Unity (3 page)

Before anyone can answer Gizmo’s question, a new ‘sunset’ fills the sky in the East. It blooms orange, rising up and drowning out the night sky. Then it fades back down to a flicker before disappearing entirely. With the light extinguished, the world plunges back into a sickly green-lit night. The sun has fallen in the West, or perhaps has been fully consumed by the storm still headed toward us.

“Whatever we saw fall from the sky must have crashed over there,” Daniel says, his face lit by the glowstick in his hand, eyes turned toward the east. “Must have been huge.”

A hiss rises from behind me, and for a moment I think that Gwen is shushing Daniel. But then the sound rushes past me, dousing me with a curtain of cold water. It lashes against my face, stealing the warmth from the air. The green light from the glowstick Daniel’s holding makes the dime-sized rain drops look like Mountain Dew. Soda was outlawed for kids under eighteen, five years ago, but I’m old enough to remember it.

I hear a voice shouting at me, but I can’t make out the words. I turn to find a waterlogged Gwen staring at me, the limp form of Mandi still in her arms.

“What?” I can barely hear my own voice over the watery, windblown bedlam.

“We need shelter!” Gwen shouts.

I look inland, but the ring of green light that lets us see each other fades after ten feet. This patch of land we’ve crashed on could end twenty feet away, for all we know. The subtle scent of vegetation slowly being drowned out by the smell of ozone says otherwise, but until I actually see it...

I look for the second glowstick and find it submerged under two feet of water, illuminating the rear hatch of the crashed transport. Partially buoyant, it wobbles with each crashing wave.

Lightning cracks through the sky overhead, the volume of its sudden arrival making us all duck. It also gives me a brief view of our surroundings. Thirty feet ahead, at the end of a gently sloping white-sand beach, is a wall of tropical vegetation that looks impenetrable. The brilliant light disappears as quickly as it arrived, but a luminous green afterimage remains in my vision, the colors reversed like an old film negative. The island isn’t small, and it rises up at the center.
Of course it does,
I think. We’re in the Pacific, where pretty much all islands were formed by volcanic activity.

“Let’s head inland,” I shout.

Gwen nods and replies, “My go-pack should have a tent in it. If we can find a spot where the wind—”

Her voice is cut short by Daniel, who is yanking hard on my arm. “Effie!”

“What?” I shout, feeling overwhelmed and angry.

When I see the mortified look on his face, I feel bad for snapping at him. But he’s not looking at me, he’s looking back at the ocean. “The glowstick!”

I turn toward the crashed transport, expecting to see the cylinder of green light tossed by angry waves, but it’s gone. I scan left and right, finding the chemical light as a green pinpoint, quickly sliding away.
Did a fish take it?

“It’s headed east!” Daniel shouts.

“Toward the crash!” the higher pitched Gizmo chimes in. The small boy is now clinging to Daniel’s arm. Apparently, both of them have already figured out why the glowstick is making a beeline for the horizon.

And then I do, too.

A violent spear of light stabs the sky, illuminating the scene, confirming our fears.

The ocean is gone. Well, not gone, but surging away from the island, rushing east like a drain has opened up in the Earth. But that’s not what’s happening. Even non-genius kids have seen enough disaster movies to know what this means.

Tsunami.

“Run!” I shout. “Inland!” I scoop up little Gizmo and throw him over my shoulder.

Despite being a little pudgy, in the way all computer-focused kids are, Daniel moves like a sprinter leaping off the line. He takes the lead, kicking up divots of sand, the green glowstick clutched in his hand giving the rest of us a direction to follow. Gwen follows in his tracks, Mandi now over her shoulder. The run is going to be rough for the unconscious girl, but the alternative is to die horribly in a wall of water.

It’s rough for Gizmo, too, but he’s able to hold himself up, hands clinging to my go-pack, arms supporting his torso like flying buttresses. Lightning flashes. For me, it lights up the jungle, now ten feet ahead. And it reveals Gwen charging through a hole in the foliage. For Gizmo, it must reveal something horrible. I feel the boy’s slender muscles snap tight, and he’s suddenly harder to hold.

I think he’s screaming, too, but as I punch through the large leafy plants lining the beach, the hiss of rain on the leaves drowns out everything. The darkness beneath the windblown canopy becomes absolute. I charge ahead, despite my blindness, one arm around Gizmo’s legs, one outstretched to keep me from running into a tree. A blinking green light guides me forward, my own personal Tinker Bell. But it’s growing more distant, flickering as Daniel passes behind trees. Within ten seconds of entering the jungle, I’m lost. I could be running back toward the ocean and I wouldn’t even know it.

