Bounders (13 page)

Gedney tries to coach him. “Gently. Yes. No. The third fingers, boy!”

The backpack pulls Regis right, then left. He drops several meters until he hangs in the air about three meters from the ground. “What do I do?” yells Regis. He sounds so panicked, he makes my blood pressure rise a few notches.

“Your first three fingers, son!” Gedney shouts. “Only make sure you don't—”

Regis plummets to the ground, backpack first.

“Take your thumbs off the red buttons,” Gedney continues, too late.

Regis strikes the ground and then bounces back up. I didn't notice it before, but the entire far side of the hanger has a swath of black netting stretched a few inches above the ground.

“A trampoline,” Cole whispers next to me. Ahhh, so that's why his shoe bounced. It doesn't look like any trampoline I've ever seen, but Regis's body rebounding back up in the air confirms it.

Gedney hobbles over to the practice zone and pulls Regis off the net with the help of one of the plebes. He hurries Regis back to the center of the hangar. “Fine. Very good. Nice first flight. Thank you for volunteering.” Gedney might not remember he picked Regis out of the crowd, but I'm sure Regis knows he didn't volunteer.

“These packs are very important,” Gedney continues. “You must master them. Most places you'll travel as Bounders have gravity pulls very different from what you're used to. You'll need your packs to get around.”

Despite Regis's precarious flight, all of us inch closer to the two backpack bins. Sure, I'm nervous, but I can't wait to buckle into my backpack and press those red buttons.

“Okay, then,” Gedney says. “Regis, you stand up here with me for a demonstration. Hold up those controls so everyone can get a look. Top buttons—the red ones—those are for your thumbs. They control upward propulsion. First finger button is hover. First and second together is forward. First three fingers depressed takes you in reverse. Grab all buttons at once to go down. Gradually, that is. As Regis so aptly demonstrated, if you simply let go of the controls your descent will be greatly aided by gravity.”

That last comment draws a few chuckles, and Regis's face turns red.

“Come on, now,” Gedney says. “No time to waste. Come grab your blast pack.”

I elbow my way to the middle of the blast pack line. After each group suits up, one of the plebes takes the cadets to the practice zone for a tutorial. Most cadets get the hang of it after a few tries.

Cole's group heads over to the practice zone before I do. Cole is small. The plebe has to pull the straps super tight to secure him in the pack. Cole keeps bobbing his head and hopping on his toes as he stares at the controls, listening to the last words of advice from the plebe.

When the plebe steps back from the net, he gives the go signal. Four of the kids shoot straight into the air. Cole doesn't move. He keeps his eyes glued to the controls. He's frozen. I cringe. How embarrassing.

Then Cole raises his head, nods, and lifts off. He comes to a perfect stop midway to the rafters and then banks left. He travels halfway across the tarp, stops, ascends fifteen meters, then banks right. He zooms to the exact same spot on the other side, lowers, then flies left again. I'm stunned. Cole executed a near perfect square in the air. Compared to the other kids soaring haphazardly across the hangar, nearly colliding with one another midair, Cole achieved some bizarre mastery on his first flight.

I'm not the only one who notices. When Cole lands on the tarp, whispers run through the line.

“Wow.”

“Did you see that?”

“Was that really his first flight?”

Lucy punches me on the shoulder. The line kept moving, and I let a huge gap open in front of me. I glare at her but quickly catch up. My group suits up next. Lucy and I will be flying together.

As the plebe fastens me into my pack, my blood pulses with excitement. I can't wait to push those red buttons. I mean, how hard can it be? Cole made it look like a piece of cake. And if he can do it, I'm sure I won't have any trouble.

I step onto the tarp while the plebe reviews the instructions. I mostly tune him out. I listened to Gedney the first time.

Lucy pokes me in the ribs. “Pay attention, Jasper.”

“And most important,” the plebe says, “don't release the red buttons. Go!”

I jam my thumbs down on the red buttons and shoot into the air. I sail toward the rafters, leaving Lucy and the other cadets meters below. That's right. Eat my airstream.

The blast pack pulls me up while my body weighs me down. It's the strangest mix of odd and awesome. No cadet has anywhere close to my altitude. Jasper Adams, Blast Pack Master. So what about Cole and his fancy moves? I'll fly higher than anyone.

“Slow down, Jasper!” Lucy calls. Seriously? Like I'd let you catch me?

“Jasper! Loosen up!” the plebe shouts from the hangar floor.

Sure. In a sec. I'll need to change course soon. The rafters are a few meters ahead.

That's it, just a litter farther. Wait. Now what? First and second together. Good. I bank right. Too far right. First three fingers. Left. Too far left. Oh no. I majorly overcorrected. Right again. What's hover?

Shouts rise up from below, but they reach me in a jumbled mess. And, okay, I panic. I squeeze and release the controls in a random pattern that sends me zigzagging across the hangar. The pack jerks my body like a rag doll.

All I remember are the red buttons. I grind my thumbs against them and release my other fingers. My pack accelerates straight for the roof.

I hear the screams and Lucy's high-pitched squeal. “Jasper, stop!”

When my head hits the roof, I must release the red buttons, because gravity steps in and pulls me straight to the ground.

“HE'S WAKING UP!” LUCY'S HIGH VOICE
jabs at my brain like a dull cafeteria knife. Please, not now. It hurts.

