The Terminals (8 page)

Zara smirked, her upper lip curling like a writhing snake. “That's the worst name for a group of extreme ass-kickers I've ever heard.”

“Yeah,” Ari agreed, buzzed on the tequila he liked so much. “We should pick a name that kicks ass.”

“Like what?” Donnie spat. He seemed ready to challenge anything Ari said.

The Bellingham hospital with its terminal illness ward popped into Cam's head. He'd thought he would quietly expire in dreaded, sterile, empty hallway 3C. He was still housed with other terminals, only now he was at a beach party in another hemisphere, in a tropical jungle alive with color, sounds, and smells, and preparing to go on secret missions. Same concept, different setting.

“Like Deathwing?” Cam said.

Nobody protested or jeered. In fact, nobody said a word. Their silence told him it was right.

After the rest had gone to bed, Cam sat with Ari across from Jules and Calliope, who were roommates. The group would be training early the next morning, and when Donnie had announced his own bedtime, the rest had followed like sheep, leaving the four of them alone.

“My tattoo hurts,” Cam said. He raised his unlucky right arm. It had just begun to recover from the numbing poison only to be permanently scarred by a bloodthirsty swimsuit model. The inked pattern was the same for all of them—a series of electrocardiogram heartbeat spikes, followed by a flat line. Cam's ran around his upper arm. Calliope's ran around her ankle, which was smart. A smaller circumference meant less torn flesh. Ari's tat was on his chest. Jules's was in the small of her back—she hadn't wanted to watch. And they said that Wally's lifeline ran straight down his spine until the flat line disappeared into his butt crack, which Cam decided he'd take their word for. The tattooing method was crude—a series of pokes with the fine point of Zara's dagger, which was wrapped with a thin ink-soaked cloth.

“I'm officially no longer turned on by her,” he declared.

“I think Zara likes cutting people,” Ari said, tossing an empty Maximo can in the dying fire. “She's done all of the tats since I got here. In fact, I think the whole thing was her idea.”

“She's so tacky,” Jules scoffed. She turned to Calliope. “Don't you think?”

“Well, she's very sexy. And confident.”

“Sexy is a spectrum,” Jules said. “Friendly, flirty, naughty, dirty, nasty, raunchy, and sleazy. Which do you think she is?”

“Flirty?”

Jules scoffed again.

“
Very
flirty?” Calliope tried again.

“Eh, you're too nice.”

“Yeah,” Ari said. “Calliope is too polite to bitch about our mission. She joined hoping we'd be saving cute furry animals or the rainforest.”

“I want to help people too,” she said defensively. “I just thought we'd be building schools or digging wells. Our training seems a bit violent.”

“See? All heart, no balls.” Ari smiled.

She smiled back, not offended. Cam had a hard time imagining her bitchy or even annoyed. Her demeanor was as soft as her voice, her milk-n-freckles skin, and her wispy strawberry-blond hair, which hung over her face like a veil. Or a shroud.

“Where'd you get the cool name?” Cam asked.

She blushed. “I picked it out.”

“Well, it's a great nickname.”

“Thanks, but it's not a nickname.”

“No?”

“Nope. I was born Alice. It was the trendy name given to me by my dad at the time. I had two other Alices in my preschool, and I was the quietest, so I was ‘Alice three.' But when I was six I saw a machine at the circus. It was big, a piano with pipes. Steam came out of it like it was angry, but it turned the steam into music.”

“Aha! A calliope organ,” Cam said.

“Right. I used all of my tickets making the man play it over and over, and I hummed the tune for months. I wanted one with all my heart, but by then my mom was single. She was a secretary and couldn't afford anything like that. Instead, she bought me a second-hand keyboard and took me down to the courthouse to change my name.”

“Cool mom,” Jules said.

Ari smirked. “You're just lucky your name's not ‘Organ.'”

