Deviation (10 page)

Matthew watched as the hologram of his dead soldier ran a hand through his hair. The movement came out blurred, made little streaks of white light appear around Blake's head for a moment before he sighed and settled back to the task at hand. Death Notes had never been difficult for Matt to record himself; he'd always just run through the process - once a year as was required by his family physician - and then gone on with his day. He imagined it was different for Blake, given the distinct danger of his employment and the family he would leave behind.

"To my team, the Fomorri," Blake stood a little taller. "Death is never far away from men like us. Drink a round for me, make sure Borden pays for it, and take out the bastards who did this to me."

He was half-amused by the man's request. Or order, if he was being fair. That wasn't much of a question, but a demand. It didn't matter. Matt would do more than pay for one round at the ships restaurant for the men.

"Andrew."

The boy straightened and focused on his fathers' image.

"I don't tell you enough how proud I am of you. Even when you drive me crazy with your stubborn, often reckless behavior, I know it's only because you're learning to be yourself. I'm ... " Blake broke off, looked down and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry I can't be there to teach you how to fly, son. I hope this doesn't scare you away from trying it on your own."

Even at the distance, Matt saw Andrew clench his fists, nodding at the image as though his father could see it.

"And Cadena," Blake smiled, a real smile this time. "You made my life something important."

The woman's head bowed, shading her eyes from view. She was crying, he knew. Her shoulders quivered as she suppressed emotion, trying desperately to hold onto her composure. For reasons he couldn't understand, Matthew Borden felt his usual distance from humanity crack. Leadership required a cold, almost aloof standard of living, and no one had done this as well as Matt. But the sight of that woman, pained not because she was losing stability and position in society, but because she was losing the man himself; it struck him someplace inside. Someplace he hadn't known existed.

His fist had clenched and he had to force himself to relax, focusing on the final goodbyes of his fallen soldier.

***

Reesa was half tossed into the cramped, white and metallic room. She spotted Kate's slumbering form in the padded, shelf-like bed against the far wall and scrambled to get to her. God's honest truth, Reesa hadn't known what she was thinking when she'd made her dash for her friend. It was foolhardy and she knew it, but for the life of her she couldn't let Kate suffer this fate alone.

As much as she wanted to hold onto the idea of a hallucination, it was becoming quite apparent that this was really happening. For one, her face still stung where Jellison had hit her. And for another, the metal under her bare knees was cold and absolutely real. Compounding the fact that all of her senses were working properly was the image of Hedric's face, the way he had looked at Kate kept replaying itself in her mind. There had been a bald, heartbreaking truth to the way he touched Kate. It was such a tragically beautiful scene that she prayed she could convey it one day in her work.

If they managed to survive the next few moments, her mind corrected.

The ship made a drastic turn that sent Reesa sprawling across the floor again. Her head smacked into the corner of the floor-to-ceiling cabinet built into the left wall. She was still cursing, holding her forehead in pain, when Jellison made an abrupt return. The bulky man opened the hatchway door to their room just long enough to toss two beige robes at her before sealing them in again. She might not have known what they were except that one flung open in its descent, its long, heavy fabric looking somehow ominous on the floor.

The little pocket of a room came into sudden, sharp focus. Mostly bare, it had only the cabinet jutting from the wall and the slab-like bed where Kate still slept. Half crawling to the cabinet, Reesa had to support herself on the edge of the bed just to keep upright. With shaky hands, she fumbled the cabinet open, realizing only after she did so that the latch was magnetized. Just as she had written it, she thought. It was such a startling realization that she stayed there, fear creeping up her spine and making her immobile.

There was very little inside the cabinet; an extra, half-flattened pillow and one drab wool blanket. In the back of her mind she'd known what would be there, just as she knew where they were located on the ship. These were the "guest" accommodations. Passenger or prisoner, this was where the Lothogy crew kept anyone who couldn't pull their weight during flight. It was out of the way, adjacent to the engine room where Keats could keep an eye on the door.

