Qualify

  “Why don’t you guys go on?” I say, nodding tiredly at the way ahead. “I am only slowing you down.”

  “Are you kidding?” Ethan flashes me a slightly crooked smile. “Without you we wouldn’t have made it even half as far. I’m not dumb enough to go off on my own when I’ve got a good thing going here. Right, man?” And he glances at Jared.

  Jared just nods tiredly. “Oh, yeah. Gwen’s the man.”

  “Besides, we have plenty of time.” Ethan checks his gadget for the zillionth time. “Looks like it’s only two-thirty PM. We’ve only got a few blocks.”

  At the corner of South Alameda and East Sixth Street, we see familiar four-color beacons and only a light, short picket-height concrete divider fence that runs just a couple of feet off the ground. It serves more as a marker boundary than a way to keep us out. And the red stripe that indicates a hot zone is drawn on our side.

  Candidates ahead of us race up to the fence, and easily step or jump over it. Everyone’s unharmed, and apparently they’re out of the hot zone.

  When it’s our turn, I put my foot over the concrete line and my yellow token flashes as soon as I scale the boundary.

  I glance back, and this side is not painted red.

  So, a safe zone.

  Zoe exhales with relief. “Good. We definitely could use a break.”

  I look up, squinting from the sun, and the Atlantean shuttles are hovering there, a dozen silvery disks, not too far off the ground, just about the height of the venerable Westin Bonaventure Hotel with its cylinder towers looming in the vicinity and out of our way.

  “The pool must be thataway,” Jared mutters. He then almost gets knocked over by a big bulky runner with a red armband who passes us.

  “Hey, watch it!”

  But the hulking teen gives him a hard glance. He’s got a heavy, mean-looking blade attached at his belt.

  On the other hand, I’ve got an automatic rifle hanging over my shoulder.

  The Candidate sees my rifle. And he wisely keeps going.

  He has no idea I can barely stand upright, much less fire.

  A few more blocks, and we’re in an area that used to be Skid Row.

  This is where the city homeless had their own makeshift city-within-a-city, and there were several missions and other charitable organizations located within these blocks.

  Now, it’s still Skid Row. But it’s also something else. And in some ways it’s even more desolate, hoary, trash-filled. Even more run-down. . . . A place of despair. Even the once-vibrant graffiti murals have faded, and it has grown neglected, now that the taggers no longer bother to ply their art here.

  Instead, the homeless residents shelter here like shades, stooped human figures sitting in alleyways, watching us pass with dull hopeless eyes.

  And the Atlanteans chose this forsaken area to uproot, and built a giant multi-block water reservoir.

  The pool—I should stop calling it that and just say an artificial urban lake—begins at what used to be Towne Avenue and spans two blocks to South San Pedro Street—so that what used to be a block of Crocker Street is now underwater—and is bordered by Sixth and Fifth streets, forming a great urban rectangle.

  The waters of the lake sparkle like razors, white fire in the blazing sun. It sits like a strange watery mirror in the middle of a concrete forest of urban high rises and decay. Its calm surface does not ripple, since there is little wind here, so it reflects the remote oval disks of the shuttles directly overhead, as they levitate a hundred feet in the sky above.

  We stop at the shore of this lake and stare.

  The lake basin is yet one more thing made of concrete. It is deep, but not so deep that we cannot look down and see the strange almost luminescent shapes sunken on the floor. The water is translucent, with a greenish tint.

  Piles of batons rest underwater, and if I didn’t think I was hallucinating, I’d say they were glowing . . . or maybe just weirdly reflecting the sunlight.

  “Holy lord! We have to dive in that?” Zoe whispers, letting go of my arm. “I can barely swim!”

  I stand there, and watch as the first of the Candidates take brave running leaps and splash downward into the lake. A few decide to take their shoes off, and some again strip down to their underwear.

  The mirror water of the reservoir is now broken, a mess of splashing and white spray churned by swimmers.

  We watch them, to see if there are any surprises to be had at this point in the Semi-Finals.

