Secret Worlds (565 page)

From the sky, it’s evident that the Fireseed has burned whole swaths of its own kind since we left. This must be the third time they’ve set themselves on fire. Our intense turmoil out on the coast must’ve upset them. Narrow coils of smoke still drift up from the field, though it looks as if the blaze is out. It’s a wonder how the plants can burn and then manage to tamp out before setting fire to the school. The human or plant in them?

Bea races down the path to the glider and folds me into a hug. Radius follows.

“Am I ever glad you guys are back,” she groans. “This place is falling apart.” Her face is set in a grimace of worry. I’ve only seen her this upset on the day I woke from my fever coma.

I hate that I can’t dispel her worries, especially after we tell her what Jan did to Dr. Varik and to Nevada.

She clamps a hand over her mouth. “My god! That’s so heartless.”

“I’m glad you took Nevada somewhere safe,” Radius says as we start to walk to the school. He snorts. “Jan and Vesper don’t relish following orders. They tried to convince me I was a fool to believe they did anything wrong, a fool to be loyal to you. When that didn’t work, they tried to bribe me with money.” He laughs. “But that didn’t work because we’re holding their money now.” Blane chuckles along with Radius. We need a little gallows humor now and then.

I glance over at the Fireseed field. “No Reds. Wonder what made them calm down?”

Bea stares up at the sky. “Wow, I’ve been so traumatized I haven’t noticed, but yeah.”

Thorn tugs on my arm. “They hear me.”

“They hear you?”

He nods, and on cue, dozens of Reds alight from the field and fly in that amazing V formation toward Thorn, their child king. It’s clear now that Blane was right: without the spiky NanoPearl bug in his head, Thorn can talk to the Reds and they, him. No more static interference, no more stealing his thoughts.

They settle on his arms, on the crown of his head, and a relieved thrumming commences.

At the compound, Radius cooks us a meal of sautéed Fireagar and sea potatoes. I’m not so hungry but I know the work I’m about to do will require massive reserves. I even remember to take a dose of Dr. Varik’s liquid vitamins with my meal. While we eat, Radius ferries food up to our captives. Bea has a helpful, reliable boyfriend and I tell her that.

We discuss the decision to transform in order to work collectively. Armonk is all for it. I hug him to show how grateful I am for his help, and how important he is to me, even though I’m bound to someone else. The fierce look of loyalty and love in his eyes tells me he gets it.

Bea and Radius not so much. “Why don’t Bea and I stay here and keep holding down the fort?” Radius suggests. His face stiffens into a frown that reveals his horror at snuffling up large quantities of Fireseed pollen.

Bea nods. “I’d much rather draw hybrid creatures than become one.”

“Plus someone needs to keep the prisoners in grub, and I’m the only one who really likes to cook,” Radius reasons.

“You’re off the hook,” I tell them. “Babysitting Vesper and Jan is plenty hard.”

After the early dinner, while Armonk gathers supplies, Blane and I head to the field to collect pollen.

I test him. “You sure you want to do this? There won’t be a way back once—”

“I’m sure, Ruby.” His soulful gaze reassures me.

In the privacy of the red jungle, we take a moment before the hike to dive into each other’s arms. Clasping each other tightly, we kiss. When his lips graze mine, the stubble of his days not shaving feels intimate and rough. Our passion withheld while in Vegas-by-the-Sea we give each other freely now. Our lingering kisses reveal our unfolding love and how fully committed we are to seeing this through.

He whispers, “You’re amazing, Ruby. I want to feel your thoughts and all of your emotions.”

I run my finger down the slope of his nose, his spray of freckles. “I’m intense, Blane, are you sure you can handle feeling what I feel?”

“Bring it on, Ruby, all of it.” His mouth on mine is hungry, pressing, taking all of me in. For all of those famished looks Blane gave me before I knew him, I feed him now with my attention, my tenderness, and the beat of my rapid-fire heart. His hard against my soft fits—we fit well together.

It’s hard to break away, but we can’t afford to wait until dark. We brush off and start hiking. I show him how to shake out the Fireseed stamen without damaging it, and collect its ruddy particles in the vials. Even with patches of the field destroyed and still smoking, we fill our jars to brimming.

