The Tomb--A Novel

  A groan eked out of her as she lifted. She took a few steps, dragging him as best she could.

  His heavy, motionless body was dead weight.

  She took only seven hurried steps before she had to stop and rest. “Oh, come on.” She barely caught her breath, then lifted, groaned, and pushed forward. Again, she managed about seven steps before she was out of breath.

  In the hallway, her efforts were accompanied by the constant sound of the cart’s screeching wheels.

  Sweat dripped from Kiva’s face.

  Lift.

  Groan.

  stepstepstepstepstepstepstep

  Drop.

  Breathe.

  Lift.

  Groan.

  stepstepstepstepstepstepstep

  Drop.

  Breathe.

  Halfway there, her arm and shoulder and back muscles lit up. With each step, they burned more and more as she continued to inch closer to the shuttle.

  At least the discomfort helped distract her from the worry that she was probably not making faster progress than Kubota screeching his way back to the dining hall.

  The one bright spot was that her route to the Tomb was far shorter.

  She dropped Seth, breathed, and looked up.

  The airlock was close. One great push and she would reach it.

  “Come on. You can do it.”

  Lift.

  Groan.

  stepstepstepstepstepstepstepstepstepstepstepstep

  “AUUUGGGGHHHH!”

  Stepstepstepstepstep

  Drop.

  Kiva fell to her knees, panting.

  The airlock.

  She had done it.

  She lifted Seth’s legs over the threshold, crawled past, then dragged him inside the Tomb.

  She took a moment to catch her breath.

  He was safe.

  And she was exhausted.

  But there was still the business with the tractor beam.

  Kiva ran back onto the Pinatubo and paused to listen. The screeching was fainter, but still steady.

  She headed for the bridge and went directly to the chair that appeared to be the main control panel, hoping the voice command was activated. “Access main controls for subordinate systems.”

  Nothing.

  She scanned the screen for the voice command icon, but didn’t find it.

  “Okay, you can do this.” She pulled up the subordinate systems menu and did a quick search for tractor beam.

  “Come on, come on.” The subordinate systems appeared to be bundled. She couldn’t turn off just one.

  The entire cluster would have to be deactivated.

  “Well, let’s hope I’m not turning off anything very important.”

  Kiva keyed in the sequence, grateful she had taken time to memorize it.

  Words popped up on the screen:

  CONFIRM YOUR COMMAND. IF DEACTIVATED, ALL SUBORDINATE SYSTEMS WILL REQUIRE TEN MINUTES TO RESTART.

  Kiva hit the console. “Gods, just do it!”

  SUBORDINATE SYSTEMS WILL BE DEACTIVATED IN—

  The voice command, a male voice not near as calm as Hermione, began to count down.

  “Ten, nine, eight…”

  “Now you decide to speak?”

  The loud voice echoed in the hallway as the countdown transmitted all over the ship.

  “Seven, six, five…”

  Kiva bolted from the chair.

  In the corridor, she froze.

  “Four, three…”

  The screeching had stopped.

  “Two, one.…”

  An openmouthed Kubota stood at the end of the hallway, staring at her with those bugged-out eyes.

  “Subordinate systems deactivating.”

  Time to run.

  14

  Kiva took one step and suddenly found herself midair, floundering as she floated upward. “Since when is gravity considered subordinate?” Her hands flattened against the ceiling as she tried to push herself back down, to no avail. The weightless pendant on her necklace obscured a portion of her view as she glanced down the hallway.

  Kubota was far more well versed at a gravity-free environment, because he pushed off and gained a few feet in less than a second.

  She tried to turn and head for the Tomb, but couldn’t reach either side, only able to scrabble along the ceiling hand by hand.

  Kubota yelled, “You’d really leave here without your boyfriend?”

  “He’s not my boyfriend. And—” She stopped before adding that Seth was no longer on the Pinatubo. Her eyes widened as she realized how quickly the weightless Kubota gained ground. “I will leave him if I have to.”

  “You can be together. There’s a torpor chamber for you too.”