  The first boy to emerge with the baton makes a hard splash and then pulls himself up from the water to stand at the street-level shoreline. The baton is about two feet long and three inches thick, a smooth, slightly oval shaped rod, its orichalcum surface the usual gold-flecked charcoal grey. He holds it up proudly and makes a “woot” sound, pumping his fist.

  And then he shouts out again, this time almost in surprise. . . .

  And drops the baton on the ground.

  The baton is definitely glowing. It is obvious now, as with every passing second it is becoming dull incandescent pink, like a branding iron that has been just removed from the flames. Except it is glowing hotter, not cooling down.

  Soon it begins to smoke, charring the asphalt underneath it.

  The Candidate who retrieved the baton stands over it, with a dropped jaw, and begins to cuss loudly.

  The baton is burning. It is a wicked red-hot thing that is impossible to handle.

  “Oh, crap, crap, crap!” Teens everywhere are exclaiming and gathering to look.

  Meanwhile, more of the divers are returning from the bottom with batons, splashing forth from the water triumphantly. . . . And in moments their triumph turns to pain and horror.

  Because everyone’s batons begin to grow hot and incandescent the moment they are out of the water.

  Some people immediately drop theirs back in the pool, screaming in pain as their hands are scalded. Others manage to throw their batons down on the street, and then stand around watching them inflame more and more, and burn like live torches on the asphalt.

  “What did the Goldilocks sadists want us to do with these things?” a boy cries, watching his baton roll and scorch the ground. “This is hopeless! How are we supposed to hold them and levitate up to the shuttle?”

  “Hey, dude,” Jared asks the closest person who drops their baton near his feet. “When you were underwater, did you feel this thing being hot or something?”

  “No,” the teen replies. “I didn’t even notice anything. It felt cool, just like the water around it.”

  “Okay,” Zoe muses. “So when submerged, the baton is not burning. Does that mean it has to be kept in water in order not to burn your fingers? And it reacts with the air to burn?”

  Meanwhile I stand and watch a tough Latino boy who remains in the pool, treading water, and holding his retrieved baton submerged. “Hey,” I say. “Does it feel hot now, when you hold it like that underwater?”

  The boy spits, shakes his head negatively. He then looks up at the shuttle that’s hovering overhead.

  And then he starts to sing the keying sequence in a tenor voice.

  Nothing happens.

  The orichalcum is underwater, it occurs to me. The sound waves cannot reach it the same way.

  “Damn . . .” the boy says.

  “I guess you’ll have to take it out of the water.”

  He nods then takes a big breath, quickly lifts up his hand with the baton. And again he sings.

  This time the baton begins to react. The boy follows up the keying sequence with the rise command, sweeping up an octave.

  And then I watch him grimace in pain, as the baton starts to hover and rise, at the same time as it begins to grow hot and glow.

  The boy keeps singing and stoically holding the baton as he is lifted out of the pool, and then continues gaining altitude.

  Ten feet, twenty feet, thirty. . . .

  The boy stops singing and screams.

  He continues screaming and yet ho
lding on, and the baton is still lifting him higher and higher, and from my vantage point it is red-hot now.

  About halfway up to the shuttle, the boy either lets go—or maybe his hand is simply too damaged, burned off and he can no longer maintain the hold—and he plummets down.

  The boy’s body strikes the surface of the pool from a distance of nearly sixty feet, and he goes under like a rock.

  Then, a few moments later his body floats back up, limp and motionless.

  People around me scream, or gasp. Zoe puts her hands over her mouth.

  “Wow,” Ethan says. “Damn. I think that guy is dead.”

  “It’s official,” a girl says behind me. “We’re all screwed.”

  About a half hour later, there’s a sizeable crowd of Candidates gathered around the water reservoir. Teens sit on the ground, some dangle their feet in the cool water. A few pace nervously. Several retrieved batons are lying on the shore, scorching and burning still, burning non-stop. . . . They are now not merely pinkish red but white-hot.

  Jared stops his pacing and turns to me, as I sit on the ground, cross-legged, holding the barrel of the rifle with my good hand. My fingers pass lightly over the black metal, stroking it absently, as I think.

