Strikeforce (15 page)

29

“Can't this thing go any faster?” Eva shouted, though Cassius could barely hear her over the oncoming wind as the skimmer powered forward.

He ventured another look behind them. The Ridium-encased figure floated in midair, pushed forward by the slushy substance at blistering speed. It was almost as if the creature was surfing. Cassius had never seen someone ride Ridium like this. Even a Shifter.

Madame cursed. “If I give it any more, the entire skimmer could break down.”

Cassius grabbed hold of the back of his seat and unbuckled himself.

She clutched his arm. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to find something to slow this guy down.” He wrestled away from her. Keeping his grip on the seat back, he jumped over toward the rear compartments of the vehicle.

“Cassius!”

He brought himself low against the skimmer, knowing that the wrong move would send him flying off, right into the very enemy he was trying to escape.

He'd studied these vehicles before, back when he was at the Lodge training to become a Pearlhound. Of course, the ones he was familiar with were the standard Unified Party models. Who knew what had been done to this thing.

He pawed around for the emergency hatch. The Unified Party wasn't keen on sending out their troops without backup weaponry in case of a Fringe scuffle, and Cassius knew all the places to check for it.

Keeping one hand on the back of the seat, he unlatched the panel beside him and let the wind blow it open.

It was empty. They had nothing to fight back.

He forced his memory back to the battle with Theo. Madame's firepower from her government cruiser had been enough to stop the boy in his tracks, but Cassius didn't have the luxury of military-grade missiles at the moment. Once again, he'd have to make due with what was available.

He pulled himself back toward the seat, keeping his grip tight while balling his opposite fist and urging forth fire. He'd stoked it already before Madame had taken care of the Authority soldiers, so it wasn't difficult to get it flowing through him.

The blackness continued to surge forward, lapping at the back of their skimmer. Tendrils climbed from the goop, mere feet from grabbing onto the vehicle and pulling it back.

Cassius felt the heat surge from his fist, carried along by the wind, whipped back into the darkness.

It met their pursuer head-on, slamming into its body and spreading through the width of the black puddle. Like fire on oil, it burned bright for a moment, but soon dissipated into nothing. The creature continued its pursuit, unabated.

The skimmer shifted underneath them, thrown briefly to the side by a sideswipe from the Ridium tentacles. Cassius held on, but barely. The creature released the vehicle and wound back for another attack.

This time the Ridium coursed straight forward, past the capsules at the rear of the skimmer, past the fuselage and engine, and right toward Cassius.

He didn't have time to react before the tendril wrapped around his midsection and pulled him back. His neck strained with whiplash as his body lifted up and away from the skimmer, feet dangling in the air.

He couldn't focus on anything except the darkness before him. He heard the skimmer pull away. The sounds from its engine grew more distant by the moment.

He was twirled upside down, whipped around in nauseous circles before being flipped right-side up again.

Then, everything stopped. He regained his bearings, even as the Ridium tightened around his waist. A pair of eyes began to form before him as a layer of blackness sheathed away. Two red dots—pupils—met him head-on.

But it wasn't the eyes that really got to him. Underneath, blooming from the darkness like a half moon, was a smile. Murderous in intent, and wide. Gleaming. The sight of it said more than any words could have. This creature had him right where it wanted him.

All at once, the Ridium coursed forward.

It hit him like tar, splotched along his body. The moment it made contact, it latched onto his skin as if millions of tiny little fingers were grabbing at him. Cassius felt the central coil around his waist loosen. It hardly mattered anymore. Ridium crawled all over him.

His eyes widened. He tried to scream, but it wasn't long before the substance had worked its way up his neck, spilling closer to his face. He felt it on his chin. It touched his bottom lip, pulled at his hair as it slid down his forehead.

His arms were yanked to his sides, forced against his body like he was being wrapped up by a spider. He tried to kick, but the Ridium had grabbed hold of his feet as well.

His last chance was his fire, not that it had done much for him moments ago.

