“Well, good,” George says. “Because, he does. You saved his Goldilocks ass.”
An hour later, when we’re back at the dorms, namely Red Quadrant Dorm, Section Fourteen, Gracie shows up.
She looks awful. Her hair is a slept-in mess, jacket barely pulled on, smeared eyeliner and mascara streaks on her cheek. A guard is walking with her, carrying one of her duffel bags, while she has the other, slung over her shoulder.
The moment she sees us, Gracie drops her bag, rushes forward and throws herself silently at me, and then at George. Her hug is so tight that she is choking me. Then George holds her in a bear hug, while she mutters something unintelligible, at the same time as I gently pat down her messy, dirty blond hair, and run my fingers through it in a calming way.
“You’re okay, Gee Four . . . all is well . . . you’re fine, you made it!” I repeat over and over.
“I am . . . so sorry . . . so sorry!” Gracie keeps repeating, and her face is muffled against George’s chest.
“You should start by thanking your sister,” George says. “If she hadn’t busted her ass to convince the Atlantean VIP to give you another shot, you would be back home by now.”
Gracie tears herself away from George and turns to me, and her eyes are big and brimming with liquid. “Gwen! Thank you, I love you!” she mutters, and then she’s back hugging me.
“It’s all right, Gracie, all right, sweetie! Love you so much!” I press her against me and feel the little girl skinny body shuddering. “It’s over,” I say. “No more horrible bad moves like that, ever, okay?”
She nods. “Okay. . . .”
“Promise me you will never do something like that again. Promise me you will think before you act, and you’ll remember why we’re here, and what’s really going on,” George says. “Or I swear, you’ll never live it down. I won’t let you forget it, brainless ditz! You’ll see—”
“I promise!”
We go on like that for the next five minutes, doing the “good parent, bad parent” thing to parallel the “good cop, bad cop” thing they do on TV (Mom and Dad would be proud of us now if they saw us in action), and then we help Gracie settle back in and reclaim her cot and dorm space. Other Reds from her dorm stare at us curiously, as this is all happening. . . . Fine, let them. Neither George nor I care.
“Be smart, Gee Four! Remember, you’re a Lark!” we tell her, before we head back to our own scheduled classes that are starting in about five minutes.
As we leave Gracie’s dorm, George turns to me, grim and thoughtful. “You think she’ll last?” he says softly.
I frown. “She has to. We’ll do everything we can to help her regain points.” And then I explain to George the full extent of the situation, and how I have been forbidden from giving any of my own points to her.
George exhales and bites his lip. “If it comes down to it, I’ll let her have mine,” he says.
My heart constricts painfully. I knew that was coming. “Look,” I say. “Let’s not go there yet, okay? Please . . . I can’t lose you either!”
“Hey, I hear yah. I can’t lose me either,” my brother quips bitterly, running his hand through his messy dark hair. But I see the darkness has taken hold in him, and the despair is back—all that despair that’s been there all along, simmering under the surface, temporarily eclipsed by the hope that we still had a chance to Qualify, to make it out alive somehow. Because now George knows that even if he Qualified, he still would have to do this thing—the right thing, for our younger sister.
In fact, the whole “points dilemma” has been hanging over all our heads as soon as the situation was explained to us by the Section Leaders on our first day of classes yesterday. Points are now like currency. They can be earned, bartered, given away, et cetera.
I can just imagine the kinds of dealings that will start happening on the day of the Finals when we will finally have full control of our points and the ability to hoard and keep them or to disburse them as we please. . . .
I try to put all this out of my mind as I go to my classes. After my nearly sleepless night and the ordeal with Aeson Kass, I am exhausted, so it’s a very long day, followed by a blah evening. It doesn’t help that the temperature has been unexpectedly warm, even for mid-spring in the Eastern Plains of Colorado, where most of us suspect we are. The huge dorm structures are air conditioned but not enough to keep up with the unusual balmy weather outside.