Cam considered Calliope through the heat of the air over the fire. It distorted her appearance, making her look like a blurred and reddish-haired ghost. Pale. Freckled. The smile on her colorless lips was uncertain. And she was slender. No curves, but she wasn't about that, Cam thought. Not traditionally pretty, yet there was
something
about her.

“You like music?” he asked.

*   *   *

The bunker was open. It was always open. Anything they wanted, anytime they wanted. Calliope led Cam past the conference room and through the dining hall, where they grabbed a tub of chocolate pudding from the walk-in fridge and ate the entire thing with a big wooden mixing spoon.

“It's just ahead,” she said, licking chocolate from the corners of her mouth. In the empty hall, even her soft voice was loud.

They passed a small workout room with a heavy punching bag hanging from the ceiling. Helmets hung from hooks, and padded poles leaned against foam walls.

“Defense and attack,” Calliope said, anticipating his question. “Kickboxing. Mixed martial arts. That sort of thing. Zara spends hours in here. I don't like that stuff. Ward is teaching me communications method and tech instead.”

Cam nodded, wondering what he would be trained to do. Then they stepped into a small room. The only thing in it was an electronic keyboard and a bench.

“Why is there foam on the walls here?” he asked.

“Same reason. In case there's violence,” she said. Then she grinned.

“Oh, acoustics,” Cam realized. “Duh.”

She sat. It was more a slide than a sit, something smooth and natural that she'd done innumerable times either here or back home. Both probably. She leaned to tap the “on” switch as her rump flattened to become a part of the bench, and her slender hands fanned out over the keys like butterfly wings, her fingers alighting on black here and white there.

“Are you going to—” Cam began.

Calliope hit a chord. It boomed, drowning out Cam's voice in the small room. He went silent, and she backed off, transitioning to a light melody. It was her way of telling him to shush, he decided. He complied, and the song built. Her hands danced over the keyboard, starting out playful, but quickly becoming insistent, and then demanding with a hint of desperation. They groped for and pounded the keys. Soon, rather than stroking them, she was punishing them. Her shoulders flexed and tightened. Her breaths came more quickly, her nostrils flaring. She played a series of notes three times through, faster and faster, and then leaped an octave higher. At the crescendo she paused. Cam wondered if she was done, but he didn't dare speak.

She
wasn't
done. She hit a low note—a single note—and held it. Then she sang. Her voice was unexpected. Deep and smoky as she rolled into the lyrics, which were as bitter and ferocious as her hands. As she sang, she hit high notes that proved she was female, but she favored the lower end of the scale, the dark end of her machine. She sang about holding her struggling childhood dog while it was euthanized and wishing for breasts that never arrived—both of which made Cam feel bad for different reasons. There was more, all sad, some angry. At the finish she issued a long, low moan that built to a brief scream that ended abruptly, and when she was done she slumped, spent, as much emotionally as physically. There was a long pause where she simply stared at the keyboard.

“Oh my god,” Cam said. “You're … good.”

She let slip a smile. “You liked it then?”

“Was that song by the band Lisa Ran Away? It sounded like them, but I've never heard it. With the lyrics, it was also sort of like The Dread.”

“You know your music,” Calliope said. Then she shook her head. “But it's neither of them, although they're both major influences.”

Cam cocked his head. “You wrote it,” he realized. “You friggin' wrote that!” He smiled at her like an idiot. “And clearly you're a bit disturbed.”

She laughed. “We're dying, Cam. Remember? I can't help being a little messed up.” The dark admission would have sounded strange in her mouth an hour earlier, but it fit now.

“Yeah,” Cam said. “I remember. But for a minute there you made me forget.”

 

CAM'S PLAYLIST

7. HEY, I KNOW THIS SONG
  

by The Nobodies

8. THE ICE FIREMEN

by Blabbermouth

9. I LOVE BACON

by The Foodies

“Something familiar, but oh so peculiar.”

