Bounders (17 page)

So I was distracted. It's not like every day you learn about a new biotechnology you were born to master. Biotechnology that might actually be a secret weapon. That's why Mobility was a bust. Or, at least, that's what I'm telling myself as I lie here in my bunk, hiding out, trying to avoid more teasing, at least until dinner. Either that, or I'll have to admit I'm just as inept as everyone's saying.

Honestly, though, we were a genuine air rail wreck. Mira wouldn't even fly. She sat in the corner, folded in upon herself, staring into space. I'm sure the other pods just chalked it up to her being a freak, or whatever they're calling her.

But then there was me.

I suited up in my pack and listened closely to instructions. I had to save face after the first blast pack lesson landed me in the med room. Bad Breath set up an obstacle course. We had to fly over and under and around barrels and raised launch platforms and beams suspended from the ceiling. It was a relay race, pod against pod, one pod member after the next. Bad Breath agreed to let Cole go twice since Mira wouldn't join. It was that or be disqualified before we even started. Looking back, I bet he agreed for the joy of watching me humiliate myself.

The race started out great. Cole has a real knack for the pack. He pulled out to an easy lead. Marco and Lucy fell back a little, but we were still in the game. I stood at the starting line, gripping the controls, reviewing the route in my mind. I was ready.

When Lucy tapped my hand, I lifted off. I could have flown a little straighter, that's for sure, but all in all, I had a good start. I made it around the first group of barrels and under the platform (barely, my feet touched the ground, but I don't think anyone saw). A couple of cadets passed me, so I raced to catch up. I soared up to the rafters, pushing my pack as fast as I could.

Then things got ugly. I tried to take a sharp dive over the beam to make up some time, but I cut it too close. The strap of my pack got tangled around a metal post sticking out the top of the beam. I was jerked back in the middle of the air and left hanging from my straps thirty meters up.

I tried to shake loose, but it was no use. If I let go of the grips, I'd fall. And there was no way I was gonna let that happen again. I hung there, kicking my feet, but all I managed to do was kick my shoe off. As it plummeted to the ground, I stopped flailing. I had to accept that things didn't work out quite as planned.

After the last cadet from the other pods crossed the finish line, Bad Breath sent Cole up to rescue me.

When we made it to the ground, something hard slammed into the back of my head.

Behind me, Regis, Randall, and Hakim were slapping high fives and laughing hysterically. My shoe lay on the ground next to me.

“Oops,” Regis said. “I forgot to say catch. Great flying, Jasper. Hang in there. Get it—
hang
in there?” His buddies thought that one was hysterical, too.

I stuffed my foot into my shoe and ran out of the hangar, straight to my bunk. If rankings weren't posting tonight, I'd probably skip dinner. I'm sure Regis has dreamed up some choice rips to throw my way in the mess hall, especially if the rankings turn out the awful way I'm predicting they will.

Shockingly, tonight's dinner doesn't stink, but that's the only glimmer of good news.

Ridders marches into the mess hall. He holds a huge piece of paper in his hands that ripples out behind him like a cape. He grabs some tacks from his pocket and whips the paper, scrawled with pen, up against the wall.

Lucy is out of her seat as soon as Ridders enters. By the time he pegs the paper up, at least half of the cadets crowd around him.

Me, I stay put. The only one left at the table with me is Marco. I shove a huge bite of lettuce and radishes from the hydroponic garden into my mouth and chase it with a thick bite of the grilled cheese sandwich the kitchen coughed up from somewhere.

“Paper? Pens? What is this? The twentieth century?” Marco says.

I swallow the grilled cheese. “If they posted the rankings on tablets, someone might try to hack in or slap it up on EFAN or something.”

“Why aren't you over there?” Marco asks.

“Come on. You saw how I flew today. We're gonna tank.”

Marco shrugs.

“What about you?” I ask. “You're not over there either.” I take another bite of my sandwich. When I close my eyes and ignore the lingering smell of tofu dogs, it almost tastes like Mom's cheesy garlic bread.

“What's the rush?” Marco kicks his feet up onto Lucy's empty chair. “You think I won't find out unless I push through a crowd? Sometimes it's better to let it come to you.”

“I'll remember that.” Yeah, the next time I'm looking for some free therapy.

Cole slumps back to the table, dragging his feet, staring at the ground.

“Go ahead,” I say through another mouthful of grilled cheese. “What's the damage?”

He doesn't look up. “Last place.”

Well, it's not like I didn't see it coming. “At least tell me Han's pod isn't winning.”

Cole doesn't respond. Great. Regis is leading, first of all twenty-six pods.

Yep, dinner is the only thing that doesn't stink. I cram the rest of my sandwich into my mouth, shoot up from the table, and shove in my chair. As I stomp out of the mess hall, my chair clangs to the ground behind me.

AS WE MARCH TOWARD NEXT WEEK'S
rankings, my flying barely improves. Fortunately, we have Mobility just twice a week, so there's only so much damage I can do. I focus extra hard at lectures and in Technology and manage to ace two quizzes. At least I'm not total dead weight for the pod.

Plus, I'm not going to let anything get me down this morning. It's finally our turn to suit up for a mission aboard a quantum ship. That's right—we get to bound. We've heard pod after pod tell stories of their missions—what the inside of the ships look like, how cool the other bases are. Now we'll be the ones making the quantum leap.

We're excited. Super excited, even. But no one could miss the nerves that cling to us like determined flies in a storm. Marco's color is off. His face has a green cast beneath his olive skin. Lucy talks more than normal, which I didn't know was possible. Cole doesn't look at anyone. Not even for a second. The only one who seems unaffected is Mira. She's within her normal range of odd.