I flutter my eyelids, but I can't keep them open for more than a second. Moving them at all exhausts every muscle in my face. Someone squeezes my hand. Lucy. No one else would do that.

“Jasper? It's Lucy.”
Yep.
“You've been in an accident.”

No joke. Plunging four stories to the hangar floor definitely qualifies as an accident, trampoline or not.

“Can you hear me, Jasper?”

My eyes flutter again. Opening them is getting a little easier, but everything is out of focus. Lucy is here. Her wide eyes gaze down at me, and her eyebrows are pinched. There's someone else. Cole. It must be Cole.

“Cole?”

The fuzzy figure approaches. “I'm here.”

“How on earth did you do that?”

“What?”

“The box. In the air.” I lift my head, and the room whirls.

“Quiet, Jasper,” Lucy says. “You need to rest.”

Shoes tap across the floor. “He's awake?” Waters. Great. I'm sure my fall will do wonders for my placement in the pod.

“Jasper, are you awake?” Waters asks.

I focus hard and manage to nod.

“Good. You'll be fine. You're mighty bruised, but no significant injuries. I had them sedate you so you could rest—that's your biggest issue right now—but you'll come out of it in the next few hours.”

I force my chin into a nod again. I'm not thrilled about being sedated, but all I want is to slip back into oblivion.

“We have work to do, Jasper,” Waters says. “I expect you there with the pod tomorrow morning. And no more stunts. The whole operation's a bust if you're not in one piece.”

Stunts? I wish. That would mean I had control over what happened in the hangar. Yeah, right. I guess I didn't leave my klutzy ways back on Earth like I planned.

Lucy squeezes my hand, then a chorus of footsteps moves toward the door. I assume they all left, but I don't have the energy to check. Maybe I'm wrong. I could swear someone is watching me.

The next time I open my eyes, something dark and hairy hovers in the air above my face. I squeeze my eyes shut. Geez. Whatever meds the docs pumped into me have me seeing things.

Arrr. Kit. Kit. Rarrrgh. Kleek.
Guttural grunts and clicks rumble through the room.

What on earth? My eyes fly back open. I'm not seeing things. A Tunneler dressed in a white medical coat stands next to my bed.

“How are you feeling?” the translator box says.

It takes a second for me to catch my breath. “Ummm . . . I guess okay.”

The Tunneler's hairy hand clutches a thermometer. He zaps it in my ear.
Kleek. Arrr. Arghhh. Kit. Kleek.
“Normal. That's a good sign. Open your eyes wide.”

He shines a light in my face and taps a note into a tablet that rests beside my bed. This is so surreal. I haven't been this close to a Tunneler since that day on the air rail, the day before I left for the Academy. My mind spins. There are so many things I should ask him.

“Are you from the Paleo Planet?” I ask.

He grunts and clicks in a fast frenzy. The translation box says: “Ha! Ha! Ha!”

When he settles down from his fit of laughter he says, “You Earthlings. All you ever ask about is the Paleo Planet. No. I'm not from there. None of us are from there, although a lot of my people work there now. I've never been to the Paleo Planet. I don't even live in the same galaxy.”

Whoa. Okay. Sorry I asked. He's just as touchy as the Tunneler on the air rail. Is it him? Nah, I don't think so.

The Tunneler crosses to a medical cart on the other side of the room. He walks all hunched, like Gedney.

“I've heard it's nice, the Paleo Planet,” the Tunneler says as he walks back with pills in his hand. “That's where you cadets are headed for your end-of-tour field trip, right?” He hands me the pills and a glass of water.

“Yep,” I say. “So where
do
you live?”

He grabs my wrist and takes my pulse. “Gulaga.”

What? “Where?”

“P37, to you,” he says, “Gulaga to us. It's not like you call Earth P1.”

Earth. P1. As in Planet 1. I laugh, which makes my chest hurt.

“Get some rest, Jasper. You'll be feeling much better soon. Close your eyes and think about your field trip in a few weeks.”

“Thanks,” I say as my eyelids sag. “See ya.”

I don't hear his good-bye. I'm already dreaming of the saber cats and the wildeboars and all the amazing things I'll see on the Paleo Planet.

“Red Baron, you awake?”

I wasn't, Marco. But I am now.

“Hey, can you hear me? Did you check this place out?”

Is he blind? I'm lying, sedated, on a medical bed. I'm certainly not checking much of anything out. Still, I feel better. I open my eyes without much effort. Marco is in front of me, pulling open the drawers of a medical cart.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“What does it look like? I'm snooping around. Seeing what I can find out about this place.”

I press down with my hands and manage to push myself up on the pillow. My head throbs as I take in my surroundings. A medical room. Oh, I get it.
The
medical room. As in the medical room with the green alien on the bed. As in the bed I'm currently lying on. A wave of nausea hits me in the gut.

“This is where they had the alien?” I ask.

“Bingo,” Marco says as he moves on to the next medical cart.

I sit up and look around. Sure enough, it's the same room. I glance behind me at the windows. “You were right. I can't see anything through that glass.”

“Ahhh, but she can see you,” Marco says. He faces the windows and blows a gigantic kiss at the blacked-out glass.

“Why'd you do that?” I ask.

Marco turns back to the medical cart, pulling out vials and reading their labels. “Jealous? I was blowing a kiss to your girlfriend.”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“Oh, come on. You know, the woman of few words. Dancing Queen.”

“Mira?” I can't make anything out through the windows. “She's up there?”