Drift pattern, p.36
Drift Pattern, page 36
“You’re holding something back from me, and if we are truly friends like you say, you should tell me.” Luci chides her, “If you know me as well as you say that you do, you know that I need to know everything.”
Shar acknowledges the accusation with a nod. “I’ve got to do something first, and then I’ll tell you.”
“Towels are in the kitchen,” Luci says, gesturing for her to get them.
When she returns, she asks, “Do you trust me, Luci Gaudiano?”
There’s something about the way Shar says her name, and then she notices a blade in her hand. “What are you going to do with the knife?” Luci asks, gulping hard.
“I’m trying to help you rescue Ish,” she says, returning to the sofa. She places the hand towels to the side and takes a deep breath. “You might want to look away for a moment.”
Luci leans back. “Why? What are you doing?”
“In your pocket, I have one final note for you, the most important thing I’ve ever written.”
Luci can tell Shar’s psyching herself up for something. “What are you doing, Shar?” she demands, feeling her stomach knot up. “What’s the plan for me to get past the cybo without a Viatorio? Tell me, Shar!”
“My uncle told me this story about a pre-world painter,” she says, examining the blade. “Vincent something or other.”
The statement confirms Luci’s suspicions, and she’s horrified. “Shar, don’t do it,” she pleads as the girl places the knife on the side of the ear with the Viatorio. “Please! There’s got to be another way. Don’t do it!”
She shakes her head slightly. “He sent his ear to his lover.”
“Shit, no!” Luci slides off the couch to her knees. “Please don’t. I’m begging you.”
She shrugs. “It’s your only way out of here, the only way to save Ish. Read my final note to you . . . breast pocket above your heart.”
Luci’s quivering hand makes it difficult to unbutton it. Her eyes freeze on Shar’s doll-like face. Still transfixed on her and the knife, Luci feels around inside the pocket. Her fingers brush against something plastic, not paper, and she pulls it out. It’s a rectangle the size of a name badge with a crudely etched inscription on the white plastic face.
Il xlwAz luv yU lUKE
She understands it all now. Luci’s throat constricts, and more tears stream down her cheeks. An unexpected pang of guilt spears her heart. “Please, you don’t have to do this.”
Shar ignores the words. “I love you. I love you, Luci Gaudiano! The time we spent together a few years ago was the happiest time of my life.”
Her expression intensifies. “I can help to save you this time. Last time, I couldn’t do anything when they took you away, but this time I can.” Shar explains as she moves the blade back and forth slowly against the fleshy lobe. She winces and gasps loudly as if taken by surprise. Even with her eyes pressed tightly closed, tears escape down her cheeks. Shar lets out a wail that pierces Luci’s heart. Generous crisscrossing streams of blood flow down the girl’s forearm and terminate in thick droplets off the elbow. The curled-up ends of the bottom right side of her platinum white hair turn a speckled red. It looks like some hellish, macabre Christmas ribbon.
Only by sheer will is Luci able to keep down the bile begging to climb up her esophagus. She shakes her head. Between fingers pressed tightly against her lips, she whispers in horror, “No, Shar. Please, no.”
Shar’s teary eyes open wide as the knife falls to the floor with an echoing clang.
Blood is everywhere.
Luci snatches the towels and mashes them against the side of Shar’s self-inflicted wound to slow the bleeding. “Pressure . . . we’ve got to put pressure on it.”
Obviously in a tremendous amount of pain, Shar’s words come out in brittle, breathy sputters. “I know . . . this is barbaric, but my uncle . . . he says it’ll work. The cybo sensors will perform an identity scan as you go by . . . but they’ll see me instead.”
Luci’s about to compare it to a door access card in an office building until she realizes that the reference would probably be lost on Shar and just says, “Okay, I understand.”
Shar sits forward to admire her handiwork beside the blade. “There it is. Take it,” she says, motioning to the lobe connected to the Viatorio. “Uncle told me . . . V sensors check for a live . . . pulse every six and a half minutes, so you’d better . . .” She bites her lip. “Better get moving . . . to get past the cybo out there.”