Training came early. They met on the beach. Ward, Zara, Tegan, and Donnie. Four sets of scuba masks and regulators were laid out neatly in the sand just above the high watermark.

“You're athletic, Cam,” Ward said. “Let's see if the scuba team suits you for this mission.”

After the others had donned and adjusted their gear Cam was still standing there puzzling over hoses and buckles. They helped him while Ward stood with his back to the ocean rattling off steps, rules, and clever sayings.

“SCUBA stands for ‘self-contained underwater breathing apparatus' … Don't rise faster than your bubbles unless you want to pop … And do not, I repeat, do n-o-t, not hold your breath.…”

The others focused on every word. They were sharp and alert, despite having obviously heard it before. Cam listened hard, knowing from his skydiving experience that his life would likely depend upon it.

“Any questions?” Ward looked straight at Cam.

“No, sir,” Cam replied.

“You sure? Tell me now if you're a poor swimmer. There's no shame in acknowledging a weakness.”

Cam glanced at his comrades. Zara and Donnie eyed him, evaluating.
Yes, there is
, he thought. “I'm sure,” he said.

“Excellent. Donnie, you're team leader. Out to the buoy and back,” he said. “Go!”

Donnie, Tegan, and Zara walked straight into the surf, their flippers slapping the sand. Cam followed. The water lapped at his legs at first, and then a swell hit him waist high. Zara was already plunging into the trough of an incoming wave. He bucked the tail end of the wave, then surged forward, inserted his regulator, and dove into the next one.

It was strangely quiet beneath the waves. Cam had to kick farther from shore and dive to get out of the surf, but the tide helped him, the drop-off was steep, and soon he was floating free in the silence of the open ocean. The others were straight ahead, kicking steadily. Donnie looked back, but didn't slow. Cam chased after them. They had to find the buoy without a beacon. “Practice like you play,” Ward had said. There would be no beacon on their first mission.

Cam was curious what their mission would be. Saving people was the goal, and a waterborne approach was part of it, apparently. Ari had been sent off with Pilot to drill for his role, whatever that was. When Cam had asked, he'd just laughed and said he had the “cushy job.” Calliope was charged with learning the communications equipment. They each knew elements of the plan, but Ward hadn't put it all together for them yet.

Cam had expected to see fish, but the rapidly deepening waters were featureless and dark, very unlike the lagoon, which was shallow, sunny, and teemed with life. The dimness went on as far as he could see, and he couldn't help wondering if this was what death was like. Silent, endless, solitary, eventually a hell of self-awareness without any stimulation. He also realized that he was beginning to get tired and slow down. They hadn't even made the buoy yet. He decided he needed to “focus on the task at hand,” as Ward had said several times, and he kicked hard after his team. Perhaps they would surface and rest at the buoy before turning back. But when he looked up, they were gone.

The word “shit” made a lot of bubbles underwater. Cam rotated in place. The dark and distant ocean floor was no longer a good guide for direction. He could surface and find shore, he thought, but the entire point of the exercise was to stay out of sight underwater. He suspected Ward would be watching with the binoculars he'd been wearing around his neck. Drifting with the tide and turning in circles, Cam stupidly and completely eradicated his sense of direction. He chose a heading and kicked for a time, but after several minutes of swimming he still saw nothing.

The surface was toward the light. He knew that much. He cursed himself and kicked upward, careful not to rise faster than his bubbles, and he broke through the waves with a feeling of both failure and relief. The beach was distant, much farther away than he would have guessed. The condos were mere dots on a ribbon of tan below the cliffs. He was also well past the red buoy, which bobbed in the dark blue swells midway between him and the shore. It receded even as he floated in place.
I'm being swept out to sea
, he thought. With the tide against him, the swim back would be harder. He stroked, but made no headway. Kicking with great effort, he found he could make some gains, but if he stopped to rest, he lost all of his progress and more. Soon he was exhausted and farther out than he had been before.