Bounders (21 page)

“Don't call it that,” Cole says. “I'm just good with technology, okay?”

“What do you mean, don't call it that?” Marco asks. “You're the best hacker around, and you should be proud of it. Speaking of which, I'm not too bad of a thief.” He opens up his blast pack and pulls out a classified tech tablet, the kind Waters and all the officers carry.

“Where'd you get that?” I ask.

“A good thief never gives up his secrets,” Marco says. “Plus, the important thing now is we have it. So tonight Hack Man here can break into the system, and we can figure out more about you-know-who.”

“You mean the alien?” Cole asks.

Marco glances over his shoulder. “There's a reason I didn't say the word, Genius. Do you want everyone to know?”

“Are you sure that's a good idea?” Cole asks. “What if we get caught?”

“We won't.” Marco looks around again and then shoves the tablet back into his pack. “We'll do it later today after Ezone, right before they post the rankings. No one will notice we're gone. Everyone will be too focused on their ranks.”

I eye Cole. He nods.

“Okay,” I say. “It's settled. After Ezone. Just us. Now let's get going, or we'll be late for breakfast, and I heard they're serving waffles.” I've been thinking about those waffles ever since the quantum ship ride, and there's no way I'm going to miss them again. A whole stack of waffles with my name on them is waiting in the mess hall. With tons and tons of hot, gooey maple syrup.

Our showing the second day at Ezone is better than the first. Gedney explains (and Waters translates) how to use the gloves to sense the quantum field, push the replication atoms through the field, and bound to the destination. Then we practice everything but the very last step, the actual bounding.

When it's time for testing, everyone improves except Mira, who has no room for improvement. She holds strong at one hundred percent. Even Cole manages to muster a double-digit score. If we can sort things out with the blast pack—boost my skills and get Mira to fly her leg of the relay—our pod will be a real force in the competition.

Our percentages improved so much, Waters lets us out early as a reward. We walk as a pod down to the sensory gym to kick around before dinner. Mira floats into the music room. Lucy and Cole jump on the trampolines. Marco hauls himself on top of the crossbars and stands.

“Hey, Jasper!” Marco calls. “Come on up. Let's have a chicken fight.”

“No, thanks.” I wouldn't stand a chance against Marco. Plus, it's a good ten-foot drop. I take off my shoes and join Lucy and Cole on the tramps.

Lucy touches her toes in the air. “I used to take gymnastics, you know. I had the best pike in the class. I wanted to keep it up, but my mother made me choose—drama or gymnastics. And my true calling is the screen.” She bounces even higher, splitting her legs out to the sides and waving her hands in a flourish.

She nods at Cole. “You try.”

“Uh, no,” Cole says as he jumps to her downbeat.

“Oh, please? Pretty please? It's fun.” Lucy flashes Cole a dazzling smile. He turns eight shades of red. Cole has no idea how to handle Lucy. Not that I do. She keeps pressuring him until he shakes his head in exasperation.

“Fine,” he says. He scrunches up his face and takes half a dozen giant jumps. Then he hikes his legs high in the air . . . and crashes down on his butt.

I crack up. “Nice, dude. Great form.”

Lucy stifles her giggle. “You'll do better next time.”

“There won't be a next time,” Cole grumbles.

I take off down the row of trampolines, bouncing in long strides, and then launch for the ball pit. My body disappears into the beads.

Cole sits on the trampoline, and Lucy joins Marco on the crossbars. As we decompress from the day, Mira's music dances into the gym. Her song is spirited and bright, like a music box.

“She can really play,” Marco says.

“Yeah,” Lucy says, “no kidding.”

“Hey, Maestro!” Marco shouts at me. “Why don't you grab your clarinet? Join her for a duet?”

“I'll pass,” I say. Why did I ever tell them about my clarinet?

We're quiet, adrift in Mira's music. I close my eyes and sink deeper into the pit. Maybe I doze. I don't notice when the music stops. My eyes jerk open when the beads shift against my skin.

Mira's long body slides into the pit. She submerges to her chin. Her golden hair fans out behind her, shimmering against the silver of the beads. She stretches, and our legs touch far beneath the surface. Her eyes are closed, but a lazy smile spreads across her lips.

I tense. Heat floods my face like a spotlight is trained on me. On us.

But I don't move my leg. We stay in the pit—legs touching—for a long time.

“Okay, team, time to eat,” Lucy finally says. “And then time to find out how far we've risen in the rankings.”

I don't want to move, but we don't have much time to get rid of the girls and hack the classified tablet Marco stole. I ease out of the pit and hoist myself up onto the edge. My leg is warm where it touched Mira's. I'm careful not to look at her. I join Cole and Marco by the crossbars.

“You and Mira, go ahead,” I say to Lucy. “We'll meet you there. We have a guy thing to do.”

Lucy narrows her eyes to slits. “A guy thing?”

“Like my man says”—Marco swings his arm across my shoulder—“a guy thing.”

Cole shifts nervously behind us. If we don't get the girls out soon, he'll blow our cover.

“Trust me,” I say. “You don't want to know.”

Lucy raises her eyebrows. Oops. That sounded way too intriguing.

“No, really,” I say. “It's gross.”

Lucy crinkles her nose. “Gross, as in, bodily function gross?”

“Yeah,” Marco says, “something like that.”

“Come on, Mira, we're outta here.” Lucy grabs Mira's hand and starts for the door. “They're posting the rankings at dinner. Don't be late!”

Once the girls disappear down the hall, Marco slaps me five. “Bodily function? Good one.”

“What did she think you meant?” Cole asks.

“Who knows,” I say. “Sweat, farts, poop, something worse. Who cares as long as it scared them off?”