Gizmo’s small fist beating my shoulder like a jockey’s whip prods me onward. And that’s when I feel it. The slope beneath my feet. Uphill is good. Using the energy it takes to make each upward step my guide, I follow the grade, hoping it doesn’t end at a cliff.

I didn’t think it was possible, but the volume of the jungle-lashing rain grows louder, drowning out my thoughts. My mind is a blank slate, instinct guiding my feet.

And then Gizmo’s voice breaks through. He’s wrapped himself around my back and is shouting directly in my ear. “It’s here!”

An elastic band of clarity snaps in my mind. The rush of water I’m hearing isn’t from above, it’s from behind. The ocean has returned like President Washington crossing the Delaware, turning retreat into world-changing victory. I would never admit it, but I know my history. I devour history books with the voracious appetite other kids save for pizza. Not that General Washington’s victory over the British provides any useful information at the moment. That comes from above.

A point of green light waves back and forth, but it’s so high up, I think Daniel must have scaled a cliff. The truth is revealed underfoot, as a tangle of roots trips me up. I stumble forward, careening into the broad trunk of a moss-covered tree.

The hint of a shouting voice pricks my ears. A slice of lightning makes it through the canopy, revealing Gwen on a branch above us, reaching down. She’s shouting, but I can’t hear the words. High above her, I see Daniel straddling a branch, hugging Mandi to the tree’s core.

As the roar of oncoming death grows louder, I hoist Gizmo up. Gwen takes his small wrist in one hand and lifts him onto the branch. His spindly frame makes short work of the branch network above her.

Gwen’s hand returns, and in another flash of light, I read her lips. “Jump!”

My legs bend and spring, but I don’t move upward. I move sideways, knocked off my feet by an onrush of three-foot-deep water. I cling to the tangle of roots on the ground, but the rising torrent is too powerful. As my fingernails bend back, something solid strikes my leg, knocking me free and sweeping me away.

I tumble through darkness, the gurgling rush of ocean filling my mouth before being coughed out. My feet strike something solid, and I shove. When the world grows loud again, I know I’ve broken the surface. I gasp in a deep breath before my gut wraps around the trunk of a palm. I cling to the rough surface, shivering from fear and cold, and then I climb higher.

But the water rises along with me, and the rubbery tree is bending from the force. With a shudder, the tree’s shallow root system gives way. As I drop back into the water, I cling to the trunk. The buoyant spear keeps me above the fray, but its broad, leafy top catches the water like a sail. I’m catapulted through the jungle.

For what feels like several minutes, the tree slams its way uphill, a water-propelled battering ram, intent on striking down everything in its path. A jarring impact nearly dislodges me, but I hold fast at the expense of the sinews in my arms, which I can feel stretching and popping. Water rushes past and surges over me. It’ s trying to peel me away from the tree, which wedges against something strong enough to stand against the battering ram.

And then the current shifts. The flow of water cuts into my face, tries to work its way into my lungs. Still, I fight it. If I can survive falling out of the sky, I’m not going to die just after reaching the ground. The palm tree, clinging to whatever stopped it, slowly lowers back to the jungle floor. The rush of water dwindles to salty streams trickling downhill.

My fingers uncoil. My arms fall slack. I can’t do anything to stop gravity’s pull. I flop onto my back, landing on a bed of tangled vegetation. It’s oddly comfortable.

Lightning flashes again. The canopy above my head is less dense. The trees that blocked the sky now lie beside me, or further uphill, or maybe they’ve been swept back out to sea. Rain lashes against my face. The storm rages in the sky above, radiant with blossoms of electric blue and fiery orange light. Despite the raging world, I close my eyes, place my hand over the waterproof pouch inside my chest pocket, and dream of a world where I’m not perpetually alone.

A seagull alarm clock pulls me from the oblivion of sleep, and for a moment, I understand the appeal of atheism. Could there be any better rest than non-existence? Then I remember my dream. Hooked fingers dragging lines in the sand, as a horde of faceless zombies pulls me away from the nameless parents I never knew.

The photo I have of them came into my possession through subterfuge and a box of matches. The woman at the child welfare office made no effort to hide the folder labeled with my name. She knew who I was. Could read the names of my real parents. Could have given me their address.

But she didn’t.

Instead, she said, “Well, you have his eyes. But you’re not eighteen.”

I nearly reached through the window and slapped her.

She must have seen the look of abject horror in my eyes, because she added, “The record is sealed until then. Nothing I can do about that.”

“You don’t understand,” I pleaded. “I don’t have an adopted family. No foster-parents want me.”

