from black to a yellow iridescence.
"Make the snake part of you. It won't hurt you if it thinks it is you."
Ehli looked at herself through the snake's eyes, and tried to imagine that she was just another part of the snake. To be touched would be no different than the touch between parts of its body wrapped on the tree. She raised her finger slowly toward the nose. I'm going to touch my nose. That's all.
The reptile's head snapped out, mouth spread flat from top to bottom, fangs exposed. Sharp fangs clenched her cheek. She spun away even as she made a grab for its tense body.
Cullen stabbed his knife up into its brain and peeled it off her cheek. Fire spread out in pulsating tremors of agony from the bite. She pressed her hand onto the source.
*Task to touch the hawk snake – Failed.*
Poisoned. Time to ingest antivenom before death: 30 seconds.
Cullen spun. "I'll get it. I remember the plant from Ocia's program."
A perfect picture of a plant with blue flowers on a green stalk appeared beside the Cipher's timer, with the name "asilth" written beside it. Ehli sucked a breath in through her constricting throat. It felt like pulling air through a straw. Her vision of the bushes blurred with green on green. She put a hand out to catch a branch. Her weight fell through as the leaves brushed her face and she collapsed into the bush.
You still there, Willo? As she lay on her back, watching the timer tick below twenty seconds, embarrassment and anger became fear and hopelessness.
Willo didn't respond. Cullen swished through the jungle with frantic swipes, which she knew meant he hadn't found it. Get up, she told herself. She rolled over, but her head floated as though in a dream. The bush had engulfed her. She saw nothing but the light green undersides of its leaves and the red streaks of blood on the back of her hand.
"Found it!" Cullen shouted.
Her best effort barely helped her sit up. One hand propped on the soft, warm dirt kept her from falling backward as her head weighed her down.
He appeared through the bush, swung her around and laid her down. His face lowered and he pressed his mouth onto the numb area where she'd been bit. He made a sucking sound. Ehli let her eyes close. The timer remained in the darkness.
13… 12…
She heard him spit.
"One more," he said.
Shephka, don't, she prayed. Emmit needs me. I'll do better.
She opened her eyes to find Cullen chewing close to her face. The swelling partly blocked her vision.
8…
Cullen leaned in, pushing a blue goo out of his lips and onto her wound.
He pressed on the bite with one hand as he stuck a finger in his mouth to swipe more of the asilth mush out.
4… 3… 2…
White sunlight glowed along the edges of the green canopy above. What else could…?
***
Cullen watched Ehli's eyes roll back, exposing white with red veins. "No." He smacked her cheek on the good side. He'd sucked out as much as he could from her wound. His lips and tongue tingled with numbness. Should he give mouth to mouth? Chest compressions? Find more asilth? He pressed a finger to her warm neck and waited. A faint pulse responded, too slow to encourage him.
Ehli coughed bubbles of vomit that sprayed Cullen's face. He rolled her onto her side and patted her back. "Fight it."
A pool of vomit spread onto the grass.
"Ehli? Cullen?" Willo's voice returned. She sounded scared, like a child.
Cullen glanced over his shoulder before realizing the voice wasn't behind him but in his head. Willo. Where were you? Ehli got bit.
"Oh no! Oh, I... I'm sorry. I told you I was a failed experiment. Is she…? There's a plant. I—"
The asilth?
"Yeah. How'd you know?"
Ocia. I got some already. Applied it to the wound. She just threw up.
"Oh, wow. Okay. That's good. How's she doing? Where'd she get bit?"
Her face. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a slight shifting of color. He looked up into the bushes, but couldn't find the cause.
"Oh, that's not good. How does it look?"
The swelling’s gone down some. I sucked out the poison and applied the antivenom.
Ehli's hair was damp with sweat. The droplets beaded on her forehead and glossed her neck. She'd suffered from a serious burn at some point in the past, but the scarring wasn't too bad—only faint impressions by her ear and cheek, and a little worse at the lobe of her left ear. She was still beautiful—more so, he thought, with the strength evident in what she'd survived. He didn't mind the auburn tint to her hair either. She's still married, he reminded himself. Schaefer is alive.
He touched the back of his hand to her skin—her exceedingly hot skin. The Cipher timer had disappeared and she was still breathing, but she wasn't in the clear yet. She's still burning up.
"Okay. You'll need to find a river to cool her down in."
Cullen had just thought the same thing. But if they went back to the river they'd swam through, would it lead them back to the mara tigers?
There was another shift in the background greens. He looked up, but everything was still. Something's out there.
"What? Why? Whatdya mean?"
I'm being hunted. All he could hear was the buzz of insects and distant bird calls—that they were distant wasn't a good sign either. He spun his levitor rifle from off his back and flicked on the red laser sight. Something small, like a boar. Or a mouse.