  She kept moving, hoping to distract him. “You never meant for us to leave here.”

  “I take care of the True.”

  Kiva swallowed.

  The man thought that he was smarter than everyone else. And he probably was. But that was also his weakness. He didn’t expect anyone to outthink him. Another weakness was his temperament. And he was perfectly content to live an infinite, solitary existence with only a cat for company. Proof in itself he was unstable.

  She yelled at him without looking back. “I’m not a True. My mother was never meant to be on the Krakatoa.”

  “I looked up Fai Maxwell. She’s on the manifest.”

  “Seth lied. He thought you might have an issue with my mother not being a True.” Kiva glanced back.

  Kubota’s face reddened. “Not a True?” He pushed off, moving fast.

  Kiva’s heartbeat sped up, but she kept going.

  As he passed the hall of torpor chambers, Kubota called, “You should be in there, with them! You belong with the liars. The usurpers.”

  “You mean I should be dead.” Kiva held her breath.

  “Yes! You should be dead!”

  Something sharp poked Kiva’s leg. “Ow!”

  A hissing, claws-out Cleo floated spread-eagled past her.

  No time to think, Kiva snatched the cat. Cleo’s claws sank into her arm through her sleeve, but Kiva grimaced and held on tight. She pulled the knife out of her waistband and held it to the squirming cat’s throat.

  “No!” Kubota paused where he was, about ten feet away. “Don’t you dare hurt Cleo!”

  With both hands full and the cat still clawing any skin within reach, Kiva found her face smashed against the ceiling. “Then let me leave.”

  Kubota hesitated, as if weighing which mattered more: his pet’s deliverance or Kiva’s demise?

  Kiva hoped she had guessed right.

  “You’re not taking the HCU.”

  “I know.” But I am taking Seth.

  “You won’t do it.”

  “Do what?”

  “You won’t leave your boyfriend.” He waved a thumb behind him. “You can’t bear the thought of me sealing him away. You’ll get me to go in there, maybe you’ll put me in a chamber.” He smiled. “But it won’t work. I’m smarter than you, child. You won’t go. You don’t have it in you.”

  Kiva heard a beep from somewhere and remembered that she had less than ten minutes before Kubota could reactivate the tractor beam. Perhaps far less, depending on how much time she’d wasted floating around.

  He was distracting her, cutting into her escape time.

  Was there even enough left to get away?

  As if he could read her mind, he laughed. “You’ll never leave.”

  “Watch me.” She pried Cleo’s claws out of her skin and pinned the struggling cat under one arm. Then she stabbed the knife at the wall and pushed off toward the shuttle.

  “Nooo!”

  Kiva did not look back. Her heart pounded and sweat ran down her face as she used the knife to gain purchase. With one last heave, she floated through the airlock door where a motionless Seth hovered against the ceiling.

  She pushed the cat toward him, then reached down with one foot and kicked the door lock. The door slid shut. Imme
diately, Kiva hit the floor, along with Seth and a yowling Cleo.

  “That hurt.” She got to her feet, jumped over Seth’s prone body, and sprinted to the bridge. She hit the voice command icon and yelled, “Engage engines! Continue plotted course to Vesuvius!”

  She held her breath and hoped her wording was good enough for Hermione.

  “Engaging engines. Resuming course to Vesuvius.”

  The shuttle began to move.

  Kiva sat down, unsure what to do next. Time was still running out. “Go faster.”

  “Increasing speed.”

  The initial thrust of the engine knocked Kiva into the back of the chair.

  “Woohoo! I love you, Hermione!”

  “Request not understood.”

  Kiva laughed and threw her fists into the air, then ran out to the glass wall and watched the Pinatubo recede. But to be sure, she went back to the bridge to monitor their progress for a little while more. She watched as their flashing green dot quickly left Pinatubo’s red dot in the dust. “I did it. I actually did it.”

  “Request not understood.”

  Kiva resisted switching off Hermione, who certainly had proven her worth in the last minutes or so. She sat down in the chair. “Notify me if any ship gets within five minutes of tractor beam range.”