I lead Cole and Marco into the music room. Cole and I sit on the piano bench, and Marco plops down on a wobbly chair in the corner. He pulls the classified tablet from his pack and hands it to Cole.

Cole slides his fingers across the screen. “Most of this stuff is highly restricted. It's not like I'm going to be able to bypass the security in the ten-minute window before we have to get back to the mess hall.”

“Just focus on the alien prisoner,” I say. “Find out how we can break into the cellblock.”

“Why?” Cole asks.

“So we can take a little field trip, Wiki, okay? Just do it,” Marco says.

“No way. I'm not breaking into the cellblock,” Cole says.

“Oh, come on,” Marco says. “No one's told us jack about the alien. If we don't find out for ourselves, we'll never know.”

Cole looks at me.

“He's right,” I say. “Plus, Earth Force has been waiting on us for twelve years—you know, to work the gloves we were born to master and stuff. What would they really do to us if we got caught?”

That logic seems to work on Cole. His brows point down in a V as he stares at the tablet. He taps in numbers and pages through screens at Mach speed. Every few seconds he mumbles to himself, “Hmmm. Okay. I see.”

Marco can't take it anymore. “You see what? Clue us in here, Hack.”

Cole flashes his palm in Marco's face. “Hold on a minute.”

Swipe, tap, scan, swipe, tap, scan. I peer over Cole's shoulder, trying to make sense of the numbers on the screen. Time keeps ticking. We have to head out soon.

Cole flips the tablet over in his lap and sits up straight. “Okay. He's held in Structure Eighteen, Cell Seven. I have an idea how we can pass through security. Now all we need is a plan to distract the duty guard long enough for us to get through the door.”

“Lucy,” Marco and I say at the same time.

“That's what I was thinking, too,” Cole says. “Lucy can talk to anyone. But the more people who know our plan, the more likely we'll get caught.”

“Yeah,” I say, “but I'm not sure we have a plan without Lucy. We have a few more minutes. See what you can find about the Incident at Bounding Base 51.”

“Oh, come on,” Marco says, “that theory is bogus. What could the alien prisoner possibly have to do with the Incident? Let's use our time for something other than a shot in the dark.”

“Trust me,” I say. “I have a hunch.”

Cole runs his fingers across the tablet. He pages through screens, shaking his head. “There's nothing. I told you, it's restricted.”

Marco stands. We need to head out.

“Wait, wait, here's a medical note,” Cole says. “It was written the day we arrived. The day you and Marco saw the alien in the med room.” Cole glances up at me with an annoyed face.

Dude, get over it.
“Go on,” I say.

“It's still in draft form, so it hasn't been restricted yet.” Cole scans the note. His face is creased in concentration.

I lean forward, trying to read the medical note on the screen.

“These are lab results,” Cole says. “For blood type, there's some weird code I've never seen before. But underneath, there's a handwritten note.”

“Seriously, Fun Facts,” Marco says, “just spill it. What does the note say?”

The color drains from Cole's face as he speaks. “Blood type matches samples recovered from the Incident at Bounding Base 51.”

A strange quiet eclipses the room. At first we don't dare look at one another. We don't want to admit just how huge the implications are. But when none of us can come up with a plausible, less horrible, less explosive explanation, we have to look at one another. It isn't news you can bear alone.

“You mean,” Marco says, “the alien was there? At Bounding Base 51?”

I nod. “The Incident at Bounding Base 51 was no accident. That alien—or at least his buddies—caused the Incident.”

We stare at one another but say nothing. The connection between the alien and the Incident at Bounding Base 51 weighs us down. I mean, what is there to say, really? Nothing. Everything.

“The time . . . ,” Marco says.

We're going to be late for dinner. Lucy is going to be furious. We race out of the sensory gym for the chute cube.

Screams come from up ahead. When we round the corner, the cube is lit up with flashing lights. Annette is inside the cube, pushing buttons. Meggi is standing in front, screaming.

“Help! Help! Oh, thank goodness,” Meggi says when she sees us.

“What's going on?” Marco asks.

Meggi looks at me when she answers. She's still too embarrassed to look at Marco. Someone must have told her that the tofu strings were meant for her, not Florine.

“It's Ryan,” she says. “He's stuck in the chute.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

Meggi tries to answer, but all she chokes out is a sob.

I rush inside the cube. “What's going on?” I demand of Annette.

She seems oddly calm as she points at the blueprint of the space station. “There,” she says. “See the chute? Meggi and I made it through fine. But Ryan didn't make it. As soon as I stepped out of the trough, all these alarms started sounding, and the trough sealed shut.”

A thick metal barrier has slid down where the trough opening used to be. I look at the blueprint of the space station. Where the incoming chute is supposed to connect to the structure, there's a red blinking square indicating a malfunction.

“Cole!” I yell.

He appears beside me in the cube.

“See what you can find out in the systems.”

Cole pages through the screens. “Chute's sealed, too. Good. At least we know he wasn't launched into space. Okay, I'm pulling up a camera visual.”

A live view of the exterior flashes up on the screen. The chute has disconnected from the space station. It swings through space like a windsock, flopping this way and that, knocking against the space station structures.

“He's in there?” I ask in horror.

Annette nods. Meggi stands beside her, sobbing.

Whoa. If the seal doesn't hold, he'll be sucked out of the tube and killed instantly.

My mind spins a mile a minute. “Marco, quick, find another route to that structure. Get help! Cole, check the systems, see if there's a way to reverse the suction and pull him out. Do it!”

Marco dashes out of the cube at a full sprint. Cole hacks at the screen. Time stretches, and I feel useless. Meggi still sobs. I grab her hand.

“Okay, here,” Cole says. “There's an override, but it's manual. It has to be done in the other cube. The cube where the chute is still connected.”