I shove my breakfast aside—which is a bummer because it's waffles and contains no tofu whatsoever—but I don't want the waffles showing up during the bound. Puke might really mess up the replication mapping.

After breakfast we meet up with Waters, who escorts us through the station and across the chutes to the bounding deck. I've seen the quantum ships on EFAN hundreds of times, and we saw the fleet out the window when we arrived at the station, but I'm still not prepared to see them up close.

The quantum ships aren't huge, not compared to the passenger craft that brought us to the space station, but they're ridiculously intimidating. Perfect spheres. Eight meters in diameter. Giant drops of liquid metal. The surface glistens and ripples in the light of the floods. The ships rest on raised pedestals and are held in place by retractable scaffolding manned by the Spider Crawlers. Just then, the Crawlers—huge remote-controlled robots with eight legs, four for walking and four for working—surround the third ship in the fleet, attach their limbs to its malleable surface, and peel off the top.

That must be our ship.

Waters herds us onto the bounding deck. As we approach the ships, Edgar Han emerges from behind the scaffolding.

He grips Waters's hand. “Good morning, Jon.”

Waters shakes his hand, then turns to us. “You all have met Captain Han. You're in good hands. Enjoy the ride.”

“You're not coming with us?” Lucy asks.

Waters laughs. “No. I've had my share of bounds. I can't say I have much of a stomach for them.”

Great. That does wonders to calm my nerves. I'm glad I passed on the waffles.

Han ushers us into the locker room adjacent to the bounding deck. He hands out bounding suits and shows us where to get changed.

“Remember,” Han says, “nothing on your body other than the suit.” He gives one of Lucy's ribbons a tug. “Nothing.”

Lucy nods and bites her lip. Lucy, quiet? That sure doesn't make me feel any better.

We meet back on the bounding deck ten minutes later. We're all zipped up in the skintight silver suits with the orange insignia. Circles of transparent breathable membrane frame our faces and allow us to see out. We look hysterical, like five scuba divers without any water. As soon as we see one another, we crack up. For a minute I forget my nerves about the bound.

Han's head pops out of the ship, encased in the same slick suit as the rest of us. “Great, you're here. Let's load. The ladder's around back.”

As we parade around to the rear of the ship, the Spider Crawlers click their long legs and shuffle to the side, letting us pass. Their sensors follow us with beams of ultraviolet light. Creepy. How come no one's ever made a horror flick about these things?
Attack of the Killer Crawlers
?
Giant Robot Spiders Take Over the Earth
? I swing wide to avoid brushing up against their metal limbs.

I've seen the inside of quantum ships on EFAN specials, but I'm still surprised. The ship is basically empty. Screens and terminals hang from the ceiling in the center of the ship, and the periphery is lined with passenger carrels. But that's it. I mean, it makes sense. Everything inside the ship needs to be replicated, so they keep it as bare-bones as possible. Still. It's creepy.

One by one we hop off the loading platform into the belly of the ship. We circle the interior wall, lining up one after the next, each of us filling one of the man-size indentations that look way too much like half coffins, and buckle in with the thick black straps.

My breath is all caught up in the back of my throat, and my pulse throbs in my ears. I pull at the suit that has melded against my body. The material constricts my neck and threatens to suffocate me. I promised myself before we stepped onto the bounding deck I wouldn't think about the Incident at Bounding Base 51. I broke that promise as soon as I saw the quantum ships. What if we don't materialize? What would it feel like to be lost in space?

Han must realize I'm basically hyperventilating, because he grips my shoulder hard and lowers his head level with mine. “Jasper, relax. All of you, take some deep breaths. Nothing will go wrong. I've piloted this mission a thousand times. Literally, a thousand. At least. Imagine you're back home at one of those summer fairs. You've all been to one, right?”

I nod. My parents take Addy and me every July.

“Good. You know those rides where everyone stands on the inside edge of a circle and then the ride spins faster and faster but everyone stays glued to the wall because of the centrifugal force?”

Yep. I rode on one last year. Dad puked after.

“Okay,” Han continues, “this is just like that ride. Except for one important thing. Once we bound, this ride will be over in a nanosecond.”

I press my eyes shut, calling up the image of Addy and me and Dad on that ride. The Blender, I think it was called. The sun was bright that day. Addy grinned at me just as the ride started. Sweat beads glistened on her freckled nose.

The
tick tick tick
of the Spider Crawlers sound near the hatch, and a squishy noise like stepping in rain-filled shoes but ten times louder echoes through the ship. Then most of our light is gone. The Crawlers have sealed the hatch.

Han pushes a button above his head and a control system drops down in front of him. He pages through screens on a large see-through monitor. “I'm running the bioscan now. Next I'll perform the final mechanics check. Then we're out.”

As Han conducts the scans, I look at my friends. It's funny. Usually, I think we're big stuff—you know, the future of Earth Force and all—but we all look pretty small in the quantum ship. Cole and Lucy hardly take up any space in their compartments. Their straps are cinched all the way, and still they aren't tight. Mira's a waif with her long blond braid tucked inside her suit. Marco is tall, but he's thin as a reed next to Han.

“All set,” Han says. “I'm commencing the bound sequence.”

The screen shows a camera shot from outside the ship. The Spider Crawlers have removed the scaffolding. All that's visible is the edge of the bounding deck and the infinity of stars. And right in the middle is the pocket of wavy space, the quantum field through which we'll bound.

“Five, four, three, two, one . . .”

Bam!

Smashed.

Crushed.

Wrung.

Flung.

Puffed.

Stuffed.

Done.

I open my eyes. Blink hard. Lift my hand in front of my face and unfurl my fingers. I suck a huge vat of air into my lungs that a second before were as flat as pancakes.