Luci looks down at the crimson-colored lobe and the attached device. She thinks to herself that it’ll be a miracle if she makes it through this without gagging.
Shar inhales sharply and begs her, “Take it, please.”
The sharp odor of blood iron fills the air.
“I . . . I don’t know what to say,” Luci responds, trying to decide where to grab it as if she were picking up a scorpion.
“I don’t . . . expect you to say . . . anything. I just want you to go . . . and be safe, but I had to tell you. I never told the other you how I felt . . . how I loved her, and now she’s gone . . . so I wanted you to know.”
Luci reluctantly pinches the part of the lobe attached to the Viatorio to avoid clicking anything on the device itself. It’s sticky. She lifts it, holding it far from her body. “I’m sorry. This is hard for me to do.”
Shar dangles the cleaner of the two towels to her. “Wrap it in . . . this.”
“Okay, yeah, that’s good,” Luci says, receiving the cloth. She rises to her feet while wrapping it tightly in the towel. A thought enters her mind. “Shar, what are you going to tell Royse and Macer about this?”
“I almost forgot. I have a fake message requesting . . . me to come here and saying my access had been restored. The plan is for me to say that when I arrived, you . . . overpowered me and took the Viatorio and my clothes.”
Luci runs the scenario over in her mind. She’s skeptical it will be believed. There’s not enough evidence of a struggle.
“So I need one more favor from you,” Shar says.
“Oh, please no more blood,” she says, swallowing hard while backing up.
Shar makes a dismissive wave with the hand that’s not pressing the towel against her face. “Not that. Hit me.”
“Shar, I can’t . . . you’re already—”
She slumps back into the sofa. “Luci, I fell in love with you . . . a long time ago, and though you don’t remember any of it, because it was her and . . . not your experience, you’re still you, and for . . . better or worse, I’m still me. I love you, Luci Gaudiano . . . every version of you.” She swallows and closes her eyes. “Hit me like my life depends on it . . . because it probably does.”
The guilt and turmoil Luci’s experiencing feels like she’s just doubled down on these emotions. “Damn it,” she swears at the circumstances that have brought her to this juncture. She regards the girl before her and wonders if the older Luci had fallen in love with her too or if the feelings were one sided. If older Luci had loved her, it would mean that the dormant seed of that emotion was inside of Luci also. How could she strike her?
“You’ve got to do it, Luci, for them to believe my story,” Shar prompts her.
“I know, I know,” Luci says, but her mind is scrambling for an alternative. There has to be some other way, an intelligent option . . . a non-violent option. She wipes tears flowing down her face, reaching an unpleasant conclusion. “Thank you.” She sniffs. “Thank you for everything.”
“Stop thanking me and hit—”
Luci strikes her hard enough that she only has to do it once. At first, Luci thinks that she may have knocked her out, but then Shar lets out a feeble groan. Shar cracks open her eye that’s already beginning to swell. “Yeah, that should do it. That was good.”
Clutching the towel folded around the bloody Viatorio, Luci leans in to place a long, soulful kiss atop Shar’s clammy forehead. “Thank you.”
“The door’s still open,” Shar says. “You be safe for me, alright?” She runs the fingers of her free hand up and down Luci’s face, tracing the path of her tears.
When Shar pushes up to press her lips against Luci’s mouth, she doesn’t resist. Luci’s certain that it won’t take long for the authorities to learn what’s happened here. If they don’t fall for her lie, Shar’s punishment for betraying Cavazos and Macer is likely a swift, merciless horror. So yeah, she can allow the girl this indulgence.
Sooner than expected, Shar pulls back, her widened emerald-green eyes staring into Luci’s. She whispers, “You’ve got to go. My uncle will be waiting on the water for you.”
Luci wants to comfort her for just a little longer, but Shar shoves at her with her free hand. “Go, Luci. Get out of here.”
“Shar, I—”
She cuts her off. “Go rescue your friend and leave Relicus City. Make all of this worth it.”
