Qualify (70 page)

“Hey! What the—”

Candidates begin yelling angrily.

I stop the auto-key sequence and sing the release.

Batons rain down to the ground.

I am a blasted idiot.

“I am sorry . . . really sorry!” I hurry to say.

“What the hell did you do that for?” a boy asks me angrily, coming up to me, and kicking one of the batons that’s still not too hot, with the rubberized toes of his running shoes. He then kicks it some more until the object rolls over the concrete ledge and back into the water.

“Thanks a lot, now I have to dive back in and get it
again
.”

“I’m so sorry . . .” I say quietly, avoiding his eyes and looking down at his shoes.

His shoes.

Okay, now I know I am absolutely crazy to be thinking this. But it makes sudden horrible sense.

I get up, moving weakly, and stand up then pause, while a head rush passes.

Ethan immediately notices. “What?” he says. “Did you think of something?”

I nod. And then I shake my head, as though trying to shake away the
crazy
.

Because it really is—absolutely bonkers crazy.

“What?”

“Think about it,” I mutter. “The Atlanteans would not have made it entirely impossible. The solution exists. And it has to involve us using whatever means we’ve got, whatever we
already
have on us—”

I have several people’s attention now.

“Yeah. . . . Like, what?”

“Like,” I say, “maybe what we’re carrying and wearing.”

“We already know the uniforms burn quickly, even when wet,” Zoe says sadly. “And they don’t hold water.”

I slowly turn to look at her. “But shoes do!”

“Huh?” Jared frowns.

“Our
shoes!
” I say. “They hold water.”

“I don’t get it.” Gracie stares at me with her own intense form of frown wrinkling her forehead.

“How’s that gonna help us? The batons cannot be keyed when submerged.” Jared makes a dismissing gesture with his hand. “What are you gonna do? Stick a baton in a shoe filled with water and then what? The part that sticks out of the shoe will still burn. You can’t get a solid grip on it!”

“But—but—” I say. “We have
two
shoes. If we fill both shoes with water, and stick each end of the baton in one shoe, the
middle
part will still be exposed to the air. Then we tie the shoes together tightly with the shoelaces—do all this while holding the whole contraption down underwater. Then, we take it out of the water, holding on to it by the shoes from both sides. The ends will still be inert and cool underwater, and you just key the middle part, even though it burns—”

“Holy crap! That actually makes sense . . . stoned-out-of-your-mind-but-remotely-possible kind of sense. . . . And it just might work!” Jared exclaims, his eyes coming alive in excitement.

I nod, a kind of mental peace coming to overwhelm me in that moment. “Yeah, I really think it will work. Just be sure to keep the shoes turned and angled just right, so the toes are filled with water, for as long as possible, until you make it to the shuttle.

Suddenly Ethan snorts, then begins to laugh. “This is wild! You know, the old-school tech geeks used to call this kind of absurd brute-force solution a
kludge
. It’s so sick I love it! So, who’s going to try this first?”

But a boy nearby, who’s been listening to us, is already moving. He pulls off his sneakers, sets them on the ledge near the water, and jumps into the lake. Moments later he comes back up, with a baton in his hand.

Wasting no time, the boy sits down on the bank, keeping the baton submerged and pressed under his knees. He sets to work filling his sneakers with water, then sticks the baton into the toe area of each shoe while underwater. Next, he ties the shoes together with shoelaces, mostly for temporary stability—since the laces will likely burn away as soon as the middle of the baton is exposed to the air.

Carefully the boy lifts the contraption out of the water, keeping the shoes angled so that as much of the water as possible fills each one. He grips each shoe tightly with both hands, and then begins to sing the keying sequence . . . and then the rising sequence.

We watch him in amazement.

The baton rises, carrying the boy upward. He continues singing, holding on to his shoes, and he is now twenty, thirty feet up, and still rising. . . .

I blink in the sun. Everyone around me stares also—everyone stuck on the ground.

The boy is more than fifty feet up now, and keeps going.

Several long breathless moments later, the speck that is the boy reaches the shuttle. There is a dark opening in the silver ovoid disk that must be the door portal, and he disappears inside.

He is the first Candidate who has successfully completed the Semi-Finals.

Chapter 40

F
rom this point onward, it’s a wild stampede. Bodies of Candidates bombard the water. People pull off their shoes, dive in, emerge. Moments later, Candidates rise up into the air, successfully holding on to their baton-plus-shoes bundles, as they ride the things up to the shuttle.

Now it comes, the actual life-and-death struggle for the batons, now that we
know
what to do with them. . . .

I stand still momentarily, dazed, watching others around me move. It all seems like slow motion, a strange urban melee.

Gracie’s expression is desperate as she takes my arm—the good arm that’s unhurt—and she pulls me. “Let’s go! Gwen! We need to hurry! Everyone’s grabbing those things, there won’t be any batons left—”

I nod, and begin taking my shoes off. Gracie pulls off her sneakers and then she watches Ethan and Jared dive into the water, followed by Zoe who jumps in holding her nose.

Gracie’s expression is anxious. I remember how Gracie has never been much of a swimmer. When we were very little back here in California, there was a backyard pool we all used over at a neighbor’s house. Gracie tended to splash around in the shallow end when the rest of us kids swam laps or dove into the deeper bowl part.

And now that I think about it, I don’t recall Gracie ever diving, or going underwater for more than a few floundering strokes.

My sister cannot dive or swim submerged.

The grim realization hits me.

And yet, knowing we both have to do it—according to the Semi-Finals rules I cannot do it for her—I know she is gathering herself, getting ready for the inevitable.

