Spark: A Sky Chasers Novel (12 page)

“Sarah,” Waverly said. “If you have some insight—”

“I’ll tell you what you need to know,” Sarah said, but not to Waverly. She was looking at Kieran, her eyes like marble. “If you let me out of here.”

“I’ll let you out of here,” Kieran said, “
after
you tell me.”

Sarah turned to Waverly again and sighed. “Can you untie my hands?”

Waverly walked around the girl and saw that her hands were bluish red, the cord pulled so tightly that her fingers had contorted into claws. Waverly shook her head, even angrier, but said nothing as she picked apart the knot, pulling on it until it loosened and Sarah could lift her hands to rub the raw skin.

“They reprogrammed the software controlling the motion detectors,” Sarah said with a sneer.

“That’s not it,” Kieran said. “We checked the code. It’s untouched.”

“It would be easy to miss. All they did was reverse the software commands. Now the cameras
stop
recording when there’s motion, and
start
recording when there isn’t any. The opposite of what they’re supposed to do. They probably just had to change around a few characters. Check it again. That’s got to be it.”

Waverly could see Kieran felt foolish. This was so simple, he should have been able to figure it out immediately. He certainly shouldn’t have needed to threaten someone.

“Now I’m going home,” Sarah said, and stood up from the cot.

Kieran shook his head. “When I say you can.”

“What!” Waverly shrieked.

“You still need to spend some time in the brig for the way you delayed the investigation,” Kieran said to Sarah.

The girl shook her head, her mouth set in a grim line across her hard face. “Kieran Alden, you’re nothing but a liar.”

“I didn’t lie. I said I’d let you out of here. Just not right away.”

Waverly was frozen with rage. She thought if she allowed her body to move, she would scratch Kieran’s face. Instead she sat next to Sarah and stared at this boy she’d loved for so long, the boy she’d thought she would marry. Now she despised him.

“Let’s go,” Kieran said, and motioned to the guards to follow him out of the brig. He turned to look back at Waverly, who remained in the cell, still staring, unbelieving.

“Waverly,” he said. “Let’s go.”

She shook her head. “As long as Sarah stays in here, I’m staying, too.”

“I can have you removed by force.”

“If you want to prove me right about you.” Though anger was churning inside, her voice was steady and low. “You’re just like Anne Mather. You’ve turned into a petty little version of her, and you’re only going to get worse until you see the light.”

“Fine,” Kieran said. He nodded at Harvey, who briskly stepped forward and locked the cage. Sarah took Waverly’s hand, and the two girls sat close.

“Three square meals,” Kieran said to the guards, and left the brig.

UNOFFICIAL INVESTIGATION

Seth sat on the floor of the conifer bay, dismantling pinecones, munching on the nuts that were nestled between the spines. He felt like a damn squirrel, but he knew he needed protein more than anything, and at least the nuts provided that.

He kept going over that announcement again and again. Kieran had sunk lower than he’d thought possible, saying Seth was working with the stowaway. He’d known Kieran might try something like this, but it still stung to know the entire shipful of people now suspected him of treason. “Well played, Kieran,” Seth muttered.

He picked up another pinecone and pulled off the dry spines, picking at the small nuts. The only way Seth could redeem himself now would be to catch the bastard himself. As he nibbled on one of the small, sweet nuts, he tried to think like a saboteur. What would be his next move?

It seemed likely he’d try to hobble the ship, but without access to the engine room, that would be difficult. He might use a OneMan to disable the engines from the outside, but that would be impossible to do without some kind of explosive device. If the saboteur had been a stowaway on Waverly’s shuttle from the New Horizon, it was doubtful that he’d been able to bring along any weapons. That meant he’d have to make a bomb from scratch.

Where would he find the materials for an explosive?

Seth leaned back, letting the carpet of pine needles crackle against him. He didn’t know anything about making a bomb. The only thing he could think of was to check the labs, where there were all kinds of chemicals.

He brushed himself off and jogged out of the conifer bay, welcoming the warm air that enveloped him in the corridor. He went to the outer stairwell and opened the door to go through, and was shocked to hear voices a few levels above him. Quickly he backed out of the stairwell and crouched just outside the door to listen.