Luci offers a feeble half smile and nods. She forces the lump forming in her throat downward and sniffs, trying to find her voice. “I will, I promise.”
pOrt 4
~ One ~
Luci moves to the open door, holding the bloody towel with the Viatorio. She extends it like a priest brandishing a crucifix in a den of vampires. The cybo on the other side of the threshold tilts its head slightly as she passes by, barely taking notice of her exit.
The door hisses as it slides shut with a hollow thud. “Good luck, Shar,” she says aloud, beginning to trot down the corridor to the elevator.
Once inside, she drops the towel and its grisly contents, kicking it to the corner of the compartment away from her. The doors close, and Luci exhales a deep sigh. Her stomach throbs like a nest of angry hornets. She steadies herself with her hand against the cool metal wall until she notices some of Shar’s already dried blood on her. Jerking her hand to her side, she fiercely rubs it against the thigh of her black jumpsuit until the elevator doors reopen. Luci bolts out like it’s the horse gate at the racetrack, and she is standing atop the windy walkway in no time.
But there’s no boat, only the rhythmic sound of seawater slapping against the support beams below.
She anxiously scans the horizon for approaching craft, but the water is empty. She runs to the other side of the boardwalk-like platform, chastising herself for not confirming with Shar which side her uncle’s boat would arrive on. The saltwater-laced breeze mocks her, lifting strands of hair in all directions as she walks back to the side where Cavazos’s boat departed a few hours ago.
Sunlight peeks through a break in the clouds. The top of Macer’s dome refracts beams onto the water that sway like thousands of iridescent slivers. She wonders if Royse was being truthful about the chancellor being in a meeting elsewhere, not that she can go to Macer anyway—not now.
She leans against the rail of the walkway, feeling even more trapped than being locked inside the guesthouse. Luci closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “Sorry, Ish. I’m so sorry.”
“Dr. Gaudiano,” a man’s voice calls out. It sounds as far away as a dream. Luci snaps to attention, scanning for the source as her name is repeated. She’s confused that there’s still no boat. She turns around and looks overhead for a drobine or some other transport, but the sky’s empty.
“Dr. Gaudiano . . . Luci, down here,” the voice announces. “I’m down here . . . in the water.”
She redirects her attention below the balcony until she sees someone in the water. They bob on the waves like a cork next to something orange and flat that she can’t quite make out. Playing it safe, she shouts back, “Do you know Shar?”
“Of course, I do,” the man answers, continuing to rhythmically lift and fall with the water. “I’m her uncle.”
“Then what’s your name?” Luci asks, stalling to look around in case this is an ambush by L’inversione.
“My name is Noah Beaumont, and I’ve been sent here to take you to your partner, Ish Moyta.”
Luci’s heart skips a beat, trying to decide if she can trust this man or not.
“Doctor, I can’t stay above water very long undetected. Come with me now.” There’s a pause before the man below adds, “Technician Moyta is scheduled for cybo reconditioning.”
The confirmation of her worst fear causes Luci’s knees to buckle, but her grip on the railing steadies her. “Where’s your boat? Did L’inversione destroy it or something?”
There’s a pause. “I told Shar that I’d bring a bnanti, a two-seater. It’s a submersible.”
Luci studies the manhole-sized opening of the orange plank beside him and finally realizes that she’s looking down at the top of a mini-sub. “Why didn’t Shar say it was a submarine?” she mumbles to herself, her heartrate accelerating. “Why underwater? Cavazos’s boat was bad enough.” Every muscle in her body ratchets up to piano-string tightness.
As if he can read her thoughts, Beaumont volunteers, “We can’t risk traveling in the sky or atop the water. Security would catch us.”
Luci feels sick as she attempts to hold back the onslaught of images of her near fatal drowning.
Beaumont urges again, “Doctor, please hurry. I need to get the bnanti back under the surface before they find us.” His hand emerges from the water to point toward the guesthouse behind her. “We need you so Mr. Moyta knows that it’s safe to come with us. He’ll believe us if he sees you.”
The words puncture her heart like needles. He wants to ask who the “us” is but says instead, “I don’t think that I can go with you. I have a thing about water.”