  “Okay, Gwen,” Jared says. “What do you think? You’re the smart and clever one. What solutions are there? What options do we have? Let’s do it, man!”

  “Yeah, Gwen, what should we do? C’mon, don’t clam up now. Open your brain-pan up for us.” Ethan joins in, plopping down next to me.

  Right now I’m too weak, numb, and out of sorts, to even roll my eyes at them.

  “There’s always the one option,” Zoe says, sitting a few feet away from me at the edge of the reservoir, with her feet cooling in the water. “Instead of dying a horrible burning death today, we can simply turn over our ID token and press that recessed button to Self-Disqualify. Then we can die a horrible burning death a few months from now when the asteroid hits. And today we can just go out for pizza.”

  I frown and turn in her direction. “Don’t, Zoe. Don’t think that way, don’t give up. There has to be a solution. We’ll find it.”

  “No,” Zoe says. “Maybe you’ll find it. We only have about two hours left. That’s two hours to feel like we have a choice in our life.”

  Jared sits down near Zoe and puts his hand in the water. “True. Just two frigging hours to continue having hope. Okay, this line of thinking seriously blows.”

  I shut up and stare silently out at the lake, as my vertigo returns, and waves of pain and nausea move through me. . . .

  All this while, Candidates attempt to retrieve batons from the lake and try all kinds of mostly useless, different things to achieve the final task of Semi-Finals.

  One girl removes her uniform shirt and tries to fill it with water like a balloon, before tossing her baton in there. However, the fabric of the uniform is permeable, and the water quickly drains away. In moments the baton begins to steam the uniform fabric, which then bursts into flames. The girl screams as the baton falls through and lands on her foot, giving her instant severe burns.

  Another teen levitates his baton in the air before him without touching it, and uses a Yellow Quadrant cord weapon to make a loop from which to suspend himself with both hands. The boy rises about ten feet in the air before the heat of the baton melts the cord, and down he falls, landing awkwardly on his hands and knees, and gaining a bunch of painful scrapes.

  “This is horrible,” Zoe mutters. “I can’t bear to watch.”

  Ethan frowns. “Then, don’t.” He gets up then and begins pacing once more.

  I feel my eyelids closing as I nod off in a daze. I sway slightly, as I continue to sit cross-legged, then jerk awake at the splash sound of what seems to be water cannonballs—several Candidates falling back into the lake with screams after attempting more variants of levitation with the batons.

  “What time is it?” I whisper.

  “About three thirty.” Ethan’s voice sounds behind me, and I am too dazed to bother to look.

  And then Ethan returns to sit down next to me and leans in to stare closely at my face. He snaps his fingers. “Hey, Gwen, wake up! You look like sh—”

  He is interrupted by a loud squealing girl’s shout.

  “Gwen! Oh my God! Gwen!”

  And with a jolt I recognize my little sister’s voice.

  In seconds Gracie tumbles into my arms, exclaiming and chattering and speaking something, pulling me by the shoulder which agitates my wound and I moan in pain—and I let her chatter away because I can hardly understand words at this point, only know the familiar little girl face that’s trying so hard to be all grown up, with her raccoon eyeliner makeup and her heart-wrenchingly intense expression.

  Maybe I’m just hallucinating Gracie?

  My sister, staring in my face, shaking me . . . framed by the background noise of splashing water, floundering teens and screams of pain.

  “Gwen!” She shakes me solidly and this time I regain awareness, wincing in pain.

  “Is it really you, Gee Four?” I mutter through cracked dry lips. “You made it! I was wondering if you chose Los Angeles—”

  “Of course I did!” Gracie says. She looks hardcore, with her hair in a tight ponytail, dark eye makeup, and two very sharp blades stuck at her belt. She also looks exhausted, sweat running down her face and neck, several minor bloody scratches, and a grim expression.

  “How did you make it past the hot zones?”

  “Don’t ask—we had a few hoverboards, and then I lost the group I was with and went with another, and then we ran into a few fights, and then—”

  Gracie chatters on in her usual quick anxious voice, and I just watch her with a sudden gathering of warmth. I put my hand up and fix a tendril of her hair that’s stuck on her forehead.