As the voices got closer, he could hear two boys talking boisterously about what they’d do to the “terrorist” if they ever caught him. Their footsteps came louder and louder, until they were just on the other side of the door.

Then they stopped.

“Do you smell that?” This sounded like Troy Halderson, a strapping thirteen-year-old.

“Smell what?”

“Like the world’s worst BO.”

“Dude, I was going to say something, but—”

“I showered this morning.”

“Well, you smell like a chicken coop.”

They rounded the bend in the stairwell and went down to the next level. Seth smelled his own shirt and made a face. He couldn’t stay hidden for long smelling like this. Fortunately there were showers at the back of the labs in case of chemical spills. They’d be no-frills but they’d work.

Seth waited until the voices of the sentries faded away. Without making a sound, he inched open the door and slipped into the stairwell. He slinked up the metal staircase quickly, hugging the wall, and crept to the chemistry lab. He kept his eyes and ears open, but the entire level seemed to be completely empty.

He slipped inside the lab and locked the door behind him.

He was shocked by the first thing he saw—a counter heaped with dozens of empty boxes. The surface was covered with tracings of a white powder that Seth didn’t recognize, along with empty liquid-nitrogen cartridges. Seth looked in the sink, where he found several empty beakers, the insides coated with a corrosive brown muck. He sniffed at them and coughed.

This stuff might have been left by the saboteur! He had to get a message to Kieran, but he couldn’t without his father’s portable com station, which he’d left in the conifer bay. And he still needed that shower. A very quick one.

He jogged for the shower stalls at the back of the room. God love scientists, there was even shampoo. Seth wanted to lose himself in the feeling of the hot water on his skin, but he made himself count off the seconds until he reached one hundred, scrubbing furiously, and then he turned off the water.

Seth dried himself off with a lab coat, then riffled through the lockers until he found a clean shirt and pair of pants hanging from a hook. He almost ran out of the room, but on second thought, he went back and gathered up all the clothes from the lockers. He even found a hand-knit sweater. It was too small, but it would help keep him warm in those frigid stairwells and in the conifer bay. With the small pile of clothes tucked under his arm, he walked toward the door, his mind on his message to Kieran.

“Dear Saint Kieran, deliver us from evil,” he muttered under his breath, and chuckled.

He was reaching for the doorknob when he was hit from behind.

His head slapped the metal door in front of him. For a second he forgot how to breathe, but he kept his feet and turned to face his attacker. He only saw a metal chair swinging toward his head. He ducked, but not in time, and a sharp edge of the chair cut his scalp.

He blinked, thinking at first he’d gone blind. His eyes were flooded with sticky, hot blood. He wiped it away with his right hand while reaching for his attacker with his left. Seth felt wiry hair and grabbed on to it, swung around with all his strength, and slammed his attacker’s head into the wall, then again.

Trying to see through the blood in his eyes was like looking through a reddish film. He saw a hulking shape buckle and roll forward, then he felt the full force of a shoulder ramming into his gut.

His wind exploded out of him and he fell onto the floor, kicking blindly, struggling to recover his breath. Helpless on the floor, Seth rolled to his side and covered his head with his arms. Savage blows crushed him. A hard boot sole crashed into his rib cage once, twice, sending shards of pain deep into his chest. The light in the room faded.

The light in Seth faded.

He blacked out.

*   *   *

When he came to, Seth expected to find himself in the conifer bay. But instead of pine needles there were metal countertops above him, fluorescent lights blurring in and out of focus. He had no idea how he’d gotten here.

“What happened,” he whispered.

No one answered.

He was lying on a stone cold floor. He forced his eyes open. He was hurt, hurt so badly. Slowly he unwound himself, checking his legs, his joints, his arms—all intact. He sat up.

A stabbing pain seared through his chest.

Oh, it
hurt
!

Couldn’t breathe. Fractured rib. Maybe two.

