Deadzone

  The first thing Molly noticed upon arriving back in camp was Javi's shelter. He had made a sort of lean-to with the emergency blankets, the rope, and a few long branches broken off from the trees. Anna, Kira, and Akiko had dug a half-dozen deep holes near the tallest trees and Anna was trying to explain to them that groundwater should fill the holes by morning.

  The sound of rustling caught their attention; something was approaching the campsite from the far end of the clearing.

  Javi pulled out his knife, and Molly picked up a stick, holding it like a bat and ready to swing.

  "Relax, everyone, it's just me," Yoshi said, walking into camp. "I know I'm not the one you wanted to see coming back here."

  Anna gave a half smile. "Of course you are. Especially if you tell us you found food."

  Yoshi's chest heaved and fell. That was his answer.

  Molly lowered her stick. "No food?"

  He shrugged. "I found tracks, but the yokaze blew them to dust before I could find the animal that made them. I'll try again in the morning."

  "That's fine," Anna said. "What we really need is water. A few days without food is no big deal."

  Javi made a sound in his throat that said he disagreed.

  Molly crossed the camp to her backpack and pulled out two water bottles, two packaged meals from the pilot's emergency box, and what remained of the bag of candy. "Dinner is served," she said. "We'll have to divide it into seven equal parts."

  "Six," Anna corrected her. "Without Oliver, it's six equal parts."

  Gloom returned to the camp, and though everyone ate and drank their share, there was little conversation before they settled in for what Molly feared would be a long and sleepless night.

  Yoshi would never admit it aloud, but he didn't mind doing the night watch. He was sick of translating for the sisters, and even of making up creative translations when accuracy wasn't a priority. He knew Anna watched him a lot, and he had a pretty good idea why. Girls often watched him ... until they got to know him better. Then they ran. Javi and Molly were all right, but he couldn't quite figure them out. Molly treated him the same as everyone else, like he was part of their team. What was that all about? And Javi kept trying to be his friend, which Yoshi especially didn't understand.

  So at least when the camp settled down for the night, Yoshi could let his mind rest, too. Most of the time, he took a longer watch than the others, but he could handle it.

  What he couldn't handle was having to think about facing the group again tomorrow morning if he came back without any food. It was one thing at home to look at the disappointment on his father's face. Yoshi could shrug that off without a second thought. But he knew how hungry his teammates were. They were depending on him.

  "You're my only son," his father once told him. "People will depend on you to carry on the family name with honor and pride. Why can't you respect that?"

  "Because it doesn't matter," Yoshi had said. "It's just a name. Maybe I should take Mother's last name? Would you rest easy then?"

  That had certainly gotten a response. Yoshi was good at pushing his father's buttons. It was slightly better than suffering the disapproving silence the man projected at all other times.

  But it was different with the team. They needed him, and they made no secret of it. Somehow, that made him want to come through for them. He felt ... responsible.

  It was a new feeling for him.

  He walked around the perimeter of the camp, listening for any signs of danger and watching for predators, but watching just as carefully for any signs of a cloaking device in the area, even though he wasn't exactly sure how to spot something that was by definition nearly impossible to see. Yoshi's current plan was simple: If it didn't look natural, kill it. That seemed easy enough to remember.

  An hour later, everything remained just as quiet as it had when everyone first fell asleep. He was a little worried about Molly. She had a hand on the battery for warmth, but that hand was shaking, and he saw her mumble in her sleep. He couldn't hear anything she was saying, but it was probably nighttime gibberish anyway. If she kept on this way, she'd wake up even more exhausted than she'd been before falling asleep.

  He reached out to touch her shoulder, just to make sure she was okay. The instant he did, she sat up, eyes wide and ready to take a swing. Hoping to avoid an inconvenient black eye, Yoshi grabbed her hand, and hissed, "It's me; it's okay. Settle down!"

  She saw him, then her expression calmed. "Yoshi, I'm sorry. What's wrong?"

  "You looked like you were having a bad dream."

  "Oh." Molly sighed. "I guess I was."

  After a moment of awkward silence, Yoshi asked, "Want to talk about it?" He figured that was the sort of thing teammates were supposed to ask.

