Qualify

  “Holy crap! That actually makes sense . . . stoned-out-of-your-mind-but-remotely-possible kind of sense. . . . And it just might work!” Jared exclaims, his eyes coming alive in excitement.

  I nod, a kind of mental peace coming to overwhelm me in that moment. “Yeah, I really think it will work. Just be sure to keep the shoes turned and angled just right, so the toes are filled with water, for as long as possible, until you make it to the shuttle.

  Suddenly Ethan snorts, then begins to laugh. “This is wild! You know, the old-school tech geeks used to call this kind of absurd brute-force solution a kludge. It’s so sick I love it! So, who’s going to try this first?”

  But a boy nearby, who’s been listening to us, is already moving. He pulls off his sneakers, sets them on the ledge near the water, and jumps into the lake. Moments later he comes back up, with a baton in his hand.

  Wasting no time, the boy sits down on the bank, keeping the baton submerged and pressed under his knees. He sets to work filling his sneakers with water, then sticks the baton into the toe area of each shoe while underwater. Next, he ties the shoes together with shoelaces, mostly for temporary stability—since the laces will likely burn away as soon as the middle of the baton is exposed to the air.

  Carefully the boy lifts the contraption out of the water, keeping the shoes angled so that as much of the water as possible fills each one. He grips each shoe tightly with both hands, and then begins to sing the keying sequence . . . and then the rising sequence.

  We watch him in amazement.

  The baton rises, carrying the boy upward. He continues singing, holding on to his shoes, and he is now twenty, thirty feet up, and still rising. . . .

  I blink in the sun. Everyone around me stares also—everyone stuck on the ground.

  The boy is more than fifty feet up now, and keeps going.

  Several long breathless moments later, the speck that is the boy reaches the shuttle. There is a dark opening in the silver ovoid disk that must be the door portal, and he disappears inside.

  He is the first Candidate who has successfully completed the Semi-Finals.

  Chapter 40

  From this point onward, it’s a wild stampede. Bodies of Candidates bombard the water. People pull off their shoes, dive in, emerge. Moments later, Candidates rise up into the air, successfully holding on to their baton-plus-shoes bundles, as they ride the things up to the shuttle.

  Now it comes, the actual life-and-death struggle for the batons, now that we know what to do with them. . . .

  I stand still momentarily, dazed, watching others around me move. It all seems like slow motion, a strange urban melee.

  Gracie’s expression is desperate as she takes my arm—the good arm that’s unhurt—and she pulls me. “Let’s go! Gwen! We need to hurry! Everyone’s grabbing those things, there won’t be any batons left—”

  I nod, and begin taking my shoes off. Gracie pulls off her sneakers and then she watches Ethan and Jared dive into the water, followed by Zoe who jumps in holding her nose.

  Gracie’s expression is anxious. I remember how Gracie has never been much of a swimmer. When we were very little back here in California, there was a backyard pool we all used over at a neighbor’s house. Gracie tended to splash around in the shallow end when the rest of us kids swam laps or dove into the deeper bowl part.

  And now that I think about it, I don’t recall Gracie ever diving, or going underwater for more than a few floundering strokes.

  My sister cannot dive or swim submerged.

  The grim realization hits me.

  And yet, knowing we both have to do it—according to the Semi-Finals rules I cannot do it for her—I know she is gathering herself, getting ready for the inevitable.

  “Gracie!” I say, fighting my own dizziness. “Listen, take a deep breath, okay? Just hold it and push forward with your hands! It’s not that far down, okay? As soon as you grab a baton, start rising, it will come naturally—I will be right behind you—”

  “Okay . . .” she mutters. But I can see a dangerously lost look in her eyes, a kind of resignation.

  We stand at the ledge before the water, while teens jump in all around us. Water splashes up, cool spray striking us.

  “Gwen . . .” Suddenly she looks up at me. “I don’t think I can.”

  My pulse is pounding and my head is heavy like a brick, and light at the same time, while the sky seems to spin. “Yes, you can. Just hold my hand, Gracie . . . Hold my hand and we will go down together. Don’t let go until I let you go! Now, deep breaths! On the count of three!”

