Fluorescence: The Complete Tetralogy (74 page)

It was straight off one of those satellite images often
seen in magazines—the Earth floated in a sea of blackness, so close, yet so far away. Clear enough to make out the silhouettes of the continents. The vivid blue and aqua oceans
saturated with radiant color. Misty clouds wafted across the surface in a circular motion, like fluffy puffs of snow blowing in the
wind. But the motion was subtle, more like a 3D photograph
than anything else.

The colors and crispness were unreal. Golden edges along the shores, framed by beautiful teal outlines where the water must have been shallow. All encompassed within a globe with a fading blue aura. I could reach right through the window
and touch Hawaii—if the Earth rotated slightly and the clouds moved out of the way.

“Are we really this far from Earth?” Alice asked.

“I think so,” Brian replied.

We were captivated by the majestic ball of color we called
home.

Chapter 12

“
T
hank you for coming,” the voice spoke. This time, I heard it with my ears.

A basketball-sized orb o
f wild silver energy floated in the distance. It drifted up and down, slowly, tiny bolts of white
light arcing across its surface as it hovered a few feet in the air.

Solus was the first to approach it, his
hand already reaching up high to touch it.

“Solus!” Brian lunged
to stop him, but Solus looked back with a calm and assuring expression, as if he’d done this before.

His fingers barely made contact with the bottom of the
sparkling ball, and the white began to cycle through thousands of colors. Red. Pink. Orange. Yellow. Green. Blue. Purple. Everything in between. White again, and then the cycle continued—every hue of the spectrum being displayed in split
seconds of time.

“Hello, Solus,” the light spoke. Solus bowed his head slightly, acknowledging the greeting.

Kareena squinted and shuffled closer. We were all
surrounding the thing now. Even Lucy looked up at it curiously.

“Prism,” Kareena said.

“I know,” I replied, putting out an arm to pull Lucy back
a few inches so the light wouldn’t damage her eyes. She didn’t
have colored fluorescence like we did.

“She will be safe,” the Prism said. “We promised.”

I hesitated and then withdrew my arm from in front of Lucy.

Solus lowered his hand and the colors faded instantly back
to white.

“Kareena, please raise your hand up to the sphere. We must show you the truth.”

The pink light
in her face ignited to life, casting a soft fuchsia glow on us all. She lifted her hand just above the orb. Hot pink flushed half of her face and then the ball blazed
with bright magenta fire.

“Look back at Earth,” the Prism requested.

We turned to the window and watched faint glimmers of white reflect back at us.

“Are those… infected people?” Alice asked.

“Yes. You are seeing what the Seeker sees.”

“The
re are so many,” I said through clenched teeth, while my eyes
flitted
over the scene,
darting
between flickers
of white spawning all across the globe.

“There are more,” the Prism added.

The planet began to gradually spin, but the room didn’t feel like it was moving at all.

We inched past North America and then across South America toward the shadowed side where Africa and Europe were cloaked in night. Golden veins of electricity must have been cities. White sparkles outshined them though,
shimmering in and out of view beneath wispy clouds swirling overhead.

Antarctica, then Asia and Australia spun into view. A small ball of yellow fire peeked out from behind the Earth and then slipped from sight. The sun.

Then even more flashes of white in the darkness.

“Shit.” Brian forked a hand through his hair.

“They’re everywhere!” Kareena shouted, accidentally withdrawing her hand from the light. The markings faded briefly and then came back into view once she put her hand above the orb again. “They’re freaking EVERYWHERE!”

“The Saviors did not tell you how many people they have infected with the disease.”

“What can we do?” I asked, my voice shaking, as I feared for Lucy’s future.

“There is nothing you can do at this moment,” the Prism
replied. “What the Saviors released is more volatile than they
realize. It is unstoppable in this form.”

“What do you mean ‘this form’?” Brian asked.

