Qualify (31 page)

Chapter 16

T
he interior of the Atlantean shuttle looks sterile and at the same time strangely old-fashioned, with wall panels alternating orichalcum and another pale material embossed in decorative ornate spiraling designs. Smoke is pouring from one of the wall panels, and there is a fire burning on the floor and engulfing three side panels in one end, throwing orange-red light at the other walls, the floor, and sloping ceiling. It’s a single large chamber, with six central seats in a rotating suspension harness and a control panel hovering before the seventh command chair.

All the seats are empty except one.

I see an Atlantean with pale golden hair, slumped over in the command chair. He is wearing the usual grey uniform, and with an awful sinking feeling, I approach and see the black armband on his sleeve.

It’s Aeson Kass.

He appears dead.

My temples are already pounding wildly, with panic. And now they go into overdrive. At the same time, this terrible, indescribable odd sense of
regret
comes over me. . . .

I rush toward him, and I take him by his shoulders, raise him up, push him carefully against the back of his chair, and his head lolls to the side. I see his forehead is covered with blood, and his metallic hair is streaking crimson, demonic in the growing flames.

His eyes are closed . . . even now in these insane moments I notice the dark fringe of lashes and the wonderfully exotic lines drawn around the eyelids in kohl—or something else, whatever it is that they use—darkly outlining his eyes, and the lapis tint over his perfectly shaped eyebrows.

I reach with my trembling fingers and feel for a pulse in his wrists, the muscles of his throat—do Atlanteans even have a frigging pulse in the same places we do? Of course they do, what an idiotic thought. And yet I find nothing, or else I don’t know how to properly look for a pulse. At least his skin is warm to the touch. . . .

His chiseled lips are parted slightly, and I place a finger against them, and it seems there might be a very faint breath. . . .

Okay, he just might be alive after all—good! A wild strange relief surges through me at the realization. So now we need to get out of here immediately! The fire is spreading!

I look down, and Aeson Kass is attached to the chair with some kind of seatbelt and shoulder and torso harness, but there appears to be a single spring-button release, which I figure out in three seconds, and push it, until the cords and belts fall away, and his body is free to be moved.

Free of the harness, he starts to slump forward again, and I move in, so he falls against me, and I put my arms around him and start dragging him out of the chair.

He is heavier than I thought, and he is all rock-hard muscle. I strain and barely manage to drag him a few feet, leaning into him with all my strength, and panting hard from the exertion. I am already dead tired, and this—this is just insane.

Furthermore, as the smoke spreads and thickens, it’s getting harder to breathe.

Adrenaline and panic give me a burst of energy, because the smoke is engulfing the cabin interior, and I cough, sputter, and continue grasping him around the waist as I drag him . . . A few steps more, just a few steps more, as I back out of the shuttle.

I reach the outside opening and stairs, and now it’s just a step to fresh cold air. . . .

I manage to feel for the ladder side-rail with one hand, and step backward onto the first rung by feel alone, supporting his entire weight as I descend. Meanwhile, his long, pale gold hair has fallen into my face, and I am now smeared in his blood.

Another step, and I carefully pull him down after me . . . another step. His weight is pulling me down inexorably, and unless I hold on to him and the ladder both we are going to crash hard.

At last I feel the ground under my feet.

Panting, I get him down the last rung, his feet dragging.

I semi-collapse at the base of the shuttle, on the strip of concrete, hitting my knees painfully, and pulling Aeson right after, so he lands on top of me.

“Gwen!
Gwen!
”

Logan is back. He comes around the shuttle, throws himself down and grabs me, while two uniformed guards are right behind him.

“What happened? Are you crazy? You just disappeared! I turned back and you were gone!” Logan exclaims.

“I’m okay,” I pant. “But
he
’s hurt! He—he needs help—medical attention, quickly!”

“Oh God, you’re bleeding!” Logan’s strong arms are still around me. Quickly, but super-gently, he examines my face, while I continue to hold Aeson’s limp body to me, keeping his injured head up and away from the hard ground, so that he lies back against my chest. The light of the flaming remains of the first shuttle cast shadows against his hollow cheeks smeared in blood and smoke soot, the angles of his lean jaw and throat, and the faint fluttering pulse-beat there.

“It’s not my blood . . . I’m okay,” I say to Logan, to the guards, as they come around us and finally take over.

When another one of them starts to go inside the shuttle, I hurry to say, “I don’t think anyone else is inside there—”

The guard turns, gives me a hard stare.

“All right! Quickly, everyone get back, as far back as you can from this thing!” an older bearded officer says, coming up behind us. “It can blow at any moment!”

I feel a strange twinge of loss, as Aeson’s limp form is moved off my chest. He is hurriedly lifted under the arms and knees and carried by two guards with grim faces away from the airfield and toward the closest building in the compound. I stare, dazed and in shock, coughing, while a medical team appears, rushes to meet them, and the injured Atlantean is carefully placed on a stretcher. . . .

Mesmerized, I continue staring, except that Logan now helps me get up.

“Let’s go, Gwen, move it!” He shakes me gently.

I come “awake” and start my feet moving. Together we hurry away from the shuttle. All along he’s pulling me by the hand, at the same time as he squeezes my fingers so hard that it hurts.

I nearly stumble then right myself. As I wipe my sweat-and-blood covered face and forehead, my hand comes away covered in black soot.

Logan drags me somewhat, pulls me after him quickly, past a few staring Candidates, and into a narrow alley section between buildings. There is no privacy anywhere, naturally, since cameras are all over. How much of the incident did the surveillance capture?

We stop. I am panting hard, wheezing. I stagger, bend over to hold my knees as I struggle to catch my breath, and cough my irritated lungs out.