A couple of the Reds swirl down and land on my shoulder, peck at my latchbag, and rummage their beaklike noses through my hair.

You’re here, you’re here, you’re here
they thrum.

And the Fireseed plants add their harmony.
Protect us, protect us, beauty.

I used to hate it when people called me beautiful. But the plants aren’t looking at my striking face, my long platinum hair or ample curves. They’re referring to the beauty inside of me. And I feel it too, unfurling, blossoming.

“What?” Blane asks me when he sees my smile.

“The plants are talking to me,” I breathe.

“Will they talk to me, when I change?”

“They will.”

We hike back to the school, and proceed to the project room with Armonk. I dose Blane and Armonk with just the right amount to make the transformation into hybridism, without them sinking into the fevered, nauseous coma that I experienced. It’s a fine line, and when they are done, with their nostrils stinging, ribs aching and limbs shuddering from the hard work of fusion, I have to admit I’m relieved.

Their transmutation will solidify in the hum of the sun. We file downstairs, adding Thorn to our little procession.

At the sound of our footsteps, Jan calls out, still tied to a wall post in his room, “Freaks! I knew you were a bunch of freaks from the second I saw you. I should have thrown you all out then.”

Freaks, you could call us that. In a good way, I think as my inward smile spreads.

Silently we traipse outside without our burnsuits and make a beeline for the dunes. The sun’s still up, though no longer at its zenith. No matter, we group together and open our arms and bodies to its vibrational food.

Eat, new ones
sing the Fireseed, and the Reds join the refrain:

Eat, eat, eat, and take your fill, take your fill.

We huddle toward each other—like a family of nested lizards, or nested humans, or nested chimera, whatever we are at this moment. The sun blends us, one into the other, and we engorge in our power and strength.

Blane’s eyes turn from hazel to vivid green as his thoughts pour into me.
Tide, tidal pool. Tide, tide, tidal pool.

Tidal pool?
I ask,
tidal pool?

Turbulence,
he answers in my head,
turbulent waters, troubled sky.

Ocean
Armonk thinks
, ocean, ocean.

I picture the ocean, its calm blue, and the infinite sky above it. Then I picture it troubled, with roiling waves, and whirling, angry clouds.
Rough troubled waters, and rough troubled skies. What trouble?
I ask without words.

Trouble
Thorn answers,
over the big ocean.

It is there
the Reds call,
it is there where they stole us, stole us, stole us!

My mind moves to
the pearl, the ominous troubled pearl in the rough-hewn sky.

From the sharp, unexpected flash in Blane’s eyes to the way Armonk flinches, to Thorn’s growl of pain, it comes to us all at once, and so clearly.

I lower my arms, break away and yell, “The orb I saw over the Pacific Ocean! That’s where we need to go.”

“That’s Pacific Ocean 3!” Blane shakes out his legs.

“The NanoPearl headquarters, where they make those bugs,” Armonk adds.

I say, “When Blane and I got near it during the hovercraft ride I felt its incredible evil.”

“Evil.” Thorn nods.

A flock of Reds sail to us,
eeping,
fluttering, crowding in, but not too close, not nipping.

Thorn lets them land all over him. “They want to go with us.”

“Let’s do it,” says Blane.

“I’ll pack us some food and gear,” I say.

“Bring your elixirs,” Armonk suggests.

“Right. I’ll bring the healing and also the paralyzing one. And you, bring your bow,” I tell him. I glance over at Blane. “Please, no guns.”

He sears me with his hot, glittering eyes. “No guns. We have other ways now.”

Other ways,
echo the Reds.

In the field, the Fireseed sways and whooshes in audible agreement.

Over the Pacific the wind screams sideways, and our glider catches on its violent current. It spins us around, and in the roll, we’re thrown further and further from the gigantic orb. Helplessly, we stare out as its pearl-blue presence slides behind monstrous, humid clouds.

Armonk navigates the glider back to the cloud cluster, only to have the wind shriek sideways again and toss us mercilessly. How frustrating! We’re as far from it as we were in that first airborne rollover. Howling, the bluster vibrates the glider as if it’s a breakable toy. I’m starting to get airsick and again the orb is nowhere. I recall the way Blane described the pearly ship as disappearing in plain sight and this brings me to an unsettling, new thought.