The heat doesn’t let up overnight, but I’m so tired I manage to sleep anyway. And the next morning I wake with a much clearer head and the beginnings of a plan for Gracie—at least I hope so. Laronda and I make it to breakfast at the closest cafeteria, and there, along with Dawn and a few other people we know, we talk points and teams and what can be expected for the Finals.
“Hey, you gotta remember,” Mateo says, chewing his eggs and hash browns. “This thing is going to be unlike anything we can imagine, and it’s going to be international.”
“Oh, yeah,” Dawn says. “You’re right, easy to forget.” And she rolls her eyes.
“No, really. Actually it is.” Mateo takes another big bite and continues seriously. “I mean, think about it, we all know what’s coming, and that the competition is only getting tougher and tougher, and that now the odds are fifty-fifty, and only half of the Candidates in this NQC are going to Qualify. But that’s just still old thinking, as in, only all of us, United States. Now we have to deal with everyone else on this frigging planet!”
Now that he says it, it does kind of hit home.
“Well, let’s think for a moment, what are we training for—endurance, power, fighting skills, general Atlantis tech and social knowledge,” I say. “And now, they’ve added swimming—all the Water SAS stuff. Put it all together, and up the odds on an international scale, and what does that imply?”
“I’m thinking, a big-ass ocean,” Tremaine says. “And hey, maybe the Atlantic, cause, you know, Atlantis?”
“Hey, you’re kind of a smarty-pants too.” Laronda turns to him and tugs the long sleeve of his uniform around the arm. It has fresh sweat stains on it—as all of ours do, because, yeah, it’s hot. . . .
“So, we’re gonna be what, swimming across the Atlantic?” Jai says with a sigh and a widening of his eyes. “That would majorly suck.”
“Not to mention that would be kind of impossible,” Tremaine mutters.
“Hey, man, with our Atlantean overlords, nothing is impossible.” And Jai flashes his white teeth in a world-weary grin.
After a grueling day of Combat, Agility, Tech, and Culture, swimming is almost kind of a relief from the muggy heat. Today we meet at a different giant larger-than-Olympic pool, this one located in the CA-2 structure, because we are doing mixed swimming with the Green Quadrant Dorm. Our last class for the day is a combination of team swim relays plus handling weapons in the water—Green shields and Yellow nets.
So yeah, we get to learn how to spar in the water.
Zoe is once more in my class, and as we splash around, I explain to her what happened the other day and why I didn’t show up for dinner, because of the Gracie situation.
“Less talking, and more floating,” Instructor Qurume Ateni tells us in his deadpan manner as he walks past us on our side of the pool. “Naturally, you may carry on doing whatever it is you are doing, as soon as I am on the other side and cannot see you.” And then he keeps moving.
Which we in fact do—as soon as he is out of hearing, Zoe tells me she’s sorry about Gracie’s close call with Disqualification and relieved she is okay after all.
“Wow! How did you ever convince Command Pilot Aeson Kass himself to give your sister a second chance?”
“It’s a long story,” I exclaim, splashing her as I cast my net weapon at the approaching opposite team swimmers with green tokens who use their shields as flotation devices.
“I bet!” Zoe says with a laugh, splashing me back as she tosses her lasso weapon in turn. “But then I should know you’re a
lways kind of full of surprises!”
Soon, Water SAS class is over, and okay, I admit it, it was actually fun. What a weird thing to say about any aspect of Qualification. But we’ve all been so stressed and tired for so long that swimming seems to really work well for most of us—except for those of us who could not swim before, and are getting a crash course now. . . .
After class, I make plans with Zoe to attempt dinner once more, and maybe introduce her to my other friends.
“How about, see you at the cafeteria closest to this pool in an hour?” I say as we turn in our Quadrant weapons and get dressed at the lockers. “That way, after dinner we can use Homework Hour for messing around in the pool again, and yeah, okay, some laps?”
I don’t bother to disclose the fact that I also have to see Aeson Kass at 8:00 PM tonight, and it’s right here in the CA-2 building. I can sneak off for half an hour and then come back and get in the pool afterwards.
