The Far Shores (The Central Series) (75 page)

Eerie nodded to herself,
shouldering her bag and taking firm hold of her basket. Then she reached for
the keyboard.

“Sorry for intruding,”
Katya said as she entered, startling Eerie away from the laptop, “but I heard
you might be about to do something really stupid…”

“It’s my decision!”
Eerie shouted. “You shouldn’t try and stop me!”

“…and I want in.” Katya
sat down beside Eerie, putting her own backpack on the carpet with a
self-conscious smile. “If you don’t mind the company, that is.”

Eerie blinked twice,
opened her mouth, then closed it again without saying anything.

“That okay?”

“Um. But…but, why? Why
would you want to…I mean…I’m going to…”

“I know where you are
going.”

“I’m not sure how I will
get back…”

“That’s okay. I got
kicked out of school, and I’m pretty sure I got fired from the Auditors to
boot. I wasn’t doing much of anything.”

“But, I’m not even sure
where he is!”

“Yeah, I figured,” Katya
said with a shrug. “But I also figure you have the best chances of anyone to
find him.”

Eerie’s shoulders
slumped in defeat.

“I don’t get it,” she
said. “Why?”

“That’s a long story,”
Katya said, blushing. “I’ll tell you on the way, okay?”

Eerie studied her face.

“You like Alex, don’t
you?”

“Yeah,” Katya admitted,
muttering. “Not the way you do, though! It’s totally different. Nothing…you
know. Romantic.”

“Oh.” Eerie’s body
language relaxed in obvious relief. “Not that I would care.”

“Right. Of course.”

There was a moment of
uncomfortable silence.

“Is this Haley’s dog?”
Katya asked, scratching beneath Derrida’s chin, to obvious appreciation. “It
looks like it.”

Eerie looked
panic-stricken, glancing all about the room before finally nodding.

“It is. Don’t tell.”

“I won’t,” Katya assured
her, slightly wounded. “Does Haley know?”

“Of course! She stopped
me on the way here, before I even left my room,” Eerie admitted, “and told me
she knew everything.”

“That’s a telepath for
ya,” Katya said sympathetically. “This place is infested with them.”

“Haley said she felt bad
about Alex,” Eerie said, running a finger along the grain of the tabletop. “She
said she wouldn’t try to stop me, or tell anyone, but only if I took Derrida
with me, so he can keep an eye on me.”

“And so can Haley,”
Katya muttered darkly. She brooded for a moment, until she noticed Eerie’s
horrified expression. “Oh, don’t mind me,” Katya said in a rush, “I was just
thinking out loud. I’m sure she just wants to help.”

Eerie looked
unconvinced.

“Are you sure?”

“Completely. I’m sure
lots of people would want to help, if they knew what you were doing.” Katya
paused, smiled, and then added, “And they were insane.”

Then a polite knock at
the door. Both girls jumped from their chairs, and Derrida barked. Eerie dashed
frantically from the antenna array to the power converter to the laptop, unsure
of what to do, how to hide her arrangement. Katya shushed the dog with a glare,
then stalked to the door. She opened it a crack, then sighed and allowed Vivik
to enter. He was dressed for the cold, with a heavy turban and a backpack over
one shoulder.

“Ah, hello. I hope I’m
not interrupting.”

“You know you are,”
Katya said cheerfully, cuffing him in the back of the head. “You used your
protocol, right?”

“Well…yes. It’s not as
if I
wanted
to eavesdrop, or anything, it’s just that…”

“…you want to come,
too?” Eerie finished, looking perplexed. “Does that mean that you also like
Alex, Vivik?”

Vivik nodded slowly;
then, as Katya chuckled, understanding slowly dawned on him, and he objected
frantically.

“No! Not in that sense
of the word, anyway. We are friends. That’s all.”

“But, this is…a lot. For
just friends,” Eerie added, sitting back down. “I don’t understand.”

Vivik hesitated.

“I feel responsible, I
guess. I didn’t…err, well, I wasn’t that great of a friend, I think.” Vivik put
his hand to his head. “I have my reasons, alright? It’s not important.”

“Reasons are very
important,” Eerie countered.

“I’ll explain later,”
Vivik said hurriedly. “Please, tell me. Can I come with you?”

Katya shrugged and
looked expectantly at Eerie. Eerie stared at the ground for a moment. When she
finally looked up, she was smiling faintly.

“Okay. Vivik can come.”

“Great! Thanks. I
think.”

Eerie glanced at the
computer, then turned back to face them, golden motes dancing in the depths of
her dilated eyes.

“But, before we go, I
want to know why. Why both of you want to go. Okay?”

Vivik nodded
reluctantly. Katya stared out the window at a tree whose branches whipped about
in the wind.

“I don’t mind,” Katya
said finally. “But if I’m going to share…”

She paused, and gave
Eerie a significant look.

“…then I want to know
the full story. Of you, him, and why. Not the stupid shit that everyone else
thinks, not the stories you told Rebecca or Ana. The truth. I might die out
there – we all might. I think it’s only right that we all know the reasons.”

It was Eerie’s turn to
look away. She studied her computer display, as if searching for errors in the
static display of code, one hand searching out Derrida for comfort.

“Okay,” she said,
finally, her voice briefly different – less musical, more self-assured. “I’ll
do it. But we all agree – none of this goes any further than the three of us.
And no backing out – once you hear it, you have to go. If either of you want to
leave, now is the time. After this, it will just be us, and the Outer Dark.
Agreed?”

“Yeah,” Vivik said,
nodding. “I feel like I need to do this. So, yes.”

“Even if I wanted to
back out, I’m probably already in too deep,” Katya said, putting her hiking
boots up on the table. “Let’s do it.”

“Okay!” Eerie sprang up,
the typical musical quality returning to her voice. “Then we are officially the
‘Rescue Alex from the Outer Dark Club’!”

Vivik made a strange
noise that rapidly turned into coughing. Katya blushed.

“Can we not call it
that?” Katya suggested. “Please?”

“Too late,” Eerie
countered cheerfully. “It’s official.”

Katya hesitated for a
moment, then laughed.

“Okay, whatever. Fine
with me.” She folded her hands behind her head. “Cards on the table time,
right? It was my idea, so I’ll go first…”

Eerie and Vivik waited
patiently while Katya decided where to begin her story.

ABOUT THE
AUTHOR

Zachary
Rawlins
lives with his lovely and amazing wife, Chloe, and their genius Corgi,
Ein, in an 80-year-old Tudor in Oakland, California. During the day, he works
in the environmental industry. In his free time, he enjoys hiking, photography,
building computers, and writing books like this one. He can be reached at
[email protected]
with compliments,
questions, or lucrative publishing offers.

THANK
YOU...

...for
reading
The Far Shores
!
Book Four of the Central Series,
The
Outer Dark
, will likely see release sometime in 2015. In the mean time, I
would be thrilled if you were to check out
Paranoid Magical Thinking
or
The
Night Market
, my Cosmic Horror-themed Light Novels, both available
presently on Amazon.

Cheers!