The hull groaned under pressure, startling Reesa back into movement. With numb fingers, she took the blanket and scooted to Kate. Her friend was unresponsive as Reesa tucked the blanket around her. Small clanks and odd sounds reverberated into their room, clanging off the walls and increasing her sense of unease.

"Kate," she tapped her cheek. "Kate, come on. I need you to wake up."

Kate mumbled a complaint and turned her head away.

Reesa tapped her cheek a little harder. Kate's face scrunched in irritation, but her eyes stayed closed. "Kate, ladybug, we've got real problems and I need your ninja action right now, so wake up."

A loud crashing sound hit just overhead and freezing water came gushing through the ceiling just beside her. Shrieking with the sudden cold and painful thrust of water, Reesa scrambled up and onto the bed. Kate woke, sputtering and dazed, but even Reesa could see the girl was still sluggish.

"What the ... " Kate said, holding her head.

"Oh, God." Reesa caught sight of the rapidly growing pool and helped Kate to a sitting position.

They exchanged horrified glances before Kate launched out of the bed and hurried for the door. Within the seconds following the initial push of water into their room, it had risen to mid-calf. Kate inhaled sharply, pushing her way to the door, weaving to avoid the continued waterfall.

Water coursed into the room at a steady pace, looking like some angry sheet of white, frothy death. Reesa forced herself to move again, plunging her feet into the frigid water and rushing to help Kate at the door. She wasn't certain what could be done, but her friend's active attempts at escape seemed better than just watching the room fill with seawater. Sloshing through the suddenly knee-deep water set her teeth to chattering, but she tried to ignore the chill.

"What the hell is going on!" Kate screamed at the door, pounding on it again. "Let us out of here!"

Striking the door, Reesa hissed as sharp pain radiated through her palm.

"Son of a bitch!" Kate turned from the door.

She'd never heard Kate swear before and Reesa stared. Scanning the room with a feverish, unhealthy gleam, Kate suddenly splashed away from the door and back to the bed. Snagging the blanket, she balled it up while climbing onto the edge of the bed. Kate glared up at the gushing hole before leaning out and shoving the blanket over the opening.

It must have taken tremendous effort because Kate made a growling shout as she levered herself against both blanket and hole. The progression of water slowed but did not stop, spurting out around the edges of Kate's grip.

Reesa ran for the cabinet, yanked out the pillow and hurried to help. Her feet slipped on the slick surface of the bed and she banged her knee, but her entire body was so cold that the pain felt dull. Struggling to a standing position beside Kate, Reesa pushed the pillow up to cover the blanket and add a further seal to the hole.

Water fell around them, between them, over them, soaking through tank top and shorts and skin. The cold of it sunk deep inside, her body going painfully stiff as patches of her skin went numb under the assault. The water level rose over the bed, its flimsy cloth pad sliding against the metal frame and forcing them to teeter on the edge to keep their footing.

Reesa glanced at Kate and was startled by the furious determination twisting on her face. She looked like Mesa. Not just the physical attributes that Reesa had stolen for her writing, but the iron-hard quality of the character as well. Mesa had been good under pressure, focused and quick on her feet. It seemed that Kate shared this trait as well because her eyes fell on Reesa's purse. During the chaotic chase and the insanity of their abduction, Reesa had completely forgotten the item was there, slung haphazard across her chest the way she preferred to carry it. It was soaked through with seawater now, hanging limp against her side.

"Don't let go!" Kate shouted at her.

Reesa nodded.

With careful movements, Kate slid her hands away from the hole, leaving the full press of intruding water to shove against Reesa's hold on the pillow. The cottony material only partially aided the blanket in its plight against the throng of water, its sodden weight felt like more of a hindrance than a help, but she didn't dare move. Kate rifled through her purse, hunting for anything useful.

Her arms strained against the pillow, burning with exertion, but she kept hold. She had to turn her head away as a spout of water sprayed into her face. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her voice recorder plop into the raging depths. A handful of 3x5 cards followed, fanning out into the churn of water.