“Okay, what exactly happened there?” Logan speaks intensely, leaning into my face. “I told you to stay back, and what did you do? You could’ve been
killed!
”

“I—I don’t know, I am not sure . . .” I meet his troubled earnest expression, and for a few moments I honestly just don’t know what to say, or how to even begin.

A noisy roar and crash sounds in the distance.

Logan whirls around us with a frown, glances in the direction of the airfield, where the claxons and sirens are still going off, and there’s a distant crackle and roar of flames. I suppose he’s expecting the second shuttle to blow up any minute. Considering the kind of huge, scary, blazing-white nova it was that filled the sky for a split second when the first one blew, I am not surprised he’s trigger-nervous.

Holy lord, I am too. . . .

“I hope he’s okay,” I whisper.

“Gwen!” Logan is staring hard at me. “This is bad, really bad. . . . Tell me, what the hell happened there? What—what did you
do?
Did you try to examine his head injury, or touch him without knowing how serious his injury was—”

“What do you mean?” I blink, because the soot is now in my eyes, and they are tearing.

“I mean, that Atlantean is one of their top brass, and he is
badly
hurt—if anything happens to him, if he
dies
, do you have any idea what might happen to you—to all of us? They could blame you for aggravating his injuries, for making things worse! Now, the best thing for you, for both of us, is to stay far away and out of sight.”

“I only got him out of there,” I say. “I couldn’t just leave him inside with the fire—”

“You
what?
” Logan’s face is now stunned. “You mean you went
inside
that shuttle? I thought you only got to him when he was already lying on the ground!”

“No . . . Actually, I kind of—landed it. I brought the shuttle down. So that it wouldn’t crash. It was falling—so I
sang
it down. And then I got him out. But please—don’t tell anyone!”

Logan stares at me like I’m crazy. Shakes his head. His lips part in shock. I have a feeling he does not believe me. Either that, or he
does not understand
what I just said.

I don’t blame him. I am still not sure what happened, and even I don’t quite believe any of it myself.

“Okay . . .” he says, after a long pause. “But, that is impossible.”

“I know.”

“The shuttle—how did you—you say you
sang
it down?”

I rub my elbows and stare at him, biting my lip. “It’s orichalcum. I made a wild guess. I used the levitation command from Tech class. Okay, I know it sounds wild, unbelievable, but it was about to fall on my head anyway. . . .”

And now Logan’s frowning, staring hard, as though trying to remember. “You know, it’s crazy, but—just as I was coming back to look for you, I thought I was hearing things . . . I actually thought I heard someone singing at one point—was that real? Was it you?”

“Yeah.”

“Holy—” Logan takes his head in his hands, runs fingers through his dark hair, rubs his temples. He then lets go and looks at me like I am suddenly an
alien
.

A strange dark feeling comes to me. It’s a wave of cold, and it engulfs me completely. I look at him defiantly and I begin to frown also, and bite my lip again.

“Look,” I say. “Logan—you don’t have to believe me, or even understand what happened. But I’d really appreciate it if you kept quiet about this. All of this crazy incident. Everything I told you. Okay?”

“Hey, you don’t need to tell me twice.” He watches me without blinking. Again shakes his head. “To be honest, I really don’t think I
can
believe what you’re saying. I want to—but, sorry—it makes no sense. I don’t really know what happened with you and
him
back there. But I agree, it’s dangerous, and we need to distance ourselves from this incident. Who knows how many people died on that first shuttle that exploded—that’s bad enough. . . . There will be investigations, and if anything suspicious is determined to be the cause, they will come down hard, on whoever is responsible. But this other one, with the VIP on board—that one’s even worse. Disqualification is the least of our worries if they come after us, or come looking for
you
, because something happens to that Phoebos guy—”

“Then help me keep it quiet.” I interrupt him in a hard voice.

Suddenly I am shaking. And I need to get away—as far away from Logan, from everything. . . .

“I’m going back to my dorm,” I say. “It’s late, close to curfew, and I don’t want to get caught with blood and gunk on my face.”

“I’ll come with you, walk you back, make sure you get inside okay—”

“No.” My voice is firm. Even I am amazed at how curt I sound. I am speaking to Logan, of all people!

“Okay . . .” he echoes, suddenly uncertain. “It’s probably best we walk back separately.”

“Yeah.” And I start walking in the direction of my dorm.

“Gwen!” he calls suddenly in my wake.

I turn and look back at him, shivering, holding my arms.

Logan’s dark eyes glitter with intensity in the bright illumination of the compound. “I won’t say anything to anyone—I promise,” he tells me in a soft voice.

“Thanks.”

“See you around—later?”

“See you.”

“Be safe.”

“You too.”

And I rush back to my dorm. The alarms and claxons continue to fill the night air.

T
he lobby area of Yellow Dorm Eight is full of people. Teens are talking worriedly, but fortunately hardly anyone glances in my direction. As I enter, I try to look away and keep my head down, as I rush up the stairs to the girls’ dorm floor.

I need to hit the shower, and fast!

On my way here, I’ve tried to rub away the blood as much as possible from my face, but some of it has already dried, and I realize I look strange and awful.

On the third floor, I don’t bother to grab a change of clothing from my cot, and instead turn directly into the bathroom. Fortunately no one is using the sinks, although I hear someone flush one of the toilets in the stalls.

I run the water and soap up my face and neck, hands and forearms, scrub hard, and wash in the sink as much as possible, so that the soot and blood comes off, running down in pink and grey rivulets. The girl staring back at me in the mirror looks skinny, crazed, with a smeared sickly pale face, circles of exhaustion under her eyes, and a tangle of dirty, sweaty hair falling out of her mess of a ponytail.
Ugh.