And then she set my fiery plan in action while simultaneously adding herself to my mental list of arch-nemeses. “Well, hon, it would appear that your parents didn’t, either.”

Restraint has never been my thing, but I managed it that day. When I want something—really want something—there isn’t much that can stand in my way. Even my own foibles. I stared at her for a quiet moment and gave her the squinty-eyed glare of doom. Before she could add some sass sauce to the bitter disappointment she’d served up, I walked away.

Then I lit a match.

I turned the small flare of light and smoke around on the book of matches, which lit up with a hiss. I dropped the conflagration into an empty trash can. There was no danger of a real fire, but a book of matches puts off enough smoke to trigger a fire alarm. And in a public building like that one, when one alarm goes off, they all go off.

The child welfare woman bounded to her feet and stuck her head out the locked door to the lobby. One breath and she lost all of the cold veneer that could turn down a fifteen-year-old looking for her parents.

“I smell smoke!” She shouted it back into the office and bolted, never seeing me behind the waiting room’s silk Ficus tree. As my newest nemesis’s heels clacked out a steady fading beat, I made for the slowly closing door and slipped inside the office. The main room was empty, but there were two smaller offices at the back. I couldn’t see inside them. The allure of the manila folder sitting atop the desk overrode my sense of caution. I didn’t even need to take it. With my memory, all I really had to do was read the information and scoot.

But when I flung the folder open and saw the two faces staring back at me, each with recognizable parts of me, I froze. The image of my parents blurred, as tears filled my eyes. I tried looking at the documents below the photo, but the wet lenses of my eyes hid the information.

“Hey!” a man shouted. “You can’t be back here!” And then, like safety was an afterthought, “There’s a fire!”

I pinched the corner of the folder and ran, intending on taking everything. They would know it was me. Might even try to find me. Arrest me. It didn’t matter. If I could find my parents... Everything would be different.

But all I managed to do was spread the details of my real life across the floor. There was no time to stop for them. The only reason I escaped was because the man with the chubby beet-red face was already winded from running across half the office. He couldn’t chase me beyond the door, but he would have caught me if I stopped. I exited through the side emergency door and walked away, staring at the photo of the man and woman on the beach, oblivious to the sound of approaching emergency vehicles.

When my eyes cleared, I turned the photo over and found three words written in blue ballpoint pen that had dented the image. The penmanship was rigid. Masculine. It said,
Mom, Dad and Euphemia.

Mom.

Dad.

At some point in the past, when this photo was taken, and later, when it was developed and admired, my parents took ownership of me. ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad’ are personal. Had the child welfare Nazi written this, or anyone else who wasn’t my real father, it would have said ‘Mother and Father,’ or even more likely, there wouldn’t be any writing on it at all.

So why had they given me up?

No clue.

And as I open my eyes to a blue sky full of impossibly bright cumulus clouds, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, I’m beginning to think I might never find out.

I sit up with a groan, every part of me aching. My abdomen shakes as the battered muscles strain against the added weight of my go-pack, which according to the ache in my spine, I slept on all night. A flash of pain snaps to life between my eyes, spinning my vision. A high-pitched ringing fills my ears. I breathe through it, focusing on the seagull’s calls.

I once read a novel featuring genetically altered man-eating seagulls with piranha mouths. As the bird overhead makes lazy circles, gives me a casual glance and then rides a breeze toward the ocean, I’m grateful I haven’t washed up on that horrible place. Jungle debris surrounds me like a nest, piled high enough that I need to stand to see beyond it. The pain in my head returns as I stand, my vision cutting to the right over and over. The ringing in my ears becomes a rumble. After a minute of waiting, I can see the world again, but the rumble has become a strange warbling sound.

I’m a few hundred feet from the shore, which I can see, because I’m also at least fifty feet above sea level. But even if I weren’t, enough trees have been mowed down, along with all the undergrowth, that I’m pretty sure I’d have a clear view of the water, even if the land was level. The ocean beyond the island is a swirl of dark and light blue water; it’s light where the bottom is sand, dark where the bottom is earth scoured off the island. I can see some of it streaked over the beach as well.

Halfway between me and the ocean is a tall tree with a tangle of branches. It’s taller than the surrounding pines, but it has been stripped bare of at least half its leaves. I didn’t get a clear view of the tree the others escaped into during the storm, but since this one is the only one that fits the bill, I decide to check it out. The trouble is, I can see most of the branches, and I don’t see any people.

Could the water have reached that high?

Maybe the wind blew them out during the night?

Maybe it’s the wrong tree?