  Molly closed her eyes. "It was just so vivid. I was back on the plane. But it wasn't exactly the same plane, I don't think, and I was--"

  Yoshi shushed her.

  "Really?" Molly looked offended at being cut off.

  "Did you hear that?"

  She gave him a skeptical look. "The yokaze?"

  "No. Something else." Yoshi checked the flashlight tucked into the waist of his pants. "I'm going after it."

  "What? In the middle of the night?"

  "I'm not tired, and it's time for your watch anyway. I'll be back."

  Molly got to her feet. "Your job is to protect this camp. You can't leave!"

  He turned to her, feeling his temper rise. "And you can't tell me what to do."

  "I'm the leader of this team. If I tell you not to go, you have to do what I say!"

  "Under your leadership, almost every member of this team was nearly killed yesterday, and we lost Oliver. So you'll forgive me if I decide for myself just how I'll protect this camp."

  "Don't go," Molly said. "Please, Yoshi. Our team can't take another loss."

  "Maybe he wasn't lost, Molly. What if we just left him? That was your choice!"

  Based on her reaction, Yoshi might as well have run her through with his sword. That was how wounded she looked. He hadn't meant it. None of what happened yesterday was Molly's fault. If he'd been the leader, he probably would have made every decision Molly had. Until now. He had heard a sound, and he wasn't going to sit around waiting for it to attack his sleeping teammates.

  He pulled out his sword but looked back long enough to say, "I'm sorry for what I just said. You didn't deserve that." Then he walked out of the camp.

  Both moons were high in the night sky, though midori, the green one, would sink over the horizon first, leaving them with an aka-tinted morning. He wasn't sure he was ready to subscribe to Molly's color theory, but he hoped that was a good sign. His eyes were already adjusted to the low light, so it wasn't hard to find the trail he'd been looking for.

  Just as he'd suspected, the tracks were similar to those he'd seen before: big claws with a long tail that dragged on the ground. They were fresh, and Yoshi figured the creature who'd made them was nocturnal. Nocturnal, large, and nearby.

  Its trail circled most of the way around the camp, leading Yoshi away from the blood sand and toward another clump of trees down a small hill. He heard rattling on either side of him, which was unnerving enough that he was tempted to go back to camp. Except he couldn't, not after the way he'd talked to Molly.

  Sometimes he could be such a jerk. He knew how awful she already felt. Then he had to go and make it worse. He wouldn't blame her if she was already gathering up the rest of her team and telling them to break camp without him, to leave before he got back. That'd be exactly what he deserved.

  Ahead of him, a twig snapped, and he was sure he caught the sound of a low growl carrying through the air. He gripped his sword with both hands. Whatever was out there, he hoped it tasted better than those scorpions did.

  Using the light of the moons, Yoshi followed the tracks. Sand was still collapsing inward from the outer edges of the prints. The creature was only seconds ahead of him, somewhere in the brush.

  Yoshi heard the growl a
gain and stood still, keeping his sword ready for anything, and hoping the anything was on the scale of a large squirrel.

  But he knew it wasn't.

  The creature came from behind. Yoshi had started to turn, but the claw still swiped down his right arm, nearly forcing him to drop his sword. He grunted in pain and rotated his arm so the sharp edge of the sword would face the creature when he swung backward. He struck the animal's flesh but was knocked facedown before he could do any real damage.

  It was some kind of large cat, like a mountain lion but with green spots that might've looked cartoonish in any place outside the rift. Here, those spots were just plain scary.

  A paw came down on Yoshi's shoulder, but he rolled into the creature's weight, knocking it off balance. As soon as he freed his sword from beneath him, he struck upward. It was a good thing he did, because when the animal swiped again, claws out, it only grazed past Yoshi's arm.

  Yoshi drew up his knees and kicked out, connecting with the animal, and took one more swipe with the sword. He knew he'd done some damage, but it also made the animal angrier, which was going to be a problem.

  This time, Yoshi turned his sword sideways, wrapping both hands around the blunt edge of the blade and pushing it upward, just as the cat leaped on top of him. The sword protected Yoshi from the cat's sharp-toothed mouth the first time, but it reared back and prepared to come at Yoshi again.