  We count and then we jump, holding hands, and the cold shock of water surrounds us. . . .

  I am a decent swimmer, and I start moving downward, pulling Gracie’s hand, grasping it with all my strength. But in seconds I realize that I am using my other hand—the wounded, semi-useless, numb hand—to do the bulk of the hand stroke swimming motion.

  An instant of panic fills me, together with pain and weakness, and that in turn results in an overwhelming rise of pressure in my lungs, and an urge to exhale and inhale. But I continue holding my breath and swimming downward, about seven more strokes, and thankfully Gracie is helping along with her own free hand.

  On the bottom, the light is shimmering like in an aquarium. The batons lie before us in a rapidly shrinking pile, glittering softly in the greenish-blue water and fractured sunlight. Agitated bubbles rise everywhere, from all the sudden bodies in the water. I see five other Candidates closest to us reach for the nearest batons, and kick off to rise again.

  Abruptly I feel Gracie’s hand jerking mine, and realize she is short of air and beginning the drowning panic. . . . I reach out clumsily, and take hold of the nearest baton, feeling my useless swollen fingers close around it.

  At the same time I pull Gracie’s floating, panicking body forward, propelling her deeper and right onto the pile, so that she grabs out wildly and has a chance to get one. As soon as I see she has taken hold of a baton, I let go of her hand, and start rising.

  I break air with a shuddering gasp, and tread water, seeing others break out to the surface also. I keep my baton submerged.

  Five seconds later, there’s no sign of Gracie.

  Oh, lord, oh, no . . . Gracie!

  I glance back to the street shore, and see Zoe back out of the water, and Jared sitting on the concrete ledge next to her. They are both fiddling with making their baton-and-shoe contraption. And there’s Ethan, filling his shoes with water.

  “Zoe!” I cry. “Please hold on to my baton, for just a second! I have to get my sister, she’s still under! She’s—”

  “Hey, no, it’s okay, I’ll get her . . .” Jared says immediately, and I watch his tanned body slide back into the water. “Here, watch my stuff for a sec!” He shoves his shoe-baton bundle at me—it floats in the water due to all that rubber on the shoes—and he dives in.

  “Thanks!” I mutter, but Jared’s already gone under in easy surfer strokes.

  I float in the water, holding on to the ledge with one hand, and to Jared’s floating stuff and my baton with the other. I tremble and blink in the sun glare.

  What am I doing up here? I should go back under myself . . . Gracie is down there! She is drowning . . . she needs my help!

  As my thoughts race wildly, Jared comes back up. He is pulling Gracie’s limp body after him.

  “Gracie!” I cry in a broken voice, and let go of my baton. It sinks back underwater—to hell with it—as I propel myself toward my sister.

  Jared and I pull Gracie up over the ledge, and just like that, she is suddenly sputtering and coughing up water and then screaming.

  While underwater, she must’ve stuck her baton through her belt. But now that it’s been exposed to the air, the heating reaction has started and the pain of it must have shocked her into consciousness, a really crazy-impossible form of “CPR.”

  “A-a-a-a-a!” she screams, and Jared and I pull her back into the wate
r, so that she floats, together with the baton still attached to her belt. The baton cools back down immediately. “Holy lord, that hurts!” Gracie gasps out, coughing and splashing water with one hand, and holding on to the concrete ledge. “I thought I died!”

  “Never mind, you didn’t!” I pant, while tears and water mingle in my eyes. “Just start making your shoe thing, do it now, Gracie! I’ll be right back!”

  And with a deep breath I sink back underwater.

  This time I have the use of both my hands to swim, making it somewhat easier. On the other hand, I am on my last strength, short of breath as it is, so my weakness acts to slow me down. . . .

  This time as I reach the bottom, there are just a few batons left. Apparently it took just a couple of minutes for everyone to grab theirs and reduce the great big pile to nothing. As I move through the aquarium-green water, I see three batons rolling around on the floor.

  Just three batons left!