“The Saviors have been to Earth before. Many, many years ago. The infection then was mild—isolated to only a fe
w—but the damage was done, and the Saviors refused to acknowledge their error. They left in search of a more suitable environment for their DNA, but were unable to find a species more compatible with it than the humans of Earth.”

“What happened to all of the people they infected back then?” Kareena dropped her hand down to her side. “Did it kill them?”

“No.” The ball of light turned white once her hand parted from it. “It changed them. It destroyed their humanity
and turned them against one another.”

I sucked in a sharp breath.
Turned them against each other?

There was no way in hell I would hurt my little girl. Or the others.

“Solus survive
d exposure because he is strong,” the Prism continued. “He carries an evolved form of the Healer’s
genetic material. We do not yet know how to protect the rest of you, but there is something we can do to help the young one since she is still healthy.”

“Lucy?” I asked, my voice trembling.

“Yes.”

The room fell silent. I watched Solus listening to a voice I
couldn’t hear. He looked down at his open hands and tipped
his head to the side, confused.

Solus turned toward Lucy and reached his hands out for hers. Just as she offered hers back, I panicked.

“Don’t!”

But before the words could get out, their fingers touched and a glimmer of rich blue light ricocheted through her. It faded instantly, but a faint cyan essence drifted around
her now.

“What did you do to her!?” I shoved Solus away and knelt in front of Lucy.

“Shit!” Kareena yelped. “He’s a Starter, too! But—”

“Do not worry,” the Prism echoed, its voice louder. “Please.”

“Are you kidding me?” My heart raced. “You infected her? How can I
not
be upset right now!? What the hell were you thinking? Are you trying to kill—”

“She was already infected and started
. You were aware of this previously. Colored fluorescence will make her stronger
—resistant to the disease. Just as the Hybrid is. This is why he shared a fraction of his light with her.”

“How can it make
her
resistant when it’s killing me!?” I tried to catch my breath. My adrenaline was raging.

“What?” Brian reached for my shoulder. “What does that
mean, David? Since when were you—”

“There’s something wrong with me. With my fluorescence
.” I pulled away from Brian’s grasp. “It’s been there for a while now. Kareena’s seen it. Why don’t
you
tell them?” I looked at her and she looked away from me.

“I see darkness in him,” she murmured beneath her breath. “Like all the other poor bastards who died. The ones you couldn’t heal, Brian.” She glanced at him and frowned.

“Why do this to Lucy, then?” Alice asked. “Aren’t you putting her at risk?”

“Yeah! Why!?” I clenched my fists. “We trusted you!”

“Sleepers started by Alice have higher chances of survival,”
it replied. “Lucy carries your DNA, Tracker, and is therefore receptive to becoming a host for colored fluorescence as well
as falling prey to the mutation that attacks you now. The Solus Child’s immunity, combined with her preexisting condition
, will lower the mortality rate.”

“Wh-what?” Some of the heat diminished from my face. “It will?”

“Each time you were ordered to start others, the Saviors had you taint the DNA of those infected with a small portion of your own colored
DNA. This made the light inside them stronger—more resilient. But it does not make them immune to the evolution of the disease. The time between when the Starter, Healer, and Seeker were first activated was enough for several more mutations to occur before the Tracking DNA
had even been bonded to you, David. What the Saviors experimented with centuries ago was a much weaker strain. It moved slowly and had little ability to transfer between hosts. What is killing your people and the Saviors today changes
rapidly—almost instantly upon
attacking a host.”

“So starting people is really like vaccinating them?” Alice asked. “It didn’t actually do anything? Oh my God. All this time, I thought—”

“It slows the infection—a start of what the Saviors were
trying to accomplish,” Prism went on. “But the true cure could only come from the correct combination of genes and fluorescence.”

“Solus,” I said.

Chapter 13

D
usk encroached upon the city. We set up a makeshift camp in a quiet alley to rest for the night. I sat with my back against the brick wall of an abandoned Chinese restaurant. Lucy lay curled beside me with her head on my leg. Kareena
sat opposite me, several feet away, her knees pulled up to her chest, her arms crossed, and her elbows on her knees. She
turned her
face away from me
and
rested
her head on her arms.