Kate found her wallet, fumbled with it for a moment before snagging a credit card and rushing for the door again. It was an old trick, trying to jimmy a lock with the edge of a card, and Reesa frowned at the cliche. It wasn't going to work. The doors of the Lothogy were magnetized.

She almost called out to warn her, but stopped. This couldn't be the Lothogy, she remembered. It was a pretend ship, a fake, so there was a chance that Kate's plan could work.

The ship accelerated, pitching her backward and into the wall. Even had the hole remained semi-plugged, Reesa knew she'd still have been submerged. The movement of the ship had tilted their room and the flow of water tilted to follow, pushing up against her. She was pretty sure she lost a contact lens, but the blur of water made it impossible to know for sure.

Reesa pushed off the back wall with her feet, angling for the surface. She strained upward, forcing her already weak and wobbly arms to work. When she broke the surface, she found that Kate had managed to grab hold of the cabinet and reached out to her. Slippery, icy fingers closed around her wrist and Reesa was pulled to the security of the cabinet.

"This is bad," Kate said. Her gaze was locked on the geyser in the ceiling.

The acceleration came to an abrupt halt, slamming the water back toward the door and sending them both with it. Reesa smacked into Kate at full force. Her chin whacked solidly into some bony part of Kate's left side and she chomped down on her lip, breaking skin. For an achingly breathless moment, she was submerged again, water pressing her flat against the door. Just as suddenly, the water retreated, tearing them both away from the door and back into the room. Her head surface and she sucked in a breath of air, fighting to get her feet back on the floor.

All of the lights went out at once.

What little sense of control Reesa had managed to hold on to flicked out with them and she screamed.

***

When the lights came back on, Kate spotted a button just beside the door. It had a small hole next to it and her mind flashed to the books. There was an intercom system on the Lothogy, she remembered. With the water finally settling around their waists and the hole in the ceiling still gushing, she decided she didn't care if the people who rescued them were deranged.

Wading around Reesa, Kate smacked the intercom button and prayed the water hadn't shorted a circuit or something. "Let us out of here before we drown, you psychopaths!"

Her voice echoed back at her and she knew it had worked. It was getting hard to move her legs and she wondered for a brief moment if she'd be lucky enough to die of hypothermia before given the chance to drown. That seemed preferable. And Reesa certainly looked like she was about to collapse. The girl was huddled in on herself, teeth clanking, body shivering, mouth smeared in blood. Kate had a brief thought to hug her, share body heat, stay alive, but there was shuffling outside the door and urgent voices shouting at each other and she knew they'd be out soon.

Or at least out of the room, if not out of the situation, she thought. Shivering, Kate tugged on her sodden shirt and wished for a moment that she'd chosen to wear a full t-shirt instead of the sleeveless garment. For that matter, she wished she'd worn pants. Her cutoffs came to mid-thigh and she could feel every inch of her skin pimple up and tingle with the icy water.

The door opened a crack, spilling water out at the men pushing to get it open. Kate grabbed hold of the door, helping to muscle it past the flow until she could position herself better. Back against the doorjamb, Kate lifted her sandaled feet and set them to the lip of the door. Growling with effort, she levered herself between wall and door, shoving with her feet for added strength. The pink nail polish on her toes looked ridiculous given the situation and she focused on them, fighting the metal door that much more open.

The opening widened enough for two of the men to get through. Two of the men awkwardly climbed over her, passing a large, curved sheet of metal between them before charging for the hole. The course of water began to slow as it emptied out into the hallway, and she was able to release the door. Reesa stood paralyzed, her gaze fixed on the men patching the hole.

Kate glanced at the third man; a scrawny, awkwardly tall man who made his white uniform look ridiculous. As odd as it was, she knew who that man was pretending to be; Alexander Keats, the engineer. He was her favorite character because he was the unassuming hero, the dependable one who always got them out of trouble.

Not that his portrayal of the fictional character was in any way able to excuse abduction.

She scowled at him, which seemed to take him by surprise, and moved to Reesa's side. Gathering the still trembling woman to her side, Kate tried for rational thought.