But before he could summon anything, the Ridium crawled into his mouth. At first, he choked on it. It tasted of harsh metal as it worked its way down his esophagus. Soon, it contracted enough so that he could breathe, but he still felt it crawling around inside him, like a cold serpent winding its way down to his stomach.

His eyes were covered. He existed in complete darkness. All sounds outside were muffled to the point of incomprehensibility, the Fringe heat a dull afterthought.

Then something astonishing happened.

His eyes bolted open, and he could see. The Ridium hadn't left his body. It hadn't uncovered his face, but he could see just the same.

The world was a prism of browns and silvers and a few colors he'd never seen before. The ground, which had been dull and lifeless before, now thrived with an added layer of reflective, almost sparkling elements. He could distinguish individual particles in the air, swirling around him like he floated in the middle of a blender. And more than this, he could see
through
it. The ground had become one layer of many, each accessible with no more than a thought. A catacomb of unending business stretched below him.

But most of all, he could see the Ridium.

His gut churned as he watched it course underneath Earth's surface, like a river gathering steam. It was everywhere, moving in patches, ready to strike whenever necessary.

Before he could think on it for too long, he felt his body press downward. His torso folded in as his knees rose to meet it. The Ridium encasing his body forced his hands down to his legs, gripping his shins and pulling up until he'd curled into a human ball, floating in the sky. Like a giant Pearl.

He began to spin, faster and faster until he wasn't sure where he was anymore. He couldn't control it. The element had fused so completely that it had melded with his brain, forcing his body in whatever direction it deemed necessary.

He straightened out again. He looked down. He was several yards from the ground now, suspended helplessly in the air.

He looked up. The stars shone brightly, even though it was still daytime. He'd never seen the solar system like this before. It was as if he could zoom in and judge distance between planets—see layers and cross-sections of stars he'd never known existed before.

The Earth's atmosphere became like a swamp. So much happened in the air, now.
Too
much. Dots and lines and transparent nets of material roped through his vision, sweeping across the sky like an entirely new race. The shock of it smothered any discomfort or terror he felt.

Still, he wasn't able to enjoy the sights for long. Within seconds the Ridium pushed on his feet. His entire body shot like a bullet into the air.

The world vanished below him, a gridline of unending curiosity. In front of him was space, and only space.

And he wasn't slowing down.

The stars reached out to touch him. He reached back.

Earth fell away from him, a tiny ball underfoot. The blue sky was swallowed up by a black, empty void as he catapulted into space.

He should feel cold. He should be struggling for breath. He felt nothing.

He stopped, floating in a netherworld between the planet and the solar system. It was like a vast, dark ocean—never ending. Pearls surrounded him on all sides, streaming downward. Some red, others green. None were close enough to touch, not that he'd be able to do anything with them if he could.

The Ridium continued to encase every square inch of his body. Just like on the Surface, he could see through it. It offered some sort of alien lens, different than his normal eyes, in which everything looked fuller. If he concentrated, he could see around objects, look at their backsides without even moving. He gained a complete sense of distance—how long it would take to fly to the moon, to Mars or Saturn or beyond. It all seemed so attainable now, somehow.

But it wasn't to be. Seconds later, he felt the gravity of Earth begin to tug on him. He fell backward, slowly at first but gaining speed. All the while, he had an unencumbered view of the Heavens. It was the most striking, and most terrifying, thing he'd seen in his life.

He stretched his arms and legs apart and let himself go, like a falling star. Once he hit Earth's atmosphere, the descent was bumpier. He felt the wind resistance push up on him. Flames began to dance along the contours of his suit. Any meteor his size would have burned up. But somehow, the Ridium protected him.

He fell faster and faster, unsure of when—or where—he would land. He had faith that the impact wouldn't hurt him, but that didn't mean that his descent was peaceful.