  “Notification alarm set.”

  “Meow?” Cleo seemed recovered from her bout with weightlessness and rubbed against Kiva’s legs.

  Despite the fact her arms stung with scratches, Kiva picked the cat up. “I forgive you. Come on, let’s go check on Sleeping Beauty.”

  Seth was exactly where he’d fallen.

  To make sure he was breathing, she set a hand on his chest, which rose and fell at a very slow pace. “You are seriously asleep.” She checked his pulse, slow but strong, and decided to get him as far as his cabin. Dragging him there was out of the question; she was too tired. Rolling him would take longer but might not be as hard.

  Since she was in no rush, she pushed on Seth’s back.

  His shirt was wet.

  Red stickiness dotted her palm and fingers. “What?” She lifted up his shirt and winced. “Oh no.”

  Several cuts on his lower back oozed blood; two, possibly three of them, large enough to require stitches. The knife was halfway out of his waistband, blade against his skin. The injuries must have happened as she dragged him. Or when he fell from the ceiling. Maybe a combination of both.

  She sighed and set the knife on the floor. “I’m so sorry.”

  Cleo meowed.

  “I can fix him,” Kiva said. “Or at least give it a good try.” Seth’s cabin was closer than hers, and she went straight to the bathroom, hoping for some kind of a medical kit. A hinged metal box, shiny red cross running across the top, sat on in the bottom drawer of the cabinet.

  Untouched, neat rows of bandages and gauze made up the top row. She lifted that off, revealing small brown bottles that rattled when she shook them. Antibiotics might be a good idea; his skin might have been dirty from the lake water.

  Finally, Kiva actually knew helpful, tangible things. “Thank you, Fai.” But there was no telling how long until he woke up, and until then, he couldn’t take a pill. She dug farther and found liquid antibiotics and syringes. “Perfect.” At the very bottom lay the things needed to stitch him up.

  Quickly, she shoved everything back in the box. The top wouldn’t shut, so she cradled the whole thing under one arm, grabbed the pillow and blanket off the bed, and hurried back to Seth.

  Kiva dropped to her knees beside him. “Ready.” She gently pulled his shirt off over his head and tossed it aside. She dragged him closer to the wall, trying to ignore how strange it felt to be touching his warm, bare chest and back. She propped him up on his right side facing the wall, then stuck the folded pillow in between.

  She put on a pair of rubber gloves, then opened up a packet of antiseptic. “If you were awake, I’d tell you this is going to sting.” She wiped the worst of the cuts, then opened up more sterile antiseptic packets until all the cuts and abrasions were clean. She took a moment to clean the scratches on her own arms, just to be safe.

  Cleo sniffed at the growing pile of debris.

  Kiva frowned. “You need to go away.” After locking the cat in her cabin, she stripped off the gloves and snapped on a new pair. Once again, she knelt beside Seth again. “Now…”

  As she unwrapped the needle and threaded it, she considered the fact that what she was about to do was something she’d done only in virtual reality. Would the ability even translate to the real world?

  There was only one way to find out.

  “I am so glad you’re asleep.” Was it better to start with one of the smaller cuts and work her way to the biggest one? “No. You can do this.” Besides, there was the possibility he might wake up before it was over. Better to get the worst out of the way while he was definitely still under and feeling no pain.

  She bit her bottom lip as her hands hovered above the largest gash. “I’ve got this. It’s no different than a pig.”

  Seth probably wouldn’t appreciate the comparison.

  “Stop stalling.” After one deep breath, she pierced the skin.

  Seth didn’t move.

  Kiva blew out.

  If that didn’t wake him up, nothing would. “Okay. Neat and even.” She pushed the needle through. His skin seemed more fragile than any she’d worked on. Maybe that would be the only difference between reality and Alexandria.

  Either way, one stitch done.

  The second matched the first precisely. Her confidence grew as she progressed, to the point that she was almost disappointed that only six stitches were needed to close the wound.