  A loud squawk sounded overhead, distracting the cat. It looked up at the sky and snarled, then turned back to Yoshi. With one swipe of the cat's paw, Yoshi's sword clattered onto the ground. He felt around for it, but it had fallen out of reach.

  The cat roared at Yoshi. Its breath was warm and smelled of rot. He closed his eyes, still straining to grab his sword. Then, suddenly, the weight of the cat lifted off him.

  Yoshi opened his eyes. The bird that had squawked was carrying the cat into the air. Silhouetted against aka, only the struggling cat and the tip of a giant wing were visible as the bird flew away.

  Yoshi leaned his head back on the ground to catch his breath. As the adrenaline left him, he felt weak and tired. He was so tired, in fact, that he failed to hear the clicking sounds until it was too late.

  He tried to roll away, but he was already surrounded and a stinger plunged deep into his right leg.

  Suddenly, Yoshi was even more tired. As his eyes closed, he knew he was in serious trouble.

  For several minutes after Yoshi left camp, Molly had stood there, just staring in the direction he'd left. Half of her expected he would come right back, and the other half debated what to do if he didn't. She was so angry about the things he'd said that she wasn't entirely sure she wanted him back at all.

  Of course she did. But he owed her a big apology.

  As the minutes ticked away in her head, Molly finally had to face the fact that Yoshi wasn't returning, at least, not until he was ready to do it. Anyway, it wouldn't be a bad thing if he came back with food. Let him blow off his steam in a way that benefitted the group.

  A few minutes after that, however, she heard a chilling sound in the not-distant-enough distance. It was the screech of a bird of prey--a big one.

  "What was that?" Javi asked groggily.

  "I don't know," she said. "But Yoshi's out there."

  Together, they woke up Anna, and were only midway through their explanation before they heard Kira's worried voice. "Yoshi?"

  "Abunai," Anna said. It was probably the wrong way to use the Japanese word for "dangerous," but it got the point across. Kira woke Akiko, and they both immediately stood, indicating their willingness to go look for Yoshi. Molly almost wished Yoshi were here to see this, how eager his teammates were to help him, even when he didn't want it.

  "We should all go together," Molly said. "No more splitting up."

  They started out in the direction Yoshi had gone. "Why would he risk hunting in the middle of the night?" Anna asked.

  "He was ... angry with me," Molly mumbled. "We had a bit of a fight."

  "Oh, right," Anna said, as if she already knew why Yoshi might be angry. But Molly felt Yoshi's frustrations had to be about more than what had happened to Oliver. He'd been moody all day--more than usual, even.

  "Yoshi." Kira had turned on her flashlight and pointed the beam at tracks in the dirt: Yoshi's sneakers. Beside them were other tracks, those of some sort of large animal. Molly didn't like that. Was Yoshi stalking the animal, or the other way around?

  Kira led the way forward, followed by Javi, who was holding out his knife much the way Yoshi wielded his sword, but Molly saw his hand was shaking. She took up the rear. Nobody on her team was getting left behind this time. No one.

  The trail took them around the ridge of a large mound of dirt. Leafless bushes lined their path, too small and bare too hide anything. If a predator was ahead, Molly knew in her gut that Yoshi had already found it. Or it had already found Yoshi. Her stomach knotted with worry.

  Not much farther on, Kira cried out, "Yoshi!" and ran forward. The entire team followed, and by the time Molly got there, everyone else had surrounded him.

  Yoshi was lying on his back, eyes closed, and with his sword just out of reach. One arm had a long claw mark from his bicep past his elbow, and a second claw mark went sideways across his shoulder, but the rest of him seemed intact. So why was he so terribly still?

  "Yoshi?" Akiko whispered. Even without looking at her, Molly could tell she was crying.

  Anna knelt beside Yoshi and put her head down on his chest, listening for his heartbeat. "He's alive," she said. Then she sat up and shook his uninjured shoulder. "Yoshi, wake up!"

  He groaned, and his eyes fluttered, but they didn't open.

  Javi kicked lightly at Yoshi's feet. "I'm going to take your sword and use it to saw wood. If you don't want me to do that, you have five seconds to tell me no."

  Yoshi mumbled something, but his eyes were still closed.