The minute he entered blue sky again, he noticed the particles. The world was swimming with them. He wasn't sure what they were, but he became keenly aware of the thickness of the atmosphere. If he was any lighter, he could swim through it. Had the Authority put this stuff here when they opened their portals? Or had it always been in the air, invisible to the naked eye?

He landed right where he'd started, surrounded by the skimmer and the pile of Ridium. The ground gave way immediately, leaving a human-shaped crater in the hard rock.

He lay still for a moment, in shock. As the Ridium began to drip from his face, carving a hole for his eyes, nose, and mouth, he noticed Madame and Eva, staring down at him from the edges of the crater he'd created.

No one said a word at first, though their expressions spoke loudly enough. In all his years at the Lodge, he'd never seen Madame look so surprised before. She usually knew exactly what to say and do. Suddenly she looked small, eyeing him from above. He couldn't believe that he used to fear her.

Eva wasn't the skittish type either, but her wide eyes and open mouth told him that she'd just witnessed something that shook her to her very core.

Finally, Madame spoke. “Cassius?”

Before he could respond, the Ridium pool above him whipped into a drill-shaped coil and burrowed into the ground. He tilted his chin so that he could watch it disappear beneath the surface. Without the Ridium covering his face, he lost track of it once it got too deep into the Earth's crust. The air became unclogged and plain. Everything snapped back to normal. More or less.

He pulled himself to a sitting position. It was surprisingly difficult, even though he felt no pain from anything that just happened. But he felt heavier, like his extremities were pulled down by weights, like he wore a full suit of armor.

Eva's mouth closed into a concerned frown. “Are you all right? How far did you go?”

He looked up at the stars. “I was in space,” he muttered. “I saw the planets. Stars. Moons. Everything.”

Her eyes narrowed. “That's impossible.” But her words didn't carry much weight. Impossible wasn't in their vocabulary any longer.

“You're alive.” Madame reached down. “And you stopped that thing from killing us. That's all that matters. Let's get you out of here.”

He grabbed her hand, nearly pulling her down with him in the process. The truth was, he didn't need her help to climb out from the crater. The more he got used to it, the better equipped he felt to handle his body. His new body.

“You're covered in the stuff,” Madame observed. “Can you … can you take it off?”

“I don't know.” He paced several steps into the desert, marveling at the protection the suit seemed to offer from the elements. Even if he could remove it, he wasn't sure that he'd want to.

“That creature sucked you up,” Eva said. “The Ridium … you just disappeared into it. It was horrifying to watch.”

“It
felt
horrifying,” he replied, “at first. Then it just felt kind of numb. And then … good. It felt good.”

He held his hands in front of his face, consumed by the incredible tightness with which the element seemed to grab him. He could clench his fists, rub finger against finger, and it hardly felt like he was wearing anything at all. A second skin.

Once he was finished staring, he noticed that the Shifter—the other Ridium-encased figure—had vanished, along with the black goop that had trickled into the ground.

“I feel … ” Cassius spun to take in the entirety of the desert. “It's like I can sense the stuff everywhere. I can—” He clenched his fist and watched as a coil of Ridium burst through the ground in front of him, winding into the sky before it arced downward again and crashed into the ground, loosening into a wave of thick syrup. He pulled his hand to the side, reaching out his arm. The ooze shot through the Fringes in sharp daggers, puncturing the dirt where they landed.

“Whoa,” Eva said. “You're a … a … ”

“Shifter.” He turned to face them. “I can make it move. I can reform it. Just like Theo. Just like Matigo.”

Madame grabbed his shoulder. “But you—”

“Back in the memory,” he interrupted. “The first senso-cube Fisher and I discovered … we heard Matigo talking about his son, Theo. He said the kid needed to be submerged in Ridium before heading to Earth. It triggers something, I think. I'm like him now. Everything's different. The
world
is different.”

He concentrated on the Ridium around his face and felt it ooze back over his eyes. His vision became more complicated again. The particles in the sky reappeared, along with the vast amounts of Ridium underfoot. “I can still breathe,” he said, “and talk. Even with this stuff over my face.”