  “One down.” After tying it off, she moved on to the next.

  That cut needed but four stitches, and the last only two.

  A quick scrutiny of the other cuts determined they would heal okay without stitches.

  She carefully set bandages over all the cuts. “Done.”

  Seth’s back was not pretty, but at least his injuries were clean and would heal well with little danger of infection.

  Kiva plucked a syringe out of the box, unwrapped it, and filled it from one of the bottles of antibiotics.

  She frowned.

  His arm was a good place, but there was a better one.

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this.” She drew Seth’s pants down just far enough to reveal a patch of skin on his hip that she wiped with antiseptic. Then, syringe cocked in one hand, she pinched a thick bit of skin in her fingers, inserted the needle, and pushed the plunger.

  She yanked his pants back up, then set the syringe down and stripped off the gloves. “I actually did it.”

  A clump of his hair had fallen forward and hid his eyes.

  She pushed it aside and tilted him back a little more so that it wouldn’t happen again. As she covered him with the blanket, tucking it up around his chin, her hand brushed his cheek. The skin was rough.

  From not shaving?

  Her fingertips drifted down to his strong jaw, then further still, until they rested on his muscular shoulder.

  A sigh escaped her.

  While she had been sheltered in Alexandria, he had been in the real world.

  In that time, he had grown up.

  For all intents and purposes, she had remained a child.

  Before she could stop herself, her lips pressed to his cheek. Her words were but a whisper on his warm skin. “Why did you leave me there?”

  No one heard nor answered.

  Gently, she set his head on the floor, which looked extremely uncomfortable. He’d been through enough. “That’s no good.” She sat against the wall next to him and put his head in her lap, his nose nearly poking her in the belly. “Better.” She would go get the pillow from her room before he woke.

  But first, a moment to rest. Her eyes closed. “Just for a minute.”

  The minute passed. Then another.

  Sleep took over, her breath
s soon even and deep.

  And the nightmare began.

  15

  The lake was so warm. Kiva waded in, face tilted upward to soak in the bright sun. She called “Come on!” and braced herself for the inevitable splash.

  None came.

  She turned.

  The grass-covered slope was empty.

  “Seth?” Goose bumps rose on her arms. “It’s not funny.”

  Bubbles popped on the surface a few feet away.

  She smiled. “Two can play at that game.”

  Kiva inhaled and plunged beneath the surface, arms groping.

  Where was he?

  Her eyes burned and she shut them.

  She grasped something and blinked them open.

  Seth’s bloated corpse floated inches away from her, his dark, lifeless eyes staring at her as orange fish nibbled bits of flesh off his face.

  She screamed.

  “Kiva. Kiva!”

  Her eyes opened.

  She blinked, taking in the white hallway, the lights. Her gaze went down.

  Seth looked up at her and gripped her shoulder. “Nightmare?”

  She wiped her mouth, hoping she hadn’t been drooling. “Yeah.”

  He set an elbow down to prop himself up, but grimaced. “Ah!” He started to reach for his lower back, but hissed in pain and dropped his head back in her lap.

  “Careful!” Kiva set a hand on his top shoulder. “Here. Can you roll onto your stomach?”

  “My back hurts.”

  “I know. Try to stay off it.”

  He slowly rolled onto his front and laid his head on his arms, the blanket down by his waist.

  “Lift up.” Kiva slid the pillow under his head. “Better?”

  “Thanks.” He laid his left cheek on the pillow. “What happened?”

  Kiva sat down and rummaged in the medical box, looking for some pills to help with the pain. “Before or after the cookies knocked you out?”

  He blinked. “Are you serious?”

  “Kubota laced them with something.”

  He groaned. “How could I be so—”

  “Don’t feel bad.”

  “They knocked you out too?”

  She shook her head. “I still felt sick. Too sick to eat them. I faked it and hid them in my sleeve.”

  He gave her a half smile in return. “So why is my back on fire? Was it Kubota? Wait, where is he?” Seth struggled to get up.