“Could this wind be manufactured?” I ask as Armonk tries unsuccessfully to steer the glider back to an upright position for the third time. “Do you think the NanoPearl techs know so much bioscience that they create these unnatural winds and clouds to hide their headquarters?”

Blane, next to Armonk in the front, grips the hand rests during another abrupt upside-down spin. “That would be a disaster. What if they can even make their place invisible?”

Armonk groans. “That would mean if they don’t want to be found we won’t find them, and also, if we get trapped inside,
we’ll
never be found.”

“Guys, calm down, we can’t afford to concentrate on all the negatives,” I plead, feeling no surer of things than they are. The terror leapfrogs to all of us—the downside of the automatic stroma flow.

In the backseat, Thorn presses his hand in mine.
Ask the Reds.

How?
I think.

We see the invisible
they answer. The Reds
eep
frantically in the cargo hold below, their snouts tap on the floor below our feet.
Out! Out!

Kneeling down, Thorn starts to fiddle with the cargo latch as the Reds go wild underneath it. I help him lift the cargo door, and the Reds burst out, falling over each other in their haste to do the mission. Thorn picks four of them, placing them one by one on the lip of the glider window, now closed. It’s no easy task to nudge the rest of the Reds back down in the hold. They make sharp
eeps
of protest. But we manage.

At least for the time being the wind’s died down, so Armonk steers the hovercraft as close to the dense cloud formation as he can to make up for the distance lost to drift.

I help Thorn open the back window and the four Reds leap out in a wild flutter of wings. They burrow through the thick haze and disappear.

Armonk frowns as he stares at the clouds. “Where did they go?”

“Steer!” Blane orders. “Go in the direction they flew in.”

When Armonk guides the ship into the gauzy core, we lose all sight of sky and ground as if we’re stuck in the mother of all sandstorms. No visibility whatsoever.

Then comes the thrumming, very faint at first, then louder, in our heads.

Windows, windows, windows.

“Windows, eh?” With narrowed eyes and white knuckles, Armonk blindly presses forward. “There! I see the orb,” he exclaims as it slides out of the cloud cover.

“I see one of its windows,” I yell and point to it.

“Careful, Armonk, we’re almost touching the frying thing,” Blane hisses.

It’s true. Armonk’s guided the ship within inches of the orb’s vast curved shell. The windows, if you could call them that, are long, narrow and few. In fact, I count only two on this side. Set in the huge round globe they look like sideways alien eyes. The Reds have already zeroed in on one, and are flitting madly around it.

Armonk levels the ship to that window and cranes his neck to study it. “It’s sealed.”

“Looks as if the Reds have found a slit underneath the window though.” Blane opens his window for a better view.

“Some kind of extra ventilation system,” Armonk guesses.

“It’s very slim. An inch tall and about six inches wide,” I gauge.

The Reds peck and fret over the slit. Clearly, they know what they’re there to do. I glance at Thorn, biting his nails, and in front at Blane, jiggling his big, booted foot.

Silently I command the Reds.
Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze your way in.

Everyone starts concentrating on my silent chant. In response, the Reds peck harder.

Thorn lets out a whoop of victory when the first Red finally squirms his head in, and wriggles in sideways, wing-by-wing. We cheer as the other three follow suit.

“No doubt there are armed guards in there,” Armonk says.

“The Reds will need to disarm them somehow,” Blane decides.

Feel the Reds. Direct them,
Thorn thinks.

Turning to each other across the seat backs, we bow our heads and spread our arms across each other’s shoulders. Our silent humming picks up velocity. Its energy directs us to a mutual point of thought, of feeling, of language.
Disarm, disarm, disarm, confuse, confuse
we chant inwardly.

In my mind’s eye, I see the Reds swarm the guard closest to the window. In my chest, I feel the force of them charging him, over and over, nipping at his head, his hands. “The guard’s panicking,” I whisper.

“I feel that too,” Blane says.

“One Red is jabbing its wings in the guard’s eyes. Another one is pecking at his cheeks,” mumbles Armonk.

We hear the guard in our brains:
What do you want, you crazy birds? How did you get in here?
We feel him stagger to the window and release the automatic lock in frantic hope that the critters will opt out.