She’d been ignoring me since the Prism had put us back
down on Earth. I wanted to talk things over with her, but she
wouldn’t let me.

Brian tore thick strips from an old newspaper to toss onto
a meager fire we’d made. Alice sat on the other side with Solus huddled up close to her and Brian’s jacket draped
over her shoulders. She was sitting on a towel we’d swiped from the hotel this week.

The sky overhead was navy blue, flecked with stars. No
sign of rain, but it was getting colder. Winter was just
around the corner and the farther East we moved, the faster
temperatures dropped. We didn’t have a clue where we were going, but as long the nights were clear, we saved a few bucks by enduring the company of abandoned city backstreets
.

Having my gun made me feel safer. Safe enough to take the risk so we could eat the next morning. We needed help and we needed it soon. Money was drying up and my clip had fourteen bullets left.

To most people, that sounds like a lot.

It’s not. Not when I had no way of refilling my clip if the need arose.

Brian tossed a few wood scraps onto the fire and poked it with a stick of rebar.

“Why don’t you get some sleep and I’ll keep watch,” I suggested.

“Are you sure? I’ll be okay. I—”

“Shut up and get some rest, Brian.” I smirked when I
said it so he’d know I was kidding. “But, seriously, you’ve been
wearing yourself thin since Solus showed up. Get some rest. I promise I’ll wake you if something goes down.”

“Thanks,” Brian said with a small but grateful smile. He dug around in his backpack and pulled out a thin fleece blanket. He tossed it to me and I caught it.

“Thanks,” I said with a nod.

He shuffled over to Alice
and, from the corner of my eye, I saw him embrace her and Solus. Solus still hadn’t
shown
much emotion in the form of facial expressions, but every time his parents looked at him, you could see a glimmer of excitement
light up his eyes. Light up, as in figuratively, not literally, thank God. But the sensitive blue and green irises did show some affection. The Saviors hadn’t made him into a total robot child, at least.

I stopped watching them and shifted my attention back
to Lucy, who was still awake in my lap. “Lucy? Are you okay?”
I nudged her gently. She looked up at me.

“I can’t sleep,” she said, sitting up. “I want to sleep in a bed. The ground is hard.”

“I know and I’m sorry.
But you’re going to have to try tonight, okay? I’m gonna keep you safe, and you’ve got Brian and Solus right over there, too.” I pointed. “Solus is going to sleep.”
At least, he looked like he was trying. He and his parents were curled up together on the other side of the fire.

“Here.” I got to my knees and un-crumpled the blanket Brian had thrown to me. I shook it out and laid it down flat on the ground. Then I slid off my hoodie and rolled it into a ball. “Lie down,” I said, patting it with my hand.

Lucy sighed and reluctantly lowered herself onto the ground, nestling her head against my hoodie. “I don’t want to sleep right now,” she whined.

“You need to,” I said firmly, but caringly. “Everyone else is and I need sleep, too, but I won’t go to sleep until you do. So the longer you stay awake, the more tired you’re going to make me.”

“Oh. Sorry, Daddy,” she whispered.

I brushed my hand over her forehead and leaned down to kiss her there. She squinted and grinned.

“I love you, Lucy,” I said, tucking a lock of her long dark
hair behind her ear.

“Love you, too.”

She rolled onto her side and exhaled loudly.

I sat there for a while, watching her until sleep finally came and whisked her off to dreamland. Part of me wondered what
kind of dreams she’d be having following everything she’d seen recently. The Prism. A Savior. Our fluorescence. They were the kinds of things you’d expect your kid to see on TV, not in real life. And the kinds of things you’d wait until they were older to expose them to.

I glanced at the others. Brian and Alice looked like they
were asleep, too. The alley was vacant as far as I could tell, but that didn’t mean I felt comfortable letting my guard down
with our lives in the balance, especially since we had two incredibly important children with us.