Behind a tree with bright green moss growing up one side, a bush branch slowly bent. Cullen rose, aimed his laser sight at the branch, and squeezed a long bolt. The bush blackened and curled back from the newly severed branch as the rest of it shook—and the one beside it. Cullen squeezed another blue bolt, giving lead to the escaping animal.
"What's going on?" Willo asked.
Cullen let his rifle hang from a clip on his vest and put his backpack on. He knelt beside Ehli and hefted her into his arms. Mara. I scared it off. We're outta here.
"Be careful. Maras hunt in packs."
As she spoke, a tingle rose over his scalp and down his arms, reminding him of when he'd seen the maras' tail energy. Ehli muttered something indistinct. Her eyelids opened weakly, but the
way she hung in his arms, she wasn't going to fight them off like she had last time. The tingle spread roots into his brain and under his skin, as though the charge was building to a climax.
The bushes were not too far away to leap into, but then what? He couldn't do so without dropping Ehli, and it wasn't like that would lead to them getting anywhere else quickly. His gaze drifted to the snake corpse and he came up with an idea.
I choose sight, he told the Cipher.
Bonus sight activated.
The sub-text under his Level One completion bonus grayed out as a charge sizzled from his brain to the back of his eyes. As he scanned the bushes, indentations in their forms marked the hidden location of the nearest mara.
He slowly lowered Ehli to her side, hiding the snake from the mara. With her body blocking the mara's view, he slowly lifted the snake by its midsection.
Once it was secure, he flung it up into the air and over the bushes to his left. A bright blue light snapped up and cut through the snake mid-air.
Cullen fired a red laser into the bush, holding his shot until the mara collapsed.
Mara defeated.
+10 XP.
+5 XP bonus – used level-up bonus on the kill.
He scanned the jungle horizon for any more movement. The Cipher's timer on his bonus sight clicked down past 12. The buzz in his skin had faded, but that didn't mean there weren't more maras waiting.
Ehli's head moved to expose dirt clinging to the sweat on her face. Her eyes fluttered open, and she seemed to assess where she was before looking up at Cullen. "What happened?"
Cullen knelt to help her up. "Two maras. I've fought them off for now, but we need to get out of here."
She used him as an anchor to pull herself up to stand. There would be no sprints in her near future, but her legs held her up. "My head...." She rotated to unzip her pack and took out a bottle of water.
While she took a drink, Cullen did a 360-degree scan of the jungle. The insects continued to buzz and hum. A single bird called near enough, suggesting they might be alone. His enhanced sight didn't lock on any threats either.
Pause bonus, he thought. But the number hit 3, then 2…
Bonus expired.
+15 XP to Cullen – antivenom production and life-saving measures used on mission objective party member, Ehli.
35/130 to Level 3.
Ehli gasped and lowered the bottle, then wiped her lip with her free hand. Exhaustion and confusion marred her face. "I'm going to catch up with you," she said, and handed him his bottle.
"I'm sure you will. Try not to make it so close next time you help me gain XP."
She closed her eyes and pinched the skin above her eyebrows. "I'll do my best." She opened her eyes slowly. "Have you heard from Willo?"
"Yeah." He put the bottle back in his pack and zipped it shut.
"Did you thank her for all the help?"
Cullen chuckled. "No. I'll let you tell her that in person." He lined up the drill with the first screw on the transmitter box and started taking it off.
"Where'd the snake go?" she asked, glancing at the darkened pool of blood in the dirt.
"I used it as a decoy to draw out the second mara. Don't expect that to work a second time, so don't go lookin' for more snakes to get bitten by, okay?"
He set the case down and noticed her gently touching her cheek.
"Don't. Let it keep working."
"Thank you," she said, and stopped. She smiled in a way that made Cullen self-conscious of having sucked on her face. And reminded him that she was married.
"My pleasure." He replaced a processor chip and tossed the blackened one that had caused the outage. "Ocia was right."
"About what?"
He attached the magnet to the sensor like Ocia had shown him on their way to the train. The compass had a port to download from the transmitter and sync with his wristcom. It still powered on, but only functioned in a safe mode built for transfer of data. "The Cipher gave me an additional task—to retrieve texts from the Ancients. Ocia said that if I repaired the five broken transmitters, each one would have hardcopy downloads I could take. He gave me some replacement parts on the assumption they were shorted out. He was right."
Three green bars had filled on a screen on the back of the magnet, with room for about eight more. He checked the jungle for company, but found none worth getting up for. A brown monkey propped on a branch above them scratched the red bare spot on its belly as it watched him.
"What did Willo say?" Ehli asked.