  “Hey, cut it out, Gee!” But Gracie gives me another sudden hug. That’s when she notices my automatic rifle and the wound in my arm.

  “Oh, no! What happened? You’re hurt!” Gracie’s mouth falls open.

  I try to smile and it barely comes. “It’s okay . . . never mind. What we need to do now is figure out how to get up to that shuttle.”

  And then I point to the lake and the splashing Candidates and explain to Gracie the burning baton dilemma.

  “So what can we do?” She wails, rubbing her nose angrily with the back of her hand.

  “Nothing,” Jared says, frowning, as he listens to us.

  “What we really need is a hoverboard,” Zoe says suddenly. “Then maybe we can sit on it and put the baton on top and then ride up with it, hoping it doesn’t melt the hoverboard. Would be nice to have a bowl that’s big enough to hold water and a baton inside it.”

  “Except all of the hoverboards are stuck back in the beginning of the last hot zone, where the sound dampers are.” Ethan shakes his head in disgust.

  “How do we know?” Gracie looks around at them, then stares back at me.

  “You can try calling one again, Gwen?” Zoe looks at me meaningfully.

  I nod, then take several deep breaths to quiet the ringing in my ears, and expand my lungs. Then I start to sing the sequence to call the nearest orichalcum object and auto-key it in the process. My clear voice rises powerfully over the sound of water and the human screams.

  Bad move. . . .

  In my dazed state I forget that the closest orichalcum objects are the batons—those that have been retrieved from the water.

  About five batons immediately come hovering toward me, torn away from the Candidates trying to handle them. More follow, from all directions. They pause, levitating three feet above ground, and growing incandescent pink, brighter and brighter.

  “Hey! What the—”

  Candidates begin yelling angrily.

  I stop the auto-key sequence and sing the release.

  Batons rain down to the ground.

  I am a blasted idiot.

  “I am sorry . . . really sorry!” I hurry to
say.

  “What the hell did you do that for?” a boy asks me angrily, coming up to me, and kicking one of the batons that’s still not too hot, with the rubberized toes of his running shoes. He then kicks it some more until the object rolls over the concrete ledge and back into the water.

  “Thanks a lot, now I have to dive back in and get it again.”

  “I’m so sorry . . .” I say quietly, avoiding his eyes and looking down at his shoes.

  His shoes.

  Okay, now I know I am absolutely crazy to be thinking this. But it makes sudden horrible sense.

  I get up, moving weakly, and stand up then pause, while a head rush passes.

  Ethan immediately notices. “What?” he says. “Did you think of something?”

  I nod. And then I shake my head, as though trying to shake away the crazy.

  Because it really is—absolutely bonkers crazy.

  “What?”

  “Think about it,” I mutter. “The Atlanteans would not have made it entirely impossible. The solution exists. And it has to involve us using whatever means we’ve got, whatever we already have on us—”

  I have several people’s attention now.

  “Yeah. . . . Like, what?”

  “Like,” I say, “maybe what we’re carrying and wearing.”

  “We already know the uniforms burn quickly, even when wet,” Zoe says sadly. “And they don’t hold water.”

  I slowly turn to look at her. “But shoes do!”

  “Huh?” Jared frowns.

  “Our shoes!” I say. “They hold water.”

  “I don’t get it.” Gracie stares at me with her own intense form of frown wrinkling her forehead.

  “How’s that gonna help us? The batons cannot be keyed when submerged.” Jared makes a dismissing gesture with his hand. “What are you gonna do? Stick a baton in a shoe filled with water and then what? The part that sticks out of the shoe will still burn. You can’t get a solid grip on it!”

  “But—but—” I say. “We have two shoes. If we fill both shoes with water, and stick each end of the baton in one shoe, the middle part will still be exposed to the air. Then we tie the shoes together tightly with the shoelaces—do all this while holding the whole contraption down underwater. Then, we take it out of the water, holding on to it by the shoes from both sides. The ends will still be inert and cool underwater, and you just key the middle part, even though it burns—”