  And four other Candidates are swimming down there with me, all headed for the batons. What happened? How did it come to this?

  I spot one baton closest to me and move toward it, stroking through the water as quickly as I can . . . which apparently isn’t quick enough. An older teen girl moves like a predatory shark before me, shoving me away with one hand, while with the other she closes in on the last baton. She kicks off and rises, and I am left reeling, holding my breath.

  One last baton remains, but it is many feet away in the reservoir, and even as I consider it, two other Candidates rush for it, and fight, tumble and struggle underwater, sending up clouds of air bubbles. . . .

  I don’t bother to stick around to watch.

  I rise back up to the surface with a kind of solemn quiet peace that comes when you know it’s all over.

  I see Gracie waiting on the reservoir ledge, squatting over her pair of shoes and baton—everything tied together and floating, all ready to go. Zoe is already rising in the air, holding her shoes awkwardly and hanging on for dear life, as she sings the sequence. I am guessing Ethan has already gone up, and so has Jared.

  I remain in the water to catch my breath, and watch Zoe, and then I look up.

  The sky is filled with Candidates, bodies retreating into dots, like tiny strange specks of rising birds as they approach the available shuttles.

  Meanwhile the Candidates who remain on the ground are still jumping into the water, most of them not realizing yet that they are all done and out of the running.

  And then it occurs to me, Oh, no! Gracie is the last person left with a baton, she is alone and vulnerable.

  My pulse pounds and heartbeat goes into overdrive as I swim the few strokes to reach the shore, and grab the ledge. My rifle is still lying there a few feet away. I should probably take it now. . . .

  “Gracie!” I exclaim, and my voice is trembling. “What are you doing? Go!”

  My sister stares at me, and in a flash she understands. “Where is your baton?” she screams at me. “Gwen! Where is it? Where is your baton?”

  “Shut up, idiot!” I scream back, and then I pull myself out of the water with one good hand, and end up on my belly. “Go! Right now! Damn you, you little idiot, go!”

  “No! I am not leaving without you!”

  “Yes, you are!” I grab her, shake her, so that we both end up rolling on the concrete, and her shoe-wrapped baton gets pulled out of the water.

  Gracie begins to cry, sobbing wildly, holding on to me.

  It’s then that we hear the first shots being fired.

  Several late arrivals in possession of Blue Quadrant firearms have gotten the grim picture. And they are firing up at those Candidates who are airborne.

  Screams come, from high up in the air, followed by several falling bodies. Automatic weapons on the ground fire volleys of desperate rounds, and many hit their targets. . . .

  They’re so focused on the people escaping to the skies that they haven’t noticed yet that there’s one last baton here on the ground, next to Gracie.

  I crawl on my belly and take hold of the automatic rifle, while holding on to Gracie who is still a weeping mess and in no condition to act. I check the magazine and reload the rifle, make sure the safety is in the correct position, and keep my trembling fingers near the trigger.

  I haven’t had to fire it yet, but after four weeks of weapons training I can at least perform the basics—if I have to. This way I can at least buy Gracie a few precious moments once she pulls herself together enough to sing the keying sequence.

  Next to us a body falls. . . . A dead boy still holds on to his shoes while the water pours out, and the baton inside it is already smoking—just like Gracie’s.

  “There’s my baton!” I exclaim. “Quickly, refill the water in yours, and go! I’m right behind you!”

  Gracie nods, still sniffling, clearing her throat, and plunges her shoes and baton into the water.

  “Go! Go! Go!” I scream, as I toss away the rifle over the ledge into the reservoir, then desperately fling my body forward and grab the fallen dead boy’s contraption with both hands. Meanwhile, Gracie begins singing the keying sequence, her voice cracking a few times, loses it completely, then restarts again.

  There’s no time to make my own new “shoe-baton holder.” I plunge the existing one into the water to refill it the best I can, then pull it out, and sing the keying notes as I grab the big rubber shoes of the dead boy, sloshing with water. . . .

  Shots ring out all around us, and several other Candidates are running to grab at us as we hover and rise in the air.