“Gracie!” I say, fighting my own dizziness. “Listen, take a deep breath, okay? Just hold it and push forward with your hands! It’s not that far down, okay? As soon as you grab a baton, start rising, it will come naturally—I will be right behind you—”

“Okay . . .” she mutters. But I can see a dangerously lost look in her eyes, a kind of resignation.

We stand at the ledge before the water, while teens jump in all around us. Water splashes up, cool spray striking us.

“Gwen . . .” Suddenly she looks up at me. “I don’t think I can.”

My pulse is pounding and my head is heavy like a brick, and light at the same time, while the sky seems to spin. “Yes, you
can
. Just hold my hand, Gracie . . . Hold my hand and we will go down together. Don’t let go until I let you go! Now, deep breaths! On the count of three!”

We count and then we jump, holding hands, and the cold shock of water surrounds us. . . .

I am a decent swimmer, and I start moving downward, pulling Gracie’s hand, grasping it with all my strength. But in seconds I realize that I am using my
other
hand—the wounded, semi-useless, numb hand—to do the bulk of the hand stroke swimming motion.

An instant of panic fills me, together with pain and weakness, and that in turn results in an overwhelming rise of pressure in my lungs, and an urge to exhale and inhale. But I continue holding my breath and swimming downward, about seven more strokes, and thankfully Gracie is helping along with her own free hand.

On the bottom, the light is shimmering like in an aquarium. The batons lie before us in a rapidly shrinking pile, glittering softly in the greenish-blue water and fractured sunlight. Agitated bubbles rise everywhere, from all the sudden bodies in the water. I see five other Candidates closest to us reach for the nearest batons, and kick off to rise again.

Abruptly I feel Gracie’s hand jerking mine, and realize she is short of air and beginning the drowning panic. . . . I reach out clumsily, and take hold of the nearest baton, feeling my useless swollen fingers close around it.

At the same time I pull Gracie’s floating, panicking body forward, propelling her deeper and right onto the pile, so that she grabs out wildly and has a chance to get one. As soon as I see she has taken hold of a baton, I let go of her hand, and start rising.

I break air with a shuddering gasp, and tread water, seeing others break out to the surface also. I keep my baton submerged.

Five seconds later, there’s no sign of Gracie.

Oh, lord, oh, no . . . Gracie!

I glance back to the street shore, and see Zoe back out of the water, and Jared sitting on the concrete ledge next to her. They are both fiddling with making their baton-and-shoe contraption. And there’s Ethan, filling his shoes with water.

“Zoe!” I cry. “Please hold on to my baton, for just a second! I have to get my sister, she’s still under! She’s—”

“Hey, no, it’s okay, I’ll get her . . .” Jared says immediately, and I watch his tanned body slide back into the water. “Here, watch my stuff for a sec!” He shoves his shoe-baton bundle at me—it floats in the water due to all that rubber on the shoes—and he dives in.

“Thanks!” I mutter, but Jared’s already gone under in easy surfer strokes.

I float in the water, holding on to the ledge with one hand, and to Jared’s floating stuff and my baton with the other. I tremble and blink in the sun glare.

What am I doing up here? I should go back under myself . . . Gracie is down there! She is drowning . . . she needs my help!

As my thoughts race wildly, Jared comes back up. He is pulling Gracie’s limp body after him.

“
Gracie!”
I cry in a broken voice, and let go of my baton. It sinks back underwater—to hell with it—as I propel myself toward my sister.

Jared and I pull Gracie up over the ledge, and just like that, she is suddenly sputtering and coughing up water and then
screaming
.

While underwater, she must’ve stuck her baton through her belt. But now that it’s been exposed to the air, the heating reaction has started and the pain of it must have shocked her into consciousness, a really crazy-impossible form of “CPR.”

“A-a-a-a-a!” she screams, and Jared and I pull her back into the water, so that she floats, together with the baton still attached to her belt. The baton cools back down immediately. “Holy lord, that hurts!” Gracie gasps out, coughing and splashing water with one hand, and holding on to the concrete ledge. “I thought I died!”

“Never mind, you
didn’t!
” I pant, while tears and water mingle in my eyes. “Just start making your shoe thing, do it now, Gracie! I’ll be right back!”

And with a deep breath I sink back underwater.

This time I have the use of both my hands to swim, making it somewhat easier. On the other hand, I am on my last strength, short of breath as it is, so my weakness acts to slow me down. . . .

This time as I reach the bottom, there are just a few batons left. Apparently it took just a couple of minutes for everyone to grab theirs and reduce the great big pile to nothing. As I move through the aquarium-green water, I see three batons rolling around on the floor.

Just
three
batons left!

And
four
other Candidates are swimming down there with me, all headed for the batons. What happened? How did it come to this?

I spot one baton closest to me and move toward it, stroking through the water as quickly as I can . . . which apparently isn’t quick enough. An older teen girl moves like a predatory shark before me, shoving me away with one hand, while with the other she closes in on the last baton. She kicks off and rises, and I am left reeling, holding my breath.

One last baton remains, but it is many feet away in the reservoir, and even as I consider it, two other Candidates rush for it, and fight, tumble and struggle underwater, sending up clouds of air bubbles. . . .

I don’t bother to stick around to watch.

I rise back up to the surface with a kind of solemn quiet peace that comes when you
know
it’s all over.

I
see Gracie waiting on the reservoir ledge, squatting over her pair of shoes and baton—everything tied together and floating, all ready to go. Zoe is already rising in the air, holding her shoes awkwardly and hanging on for dear life, as she sings the sequence. I am guessing Ethan has already gone up, and so has Jared.