Authors: Nick James
“Find the main security center and keep watch.” I turn to the others. “If something happens, I’m counting on you guys to throw them off track. Create a diversion … or something.”
Eva crosses her arms. “That’s very vague, Jesse.” “I know,” I reply. “But if the Pearls are stored on the lower levels, I won’t be able to see what’s happening in the city. If they’ve got a security patrol after me, I’m blind against them.”
Avery shakes her head. “You’re not doing this alone, Jesse.”
“The fewer of us that go, the less obvious it will be.”
“You need a backup,” she says.
Sem nods. “The girl is right. Talan and I will scout. If necessary, we may be able to provide the distraction you need.”
I meet Avery’s eyes. I try not to let my heart make a stupid decision, but even weighing the pros and cons leads me to the same response. “Okay, Avery. You’re coming with me.”
Eva glances at a shuttle full of commuters in the distance. “Don’t feel too secure, people. Once Jesse starts breaking Pearls, it’s going to be like the Academy times a hundred. People will feel it. The entire ship will.”
I take a deep breath, turning to Avery and grabbing her hand. “You really wanna do this?”
“Do you?” She squeezes my fingers.
I don’t answer. Instead, I clutch the pistol under my shirt, say a few prayers, and hope for the best.
After ascending twelve levels, Avery and I arrive in a broad, low-ceilinged plaza just below the domed city at the very top of Skyship Altair. It’s an underground shopping center, reeking of perfume samples. The light overhead is impossibly bright, the faux-marble tiles polished and gleaming below our feet. Slow, hypnotic music plays softly in the background. It calms my rollicking heartbeat, if only for a moment.
I watch shoppers as they pass by. Even this early in the day, the wide plaza is crammed with activity. “The more people, the better chance we have of blending in.” I step forward. “We need to find a ship directory.”
We push through the crowd, past holographic advertisements and decorative fixtures. Fountains, indoor gardens, the latest gaming pavilions.
And then he catches my eye. He emerges from around the corner of an electronics store, still covered in his dark bodysuit. The red energy has completely faded, but I recognize his face immediately. It’s the face that I hoped was my father’s. The face in the swarm.
I grab Avery’s arm and pull her close. We flatten against the wall. “It’s the Drifter, from the red Pearl.”
She cranes her neck, but the Drifter’s quickly swallowed by the crowd. “Where?”
“Not far.” My bracelet buzzes. He’s getting closer. “This isn’t good.”
I scan the shopping center, searching for escape routes. I can’t see the Drifter anymore, but I’m sure it was him. The trembling of the Ridium confirms it.
“There!” Avery points to an exit on the other side of the plaza, in between a pair of clothing stores. We’ll have to cut through the crowd to reach it, and risk running right into the Drifter, but there aren’t any other options.
I stand on my toes and try to gauge the Drifter’s whereabouts. “Do you see him?”
“No, but it’s so crowded.”
“We’re gonna have to chance it. Follow me.”
We take off at a sprint across the plaza. The Drifter spots us immediately.
I watch his arm outstretch in the distance. People fall like dominoes around us, yanked sideways through the air before they land in a heap along the wall. Broken dolls. That’s what they look like after he’s done. They don’t even have time to scream.
Avery slams into my shoulder as I freeze, in awe of the Drifter’s power. She pushes me. “Come on!”
“How’s he—”
Floor tiles pull from the ground and explode in splinters around me. The Drifter’s hand glows red as he steps forward, eyes pinned onto mine.
I glance around the plaza, looking for something that I can use against him. Lights flicker overhead. The calm music continues to pour from speakers around us. Gaming pavilions function in the distance.
And then it occurs to me. It’s all electricity, everything around us. Energy. Pearl energy.
It’s a long shot, but I have to try.
I close my eyes and reach into the air with both hands. I was able to summon energy from the Drifter back on the island in Siberia. If I can do that, maybe I can rip it from the transformers and wiring inside this ship.
The mall continues to deconstruct around me, ripping violently apart at the red Drifter’s whim. Screams echo along the walls as the remaining crowd scatters in all directions. Benches fly into walls. Plants tear from their pots and shred into pieces. I don’t know how he’s doing this, but his shots have missed me so far. Other than a few small nicks, I’m fine.