  "That doesn't count as a no," Javi teased. "After I use your priceless Japanese sword like a cheap metal saw, I'm going to clean it with water. Not oil, just the next batch of dirty, grimy desert water Anna finds for us. I sure hope it doesn't rust."

  Yoshi mumbled again and his right eye twitched.

  Anna smiled. "Once we're home, we're going to tell your father that you only took the sword from Japan because you were mad at him, and that you're not giving it back unless he lets you stay with us in America."

  "Can't stay in America," Yoshi said. "Mom doesn't want me. No one wants me. Permanently."

  Silence fell over the team, who all looked at Molly as if she should know what he was talking about. The only one who didn't look at her was Javi. He did know what Yoshi meant, Molly realized.

  "Let's give him time to rest," Javi said. "I think he's fine."

  But Yoshi wasn't finished. This time his eyes fluttered open. He looked up at the sky overhead and he said, "We were only supposed to take three sour candies, but I took four. I'm sorry. And I changed my grades on the computer when the school secretary left for the fire drill, but that was her fault because she should have figured out I was the one who pulled the alarm. And, Javi, I know you farted on the blood sand. It really smelled bad, dude."

  "He's delirious," Molly said. "Probably dehydrated."

  "We're all dehydrated, but none of the rest of us is talking like this," Anna said.

  Javi smiled. "You always talk like this, Anna!"

  She looked taken aback at first, but quickly recovered. "Hey, Yoshi, tell us your most embarrassing story. Something really crazy!"

  "He's not a toy for us to mess with," Molly said. "He's just dehydrated. Help me sit him up."

  But maybe it was more than that. Akiko and Kira were near Yoshi's feet, and when they sat him up, Kira said his name again and then gestured for Molly to come look at what she was seeing. She shone the flashlight on a red welt on the side of his calf with a lighter dot in the center of the welt.

  "I'll bet that's a scorpion sting. Cool!" Anna quickly corrected herself.
"I'm not glad to see it. It's just that we were wondering what a launch scorpion sting does. I think it's like a truth serum."

  "You're pretty," Yoshi said, staring at Anna. Then his eyes drifted to Kira and Akiko. "And you're pretty, and you are." Next he looked at Javi. "And you're a dude."

  "Get him to his feet," Molly said. "I'd feel better if we were back at camp for the rest of the night."

  Javi wrapped one of Yoshi's arms around his neck, and Molly took the other to lift Yoshi to his feet. Yoshi's head drifted to Molly. "I've been kicked off my family's team. Why am I on yours?"

  Molly stopped and made sure Yoshi was paying attention to her. "We need you on Team Killbot, Yoshi. We want you to be one of us."

  He grinned like a four-year-old who'd just been given a sucker. "You're pretty, too."

  "Let's go," Molly said, leading the way as they dragged Yoshi back to camp.

  Midori was nearly finished sinking below the horizon once they arrived. Everyone was tired, yet no one was going back to sleep except for Yoshi, who needed to sleep off the effects of the scorpion poison.

  Anna offered to wrap his arm and shoulder with the emergency bandages Molly had been carrying, and as she did, she said, "He probably won't remember much of this when he comes to. Do we tell him what he said?"

  "No," everyone agreed. Even Kira and Akiko added in their chorus of "no," though they couldn't have known what they were agreeing to.

  So when Yoshi awoke a couple of hours later, everyone was stone-faced when he asked, "How did I get back to camp?"

  "We carried you here," Javi said.

  "Thanks." After some long stretches, Yoshi took a seat beside Kira near their stack of wood that had yet to become a campfire. He screwed up his face as if trying to remember something. "Did we ... talk?"

  "I talked," Molly said. "You were delirious."

  "Oh." Yoshi looked up at Molly. "I thought you told me ... Well, I just ... I think I need to apologize for last night."

  Molly nodded back at him. As far as she was concerned, that was good enough.

  Kira said something to Yoshi and he replied in Japanese, then turned to the group. "She wanted to know about last night's hunt, and I think you all should hear this." He held up his bandaged arm. "The animal that did this to me was like a cheetah. I figure it was at least eighty pounds. The truth is, it probably would've won our fight, except it was carried off by some giant bird."