Zoe agrees, and so I hurry back to my Yellow Section Fourteen to round up some people while she goes in the other direction toward Section Thirty-Nine.
When I get back to my Section, Logan is down in the “airport terminal area” first floor lobby, waiting for me. He is leaning casually against the wall, and I watch his sleek powerful body as he comes toward me. Glancing into his hazel eyes, I get the familiar warm jolt of electricity.
“Gwen!” he says with a smile. “Hey, Yellow Candy, I’ve been meaning to see you. Classes have been insane, or I’d have been here for lunch.”
“Logan!” I hurry to approach him.
He immediately pulls me by the hand and we come closer, slide against each other body-on-body and almost touch—not quite but almost, because again, surveillance cameras are everywhere and there is still the “No Dating” rule being enforced.
“I really miss you . . .” he whispers in my ear, leaning in casually as though to adjust my uniform collar, as his hair brushes against my cheek.
Oh, how badly I want him to hold me! And how much I want to just reach out and run my fingers against his arms, his chest, his soft wavy hair. . . . My skin is prickling with goose bumps, and it’s not the heat of the late afternoon, but the heat that’s rising between us, as we stand in such impossible near proximity, tantalizing each other with our bodies.
“Hey . . .” I say, looking up into his eyes, while my own are in a dreamy haze. . . . And then I tell him about the dinner and then swimming plans.
“Oh—forgot to mention, I still have to see Command Pilot Kass at eight, for the voice training, again,” I add.
Logan’s expression immediately hardens. “Oh, yeah? Did he—tell you this when you were seeing him about Gracie?”
“Yeah.”
Logan exhales then nods. “Okay. Then you do that.” But he glances away and looks cool suddenly. . . .
“What?” I mutter. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he says. But I can tell he is upset somehow.
And suddenly it occurs to me in that bizarre moment, Is it possible that Logan is jealous?
WTF? Seriously? My mind is reeling.
“Logan!” I say. “Hey! You know I have to go see him, for my voice! Remember? It’s not a choice!”
“Of course, I know.” He glances at me briefly, and there is something odd and vulnerable in the way his eyes meet mine for just an instant, before he again looks away. “But I still don’t have to like it.”
Logan is jealous!
I am absolutely amazed! And at the same time, I feel a weird perverse stab of pleasure. It is wrong of me, but it’s what I feel, just for a moment. . . .
And then I tell him softly about the pool, as a kind of reward.
“Afterwards,” I say, in my most ridiculous attempt at a seductive voice, “when the voice training stuff is over, and I get out of there, I will see you at the pool . . . in all that sweet cool water. . . .” I briefly run my fingertips over his hand.
At my feather-light touch, I can feel him shudder slightly. Okay, wow. I did not expect that. . . .
And then he looks directly at me, and this time his gaze locks onto mine with intensity, and the hazel eyes are very, very dark, his pupils wide. “Do you know that normal surveillance cameras are not going to see very reliably what’s happening underwater. . . ?” he whispers.
“I know,” I whisper back, feeling a slow, strange, languid pulse-beat awakening in my head. “And there’s very little chance that there are underwater cameras, though with the Atlanteans we never know.”
His lips curve up sensuously. “I think we can risk it. . . .”
“I think so too.” And I smile also.
My lord, I am flirting!
Chapter 47
After a large and loud group dinner in a huge and noisy CA-2 cafeteria, during which Zoe Blatt gets to know my friends and we exchange Semi-Finals horror stories, we all make a beeline for the nearby pool. However, it’s seven forty-five, so Logan and I excuse ourselves, and pretend we’re going for a brief walk together.
“Hey! No fooling around, you two!” Laronda wags her finger at me and Logan. “Remember, they catch you, you be screwed, but not the way you’d like to be, if you know what I mean—”
“Oh, shut up, jeez!” I say with a grin.
And then Logan and I head outside, walk down the street briefly and find the glassed-in walkway that leads to the Atlantean offices section.