My skin tingles. I pull down through the air and ball my fingers into fists at my side. I open my eyes. The lights shut off. The music dies and the pavilions fade to a stop. Thin streams of green energy fall from the ceiling like a fine rain. Inch-long slivers. Fragments. I push out and direct them toward the Drifter. They cut through the air like a thousand porcupine quills, puncturing his coat and lodging themselves in his skin. He stumbles back. This is hurting him. Good.
The red in his hand fades. Alarms start to blare in the distance. Bodies litter the ground. Those that weren’t hurt have escaped into the shops. They cower, watching us.
I grab Avery’s hand. “So much for keeping things calm.”
We dash through the darkness, past the exit, and arrive in an unadorned, concrete hallway—a claustrophobic underbelly to the mall’s hyper-lit, kinetic energy. These types of places are usually pretty empty. The alarms will draw any guards toward the shopping center, but we’ve got a few moments before they arrive.
Podlights flicker at equal intervals on either side of us. We rush around the nearest corner without a word.
“Did you kill him?” Avery huffs as we power down the second corridor.
“I don’t think so,” I say. “All I did was slow him down.”
As if in response to my words, the exit door breaks from its hinges behind us. I hear footsteps. Turns out I didn’t slow him down as much as I thought.
Avery grabs my wrist and steers me toward an emergency door to our left. My breath catches in my lungs as we barrel down another corridor. I can’t take much more of this before I collapse altogether. I’m not a marathon runner.
The Drifter’s feet pound behind us, an ever-accelerating drum pattern. He’s faster than I expected. Maybe it’s the red energy, or maybe I made him angry.
We plunge past another door and head deeper into the Skyship. Then another. I grab the pistol from my waist. With every turn we make, I expect to cross paths with a security force. But we’re good for now. This is maintenance territory—the inner workings. Unless there’s a problem with the ship itself, we should go unnoticed.
I feel the Ridium hum against my skin and wonder if Theo can feel it, too. The way he had controlled the substance, I wouldn’t be surprised if he knew where I was right this moment.
I wipe the thought from my mind. I don’t need to be worrying about Theo. Not yet. Something catches my eye. A symbol on a door at the end of our corridor. I pull Avery to a stop.
“Jesse!” She struggles against me. “We’ve gotta keep moving.”
“No. Don’t you recognize it?” I point to the symbol, a bolt of lightning surrounded by an intricately bordered circle.
“Power station,” she whispers.
I nod and race to the door. Large ships like Altair have no less than four stations like this spread around the vessel. They’re what pump the Pearl Energy around. The ship’s hearts.
“It’s a dead-end,” Avery warns.
“I know.” I grab the handle. “But I have an idea.”
“You’re gonna get us killed.”
“No,” I say. “If there’s a Pearl inside, I can use it.” “What if it’s empty?”
I lay my hand on the door and close my eyes. I can feel it inside, a warm presence calling to me. “It’s not.”
I wrap my hands around the trigger of the pistol and fire into the door, just below the handle. The lock blasts away. We slip inside.
The light from the hallway outside is eaten by darkness. The floor to the station is illuminated by thin, orange diamonds running along the sides, a sign that we’re close to the reactor. A metal door lies closed at the far end of the corridor. It’s likely more than a foot thick—too much for my dinky little blaster.
I rush forward, jogging down the hall until I feel the buzzing energy of the door under my fingers.
Avery moves behind me. “I don’t like this, Jesse. He’s coming.”
“I can do it,” I whisper. “There’s Pearl energy on the other side, funneling in the reactor.” The hair on the back of my hand stands on end. “The Drifter’s gone. It’s halfway drained already, but I can use what’s left.”
She turns, surveying the dark. Her gaze shifts toward the ceiling. “This place is like a tomb. If you’re wrong ……” She can’t finish the sentence.
I run my hand along the surface of the door, feeling for cracks or holes. Anything. Already, my body feels stronger. I lay my cheek against metal, pulling.
My heart swells. I feel a waft of air brush against the back of my neck. I’m surrounded by energy. I could bathe in it if I wanted. I take a step away, furrow my brows, and grasp on with everything I’ve got.
“Jesse.” Avery turns. “Did you hear me?”