  I feel someone pull at my own legs, and I kick out . . . and then I am twenty feet in the air and rising, with Gracie directly overhead.

  Vertigo takes hold of me, and the world is turning like a carousel. My head goes into a wild spin, while I continue rising, through the explosions and bullets, my eyes narrowed against the sky and sun and only Gracie’s dark shadow directly above . . . while my lips mouth the words, this time directed only at myself.

  Go . . . Go . . . Go . . .

  Just go.

  We are about seventy-five feet up in the air when I realize the muscles in my arms are erupting in fine spasm-tremors. There’s a sharp ripping agony in my armpits, and my wounded arm cannot fully support me. My hold on both the shoes begins to slip. . . . Furthermore, the shoelaces tying the two shoes together have now burned away, because the middle portion of the baton exposed to the air is red-hot.

  That’s when I hear Gracie screaming.

  And the next instant, she plummets on top of me.

  Whatever has just happened, Gracie is no longer supported by her own baton. Her panic reflex causes her to grasp at me, and as a result I almost lose hold of my baton also.

  Gracie screams and holds on to me around my neck and waist. We wobble in the air, like two skydivers trying to share one parachute.

  My hold on the baton slips, and I have no idea what I do, but as my one hand slips I grab out wildly, and suddenly there is no shoe on one side. It goes spinning down.

  Instead, my fingers clasp the orichalcum surface that’s newly exposed to the air, and immediately I feel warmth followed by severe heat and then . . . white-hot agony.

  I scream from the pain in pure instinct.

  The pain, it is indescribable. My palm, my fingers, everything is on fire.

  This is happening to the hand that’s attached to my one good arm.

  And yet, because I know it is the only thing holding me—and Gracie—because Gracie is hugging me in a choke-hold, I do not let go.

  The Atlantean shuttle—one of the last ones hovering over downtown L.A., looms before us.

  We are now a mere twenty feet from the hatch opening, a black soothing void against grey-silver. Gracie’s own abandoned incandescent baton is bobbing in the air right near the opening, like a piece of aerial flotsam.

  Screaming, I try to force my mind, to force my vocal chords to sing. I have to sing the new sequence to change di
rection and bring us closer in and enter the hatch. If I don’t—we miss the shuttle and it will all be for nothing, and we will plummet anyway.

  I force myself to shut up. And suddenly, in my own silence and Gracie’s whimpering, I can hear a crackle and smell my hand smoking, charred near the bone.

  I will not let go.

  With a gasping breath, I open my mouth and I sing.

  I put all my being, all the remainder of my drowning self, into the note sequence to stop the ascent and instead move forward.

  We pause the rise and slowly hover in the direction of the shuttle opening.

  Five feet . . . three feet . . . one. . . . There goes Gracie’s baton. . . . Now, just a few inches more. . . .

  My voice breaks. There is now only tearing wind at this altitude, and silence.

  Do not let go.

  At the doorway a man stands, leaning into the wind, watching us approach. I see him, a wild tangle of long metallic-gold hair, lapis-blue eyes lined with sharp darkness of kohl. A stark chiseled face stilled in intensity. Around his uniform sleeve, a black armband.

  Aeson Kass stands before us at the opening of the shuttle. As we levitate within reach, he puts out his bare hand and places it directly upon the incandescent white middle of my baton.

  He never flinches as he makes contact with the fire, simply pulls us inward into the soothing darkness.

  “You can let go now,” he says softly, staring directly into my eyes.

  And as my mind plummets into darkness, I do as he says.

  Chapter 41

  I wake up out of a deep mind fog into soothing sterile twilight.

  Such an impossible sense of peace.

  Amazingly there is no pain, nothing at all. It’s as if everything has been erased into a bad dream that happened somewhere far away and long ago.

  I lie on a soft bed—or what feels like a bed, or maybe a cot. There’s a comfortable pillow under my head. There’s a soft hum of equipment in the background. What appears to be a hospital curtain on rollers is hanging from overhead on one side to give my bed-space privacy.

  My body is relaxed . . . everything, all my limbs, I can feel them.