Burning with unanswerable questions, I take one step and groan. Everything feels swollen and tight. I steady myself with a hand on the palm tree that plowed a path to safety for me, and I try to touch my toes. My extended fingers only make it to my knees. The blood rushing toward my head kicks off a fresh wave of pain, and I stand back up, steadying myself until it fades.

I’ll loosen up if I move,
I decide, but I know that’s not really true. If anything, I’ll make my injuries worse. But for the first time in my life, I’d rather not be alone. There’s something about nearly being killed multiple times that gives you an appreciation for the living, whether you know them or not.

The jungle floor is even harder to walk on than it was the night before. Each step is uneven. The network of branches, brush and dead fish underfoot is as impossible to walk on as it sounds. My ankles would turn and twist with each step, if not for the thick Unity boots. I fall constantly, the impacts reminding me that I’m alive, but that death is one bad step away.

The sun, while it warms my skin, makes things even worse. It’s rising in the corner of my eye, making me squint on one side. I fall to my right more than I do to the left, as a result. It takes me fifteen minutes to make it halfway to the tree, which now looms high above me. Whatever species it is, it doesn’t look native. I glance around the half-cleared hillside and see other odd species, their twisting branches and fluttering leaves providing an interesting contrast to the broad palms bending in the morning’s breeze.

Still sopping wet, I pause to catch my breath. I attempt to assess my wounds, but the pain is so overarching that I’m not sure where to look. I’m not even sure I want to. What if I lift my shirt to find a broad purple patch that reveals internal bleeding? And if I survive that, what if it clots and shoots into my brain? I could have a stroke, and there would be no one around to help.

Get a grip.

This isn’t you.

I have felt despair before. It’s crippling. And it’s not my friend.

Compartmentalize the fear,
I tell myself.
The pain, too. Make those Unity psychologists proud. And if you see them again, commence face-punching retribution.
Not just for my pain. Or for the fact that I nearly lost my life. But for the five kids I know for certain did. I don’t know their names, but I will never forget their upside-down, lifeless faces. It’s an offense someone needs to answer for.

Thinking of the dead reminds me of Sig.

I search the beach for signs of a second transport crash, but even our transport has been swept away by the retreating tsunami. The island behind me looks the same as it did the night before, except permanently lit by the sun.
Where are you, Sig?
I wonder, and I say a prayer, hoping that someone beyond oblivion is listening. I throw in Hutch for good measure, but hold out little hope for the passengers in Transport 38. It would have fallen short of the island. Even if the foam safety system saved fifty percent of them, they would have been bobbing in the ocean to be scooped up and thrashed by the tsunami.

A nearby squawking makes me think that the gathering seagulls have finally realized that the island is now covered in dead fish, but then I understand the sound. And I recognize the voice. Gizmo. Sounds like he’s losing his mind. Or in danger. It’s hard to tell with the warbling rumble and the ringing still plaguing my hearing. But there are definitely voices within the chaos.

With renewed effort, I scrabble through the debris, heading for the big tree. Piles of palm trunks and brush block my view and muffle the sound from the far side, but it’s clear he’s upset.

Gwen’s voice comes next. Angry. Defiant. And then pleading.

What I hear next locks my legs in place. I had nearly shouted to them, but now I hold my breath. There’s a new voice. A man. And while I don’t recognize the voice, I know the tone.

Threatening.

Sinister.

I search for a weapon, but all I find are leaves and branches either too big to wield or too fresh to break. Gwen seemed to think our go-packs were full of survival gear. Maybe there’s a knife in mine? I put the pack on the ground and gently undo the magnetic strip holding it shut. The perfect, tight seal has kept the contents dry, but I’m confused by what I find. Gray, chemical-scented foam. The kind electronics are packaged in.

I pull up, and the top layer comes off, revealing a single item. It’s a Unity Point symbol, black around the base and edges, red on top. I pull it out of the foam, feeling its weight, the hardness of its tip. I think I can use it as a weapon. It’s thin, but it feels solid enough to stab with, if need be. Then I notice it’s the same size as the badge on my chest. I place the symbol against its twin on my chest, and it snaps tight.
The badge is magnetic,
I think, and I leave it so I can inspect the rest of my go-pack’s contents.

The next layer contains a twisted coil of rope. I lift it out and loop it over my head and shoulder.

As the voices beyond the wall of vegetation get louder, I toss the foam layer aside and remove the next one. Inside is a pack of matches and a knife. Seven inch blade. It’s sheathed on a belt, which I remove and strap on. On the right side of the belt, opposite the sheathed blade, is an empty holster.

I glance at it for a moment, wondering why they would give me a holster.

When I remove the last layer of foam, I understand why.

There’s a gun inside the go-pack.