“A thing?” Beaumont shouts back up to her. “You don’t have time to have a thing. We’ve got to get out of here.” There’s a genuine desperation in his voice. “I’ve probably already been water-top too long as it is. I can mask scans for the bnanti at lower depths, but on top like this . . . We’re exposed if we’re up here for too long.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Beaumont, but I don’t think that I can do it.”
He pleads, “I know of your aversion to water, but think about what Shar did for you.” He pauses. “She did that for Mr. Moyta, someone she’s never even met.”
Luci’s throat is dry and raw as she shouts back down to him. “I know . . . I know, anything but water. I had a very bad experience with water when I was young. I just—”
“I know. I remember, but he’s going to die if you don’t come with me!” Beaumont yells, and Luci knows it’s not just to be heard above the din of the waves. “We were told that this person meant something to you.”
Her fist tightens as she wonders how he could know anything at all about the two of them. She couldn’t feel more violated if she kept a diary and the man below her had ripped pages from it to use against her. Luci’s feelings of defilement are only superseded by confusion. How could he—or anyone, for that matter—know about her and Ish? Cavazos had only caught them kissing earlier in this morning, and Beaumont obviously wasn’t working with that windbag.
He prompts her again, “Doctor Gaudiano, we have to leave.”
“Okay, okay!” she screams, moving to the opening with the ladder. “I’ll do it.”
“Whoa, wait! Not the ladder. It’s got sensors that alert security if someone’s climbing up it.”
“So, what then?” Luci asks, swallowing hard. “I have to . . . jump?”
“The sensors.”
“I can’t swim,” she says defiantly. “I never learned how.” This is the lie that she has told people for so many years that she’s nearly convinced herself it’s true. “I told you, I have a thing about water.”
“You don’t have to swim. Jump and I’ll get you. It’ll only be for a few seconds, and I’ll pull you up.”
Her mind works overtime trying to find an alternative to all of this, searching for some option that’s been overlooked, but there is none. This is the only possibility she has in order to save Ish.
“You’ll be safe!” Beaumont calls out, one hand gesturing for her to leap.
“Shut up! Just shut up!” she screeches in a mix of aggravation and fear. “I need a minute, okay?” She holds the rail and leans forward slightly to a dizzying result.
“Leap out and away from the platform to avoid hitting it.”
She’s certain that she’s about to coat the rail with puke. There’s no time to self-soothe with her special number, but she’s got to settle her breathing or she’s going to have a heart attack right here on the platform. She looks upward to the clouds and thinks of her mother and father. The wind buffets her, and the sound of the waves slapping against the structure below grow impossibly louder in her ears. She takes a deep breath and slowly exhales. “Well, shit,” she says as she trots a few steps to the opening. She leaps, instinctively closing her eyes on the way down.
Time slows to a crawl as unwelcome images of young Luci trapped in the family car flash across her mind. She’s jolted from the terror as her open arms slap against the water with a loud clap. The pain is unexpected, but there’s little time to focus on it as a blast of water assaults her nostrils. Out of reflex, she coughs, which triggers her to inhale. She realizes the mistake instantly as stinging saltwater pours down her throat. The sound of bubbles fleeing to the surface from all around her bombard her ears as she sinks downward into darkness. Her limbs tense to the bitter cold temperature of the ocean. She painfully flails about, reaching for the disappearing sky above her, continuing to sink.
A strong, deliberate grip fastens onto her forearm. It hoists her upward at an impressive speed, busting through a weblike stream of bubbles. She reluctantly recalls cybo Benold Jesper doing this for her. Once on the surface, Luci heaves and gasps, feeling as if she’s run two back-to-back marathons. Her eyes burn from the salt and tear up from nearly gagging seconds before. With the hood of the black jumpsuit filled to the brim with seawater, its heaviness weighs the back of the garment down. Luci reaches behind to push it out and ease the constricting fabric around her neck.
“You’re safe now,” Beaumont says, helping her latch onto the handholds near the opening of the vessel.