He forced himself to take small even breaths, then pulled himself to his feet, swaying, and looked around. He was in one of the labs, and he was wearing strange clothes. He limped to a mirror. His face looked like a Halloween mask. He had a bruise under his right eye, and streaks of blood covered his face. He turned on the overhead light and poked through his hair at the cut on his scalp. Four inches, and deep, oozing blood. He’d need stitches.

The last thing he remembered was eating pine nuts, thinking about how to get close to the stowaway.…

I guess I found him,
Seth thought grimly.
No way Kieran or his cronies would have done this to me. If they’d been the ones, I’d be in the brig right now.

He peeled off his bloody shirt, one he didn’t recognize, and turned, wincing against the pain in his ribs. His entire right side was a pattern of bluish bruises. As bad as he looked now, he knew he’d look ten times worse in the morning.

He needed help.

He limped to the door and listened, then slipped out and struggled down the corridor toward the port side—a long walk. This level was little used, but he was still lucky not to happen upon anyone. Once he was inside the stairwell he paused, trying to breathe, hoping he didn’t have a punctured lung. He’d gotten beat up plenty, but now he understood all those times his father had said, “I’m only giving you forty percent, son.”

“I love you, too, Dad,” Seth muttered, then remembered where he was, and paused to listen. He thought he heard footsteps below him, but they were far away, near the rain forest level or maybe lower.

Seth held tightly to the handrail and slid down the stairwell, letting the wall hold some of his weight. His thigh ached where he’d been hit, but his leg still felt strong enough to get him there, if he didn’t pass out from his horrible, pounding headache.

He took it slow, until he reached the level where the living quarters were, then he listened at the door.

What if she doesn’t help me?
he thought, holding a hand against his side.
She will. When she sees me, she’ll let me stay.

The corridor on the living level was quiet, but someone might come any second. He had to be fast. Struggling against the pain, he forced himself to walk quickly though his ribs screamed. The pain was bad enough to turn his vision red, or was that the blood in his eyes? He didn’t know. If he didn’t lie down soon he’d pass out.

He mustn’t be seen entering her place, so he headed for the maintenance closet down the hall from her quarters. He glanced around the hallway, looking for surveillance cameras here, but like on the level where his quarters were, there was no camera pointed at the maintenance closet. Once inside, he found a putty knife in a dirty bucket and pried away the back wall. He stuck his head into the passageway. It looked identical to the narrow space behind his father’s apartment. Squeezing into it, agonized, sweat pouring over his face in rivulets, he sidled along, counting pipes until he was almost certain he’d found Waverly’s quarters. He pried away the back wall and fell into a closet that smelled of sandalwood, then fought his way through the hanging clothes and into a dark room.

He listened. The apartment sounded empty. He’d never been invited into Waverly’s quarters, not since a birthday party when they were five. What if he was in someone else’s place?

“Waverly?” he asked timidly. He even
sounded
injured, his voice thready and weak, pinched with pain. When no answer came, he said more loudly, “Waverly?”

He crossed the hall to the other bedroom and turned on the light. There was a huge Raggedy Ann doll in a chair in the corner, and over the twin bed a picture of a woman standing in a field of flowers, a parasol over her shadowed face. A black sweater lay draped over the back of a chair, and Seth picked it up to smell it. Waverly. This was definitely her quarters.

He stood in the darkness, catching his breath. His heart pounded against his cracked ribs, feeling as though it were chipping away at the bones, displacing jagged shards one beat at a time. He wanted to lie down so badly.

But no. He couldn’t. Not before he stitched that cut closed.

He hobbled into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. The gash in his scalp yawned apart like an open mouth nestled in his hair, bloody edges thick and floppy. Butterfly bandages wouldn’t do it. If he didn’t force it closed, it would certainly get infected.

He knew he should wait for Waverly, let her do it. But he couldn’t bear the thought of letting another person anywhere near the savage cut. Not even her.

For once, Seth let himself cry as he limped into the living room to Waverly’s sewing table. He chose what looked to be strong black thread and the thinnest needle he could find.

“Four stitches, that’s nothing,” he told himself with a shaking voice. “One, two, three, four, done.” He found an antibiotic solution under the sink in the bathroom, and cotton swabs and a patch of gauze that he could tie over the cut.