“What will you do while I go in there?” I say, pausing with him before the lobby entrance. “It’ll be at least half an hour.”
He shrugs with a brief smile, putting hands in his pockets. “No worries. I’ll find something to do.”
And then he turns and saunters down the street into the balmy night, waving at me.
“See you soon!” I yell back.
And then I go inside.
I tell the guard in the front secure area I am here for an appointment to see Command Pilot Kass, and he only asks my name, then buzzes me right through.
At the door of Office #7 I pause momentarily. Already my pulse is starting its familiar pounding race in my temples—ragged and wild and dangerous, in contrast to the languid sensuality I’ve just experienced with Logan. . . .
I knock, then hear his calm voice. “Come in.”
I open the door and a blast of slightly cooler air hits me. I see the now familiar machine room office, and Aeson is sitting at his desk.
His face is weary and dispassionate as he stares at a console screen, half-turned from me. But as I enter, he looks up immediately. I notice the slightly damp tendrils of his metallic gold hair and a sheen of sweat at his temples.
“Lark, it’s you—good,” he says, as his dark blue eyes immediately overwhelm me with their unblinking regard. And after a tiny pause, “How is your sister?”
“She’s okay, thanks,” I reply, and my voice sounds teeny and uncertain. “She is—doing her best, I suppose.”
“Come on in, come closer.” He motions with his hand.
I take two steps, and then there’s his desk.
There’s no other chair in the room.
I think he only realizes it just now. It occurs to me, he must not have many visitors in this relatively small crowded office. Else there would be another seat?
“Well. . . . There’s nowhere for you to sit, Lark, sorry about that.” He raises one brow, in an expression that comes closest to minor amusement I have ever seen him display. “For now, you may sit on the end here, if you like.” And he pats the surface of his desk lightly. “I’ll have a chair for you next time.”
I bite my lip and then use my hands to lift myself up. I perch on top of his desk, at the end farthest from him. My legs dangle down. Good thing I am wearing the baggy uniform pants. It feels surreal, and for that reason I forget to be uncomfortable.
“Let’s get to work,” he says, looking away as he reaches for a small box in a drawer under the desk, which I recognize as an orichalcum sound damper box—a soundproof contain
er that neutralizes the effect of keying on orichalcum objects.
“You know what this is?”
I nod.
“Open it, and take out a piece.”
I do as he says, opening the box and seeing several small pieces of orichalcum inside. I pick one out and take it.
Aeson watches my movements as I sit on the desk, and my legs and feet dangle involuntarily. “Now, close the box. Then set an Aural Block on this piece, so that no one can again key it. If I recall, you had much success with setting Aural Blocks back in Los Angeles.”
“Oh, yes,” I mutter. And then I clear my throat and sing the complex sequence to key the orichalcum to me and make it obey no one else.
“All done,” I say almost proudly, while the orichalcum piece hovers in the air in front of me, now my little perfectly obedient servant.
Aeson looks at me, craning his neck slightly. “So, you think this piece is now impervious to anyone’s commands?”
“Well, it should be—at least that’s what I’ve been told. And what I saw happen in practice. So, yeah.”
In reply he parts his chiseled lips and sings a very strange intensely piercing tone that combines in it a low rumbling vibrato.
The sound is so rich, so tangible, so awful somehow, that it scrapes along the surface of my skin. . . .
And the next instant my “perfect little servant” piece emits a brief flash and falls down, inert and dead, on the surface of the desk. It also appears far more dull in color than normal orichalcum—the usual patina of gold flecks is missing from the charcoal grey.
“Oh!” I say. “What just happened?”
“It’s fried.” Aeson makes a light sound similar to a snort.
“Wait! What?” My jaw drops as I stare at the piece. “It’s fried? What does that mean?”
“Try re-keying it.”
I frown and then sing the basic sequence.
Nothing happens.
I try again, this time loudly, and focusing as I’ve been taught, to not only key an object but to set an Aural Block on it once more.