I don’t need to respond. Strands of green light coil from within the doorway, escaping through microscopic holes and cracks in the metal. They flower around me, winding above our heads. Trails of light swirl in the darkness. Some wind underfoot, curling beside my feet until they find refuge with a neighboring strand. The door rattles and hums, on the verge of pulverizing into dust. The hallway flashes a brilliant green. I close my eyes and become one with the energy, letting it wash over me like a wave of soothing bathwater. It encircles my body, cleansing cuts and bruises from the day. My lungs expand with the freshest, most revitalizing air imaginable. I feel whole.
A door slams off its hinges. The sound pulls my eyes open once more. I spin around to see the silhouette of the Drifter at the opposite end of the hallway, still and menacing. Both fists glow with a vibrant red—violent Pearl Energy ready to kill me if I don’t act soon.
Avery backs into my shoulder. The Drifter holds out a hand. The corridor rattles. The scars on my chest burn, though it’s quickly countered by the bolstering cocoon around me.
Before he can make a move, I let it all go. I thrust my hands forward and feel everything leave me. The green wave shoots through the hallway in a turbine, twisting and swirling so fast that the strands blend together, one undecipherable from the next.
I watch the energy slam into the Drifter. It knocks him back in a violent pulse. He flies across the connecting corridor and slams through the neighboring wall, pushed faster and farther by the oncoming energy.
The ground drops beneath us as the Skyship lurches downward. The thick metal of the door cracks behind me. Avery slips. She holds her head in her hands, protecting herself from oncoming rubble. The rows of orange lights blink frantically before settling. The ground stabilizes as the ship corrects itself. One power station deactivated. If I hit all of them, we’re going down.
I watch the last of the Pearl energy dissipate through the distant hole in the wall. The Drifter’s gone, knocked way off course. I pushed him away, maybe even killed him.
I help Avery to her feet. “Are you okay?”
She nods, visibly shaken. “I thought what you did last spring was something. That … that was amazing, Jesse.”
“Yeah?” I take a deep breath. “There’s more where that came from.” I glance behind me. I can see the empty generator through the cracks in the thick door. Scraps lay at my feet. “Come on,” I say. “Let’s go break some Pearls.”
Cassius gunned the accelerator, arcing the Academy ship high into the stratosphere, far enough from Skyship Altair that it seemed a distant dot below him. He’d never driven an agent’s ship before. The controls were remarkably similar to those of a cruiser, but the speed was amplified. He could work wonders with this. He’d need to.
Last time he’d engaged Theo, the boy had the upper hand. He had control of the environment, even in his unstable mental state. The trick this time was to hit him first, draw blood before he could react. He knew precious little about Ridium, but it was certainly dangerous, especially under Theo’s control.
Cassius took stock of the weapons available to him. Cannons, mounted on the front underbelly. Tractor beams—useful only if he had the chance to pull Theo into the ship with him. A pair of missiles, though he doubted that human weaponry would be of much use against an alien substance like Ridium. If the black vessel was anything as strong as the bracelet around Cassius’s arm, he’d be fighting against the indestructible.
As he piloted the ship, his mind kept coming back to one thing. Pearls.
Matigo obviously feared them, or feared how they could be used. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have went to the trouble to send his own son to Earth as some sort of sting agent. He wouldn’t be after Fisher, either. If Fisher succeeded in finding more Drifters, Cassius hoped they knew what to do.
He took a deep breath and began to bring the ship down. Theo’s vessel appeared on the radar as a dark blotch, like a storm cloud ready to belch thunder and lightning. Cassius was directly on top of it now.
First, he’d unleash a volley of cannon blasts. If that didn’t work, he’d have to get closer. One way or another, he needed to engage Theo directly. If he couldn’t kill him, he’d hurt him. Weaken him until the Drifters could finish him off.
The ship gained speed as it cut through the air, descending like a dagger piercing the sky. The black, spherical vessel neared closer. Cassius waited until he could see it clearly before letting loose.
He fired a round right into the surface, spinning sideways to avoid crashing into the vessel. Explosions lit up the atmosphere around the sphere of darkness but left no mark. As soon as the smoke faded, Theo’s ship remained untouched, floating silently in the sky.
He rounded in a wide loop, ready to test the missiles. He doubted they would be any more effective, but he had to try everything before risking a closer encounter.