"She sounded concerned, apologized, and blamed it on being one of Schaefer's failed experiments."
"So, she didn't mean to leave us suddenly?"
"Sounds so, if you believe her."
"I don't know what I believe," she said, and took another drink from her bottle.
The magnet beeped.
*Mission update: transmitter 1 of 5 re-activated. Backup texts downloaded. Scan in process….*
+15 XP to Cullen.
"Did you just get more XP?" Ehli asked playfully.
He rose and put the patch kit back in his pack. "I guess it doesn't value guard duty as much as I do." He nodded to her, and they continued their path.
Up ahead, a tree with flat legs planted down on either side of the trail rose to form an arch two times his height. Higher up, the bare wood met fat spikes of green leaves. Inside was a nest, and two birds with deep blue and bright red plumage. They chirped and hopped about on the edge of their nest, pecking at and weaving sticks into the mass.
Ehli lowered her focus to the tree trunks as they passed under the arch. Cullen looked, too. A thick stream of red ants crawled up the undersides of the trunk.
Ehli walked to the base of the trunk, where the roots spread into the soil. The ants had a trail leading off the roots and into the grass. "I'm gonna try again."
It took Cullen a second to realize she hadn't spoken aloud. He started to say something, when she extended her hand over a section covered in ants.
He checked the jungle, but in the spaces between trees and bushes, he saw no maras. Not even up in the trees, in case they could climb.
Ehli remained with her hand over the trunk. The ants made a wide berth to avoid walking directly under her palm. "The maras are gone."
While she stared into the mass of ants, he shifted his rifle stock to check the vesparan can. He tapped a tiny button that lit a number on the small screen to indicate gas percentage remaining: "83%." When he looked back, the ants had formed a line and were passing under her hand. Then those under her hand stopped.
She slowly lowered her hand and spread her reach. As it passed over ants, the insects stopped. Completely still. Even the ones behind.
Ehli – Skill learned: Charm.
+5 XP to Ehli.
Ehli grunted and fell to her knees. The ants scattered, including those she'd frozen in place.
Cullen rushed to her side. "Are you okay?"
She shook her head, her gaze out of focus. "It was... too much."
He rubbed her back. "But you did it. That was incredible. Give it a break for a bit. You're still recovering from the snake bite. If you can walk, I'd like to put some more distance between us and where the maras saw us last."
She nodded. "I can walk. Can you get my bottle out for me? I'm not—"
"Of course." He took the bottle out and handed it to her, then took his and enjoyed a swig of the cool water. If she had trouble with ants....
Her eyes flicked toward him as she drank. She tipped the bottle down and swallowed. "I heard that." She licked her lips and capped her bottle. "Think something else?"
This is weird, he thought.
She chuckled. "It is weird." She took a breath and exhaled slowly, gazing off in thought. When she looked up, her sea-green eyes focused on his with an intensity that made him uncomfortable. The color reminded him of the waters along his favorite beach on Vijil. She smiled. "Thank you," she said, as clearly as if the words had come out of her mouth. She turned to hi
de her blush. "It appears my husband may be alive, though, so let's keep focused on the mission."
He took one of her arms and lifted it over his shoulder, then helped her stand. She walked on, and he followed, realizing he had forgotten about the mission for a moment there.
Stay focused, Cullen, he thought.
16
Emmit inhaled deeply against the desire to be with his dad, for all to be well. To succeed in the test.
I'll get back to it. I just want to try this.
*Task to influence Adi, mother, or Sprinkles – Activated.*
The bleak light from the overhead flickered and popped as the Cipher text disappeared. He turned away from the neuronet pole. I've never entered without an n-jack cable, he thought. How will I get back in?
Thoughts of his dad reminded him of being in the cafeteria and reading the doctor's thoughts: He has his eyes.... How did I do that? he mused.
Maybe it was because he was nearby? If Adi was closest, then he would try him first. He concentrated on Adi—how the skinny boy's pointy shoulders angled his shirts, and how his pants always hung loose to his tanned, veined feet. He thought of the scars of missing flesh on the outer edges of his hands, and how thin his pinky fingers were—from a fall down the quarry when he'd used his hands to slow his fall and the abrasion had burned away his skin.
Emmit thought of what Adi had told him about his father, of how it would feel to be left behind and not hold it against his father. He tried to separate himself from the differences in their past and empathize with Adi's perspective on life. Even now, he would be at least a little angry with Emmit for putting him in this predicament, but ultimately Adi would be scared and hopeful that his friend would help him if he couldn't find a way out himself.
Adi, I'm sorry. I'm stuck too, but as soon as I find a way out, I'll come get you. It's what I'm working on now. Emmit laughed. Maybe you can come rescue me....
