The Terminals (23 page)

26. DICE
  

by One Shoe Magoo

27. OH YEAH, MAKE ME

by So It Begins

28. THE ENDLESS NOTHING

by Necromoor

“Roll 'em, roll 'em, roll 'em again.”

Cam awoke to a narrow, grease-stained face. Female.
The girl from the jungle.
He sat up quickly. She stood on his rope ladder, leaning over him the way Pilot had those long weeks ago in the hospital.

“Fank-roo,” she mumbled through a mouth full of dark meat.

“You're welcome,” Cam said. “What are you doing in here? I thought you didn't want people to find you.”

“It's dark out, and your new buddy is off at a beach fire.” She tore another hunk from the bird leg.

“He's not my buddy.”

“No?”

“No. I don't trust him.”

“Why not?”

“Because you've made me paranoid. By the way, you took something from me.”

“You don't need it. Or do you?” She cocked an eyebrow. “What's your plan?”

“Plan? I don't have a plan.”

“Well, you should.”

“I want some answers. And I don't want you to get me into trouble.”

“Why are you so worried about getting into trouble? This is all for good and justice and blah-blah-blah, right?” She paused to eat again. “Well, I'll tell you why. Because you sense it. I know you do. You can feel that something's wrong.”

“I don't know,” Cam said defensively. “People are dying. Some of it is hard to take. It makes a guy think. But it's an intense program. That doesn't mean something's wrong.”

“You didn't tell them about me. I would know if you did.”

“No. I didn't.”

“Can I trust you?”

“I gave you a chicken, or whatever that bird was.”

“
They
give you food. Do you trust them?”

“I have so far.”

“So did I.”

“You're one of us, then?”

“I was. Last year's batch. TS-8.”

Prior teams?
Cam thought.
Why not?
Ward had never said there weren't—he just never talked about them.

“Why are you hiding?” Cam asked.

“I'm not with the program anymore, and they didn't exactly provide me with transportation out of here.”

“You went AWOL. Wow. But what does this have to do with me? I can't help you go anywhere. I'm here until I die.”

“Until you die, huh? God, you are dumb. You don't get it, do you? And I thought you were smart. A year and a half ago they diagnosed me with the same life-sucking, brain-eating thing they say you have. But look at me. What do you notice?”

“You're skinny and dirty?”

“I'm not dead.”

*   *   *

Her name was Siena Black. She was from Eugene, Oregon, the only child of an architect and a teacher. She was about to declare her major in environmental studies at the University of Oregon when she was diagnosed with malignant glioblastoma out of the blue. She'd been on a team just like Cam—ten college-age kids. But she'd bailed and fled into the jungle. Siena talked machine-gun fast, spilling more personal info in a few minutes than his teammates had in weeks. But she didn't linger. It was a trust offering, and she was eager to get to business.

“So that's a bit about me,” she said. “Now I need your help getting out of here.”

“You're telling me you're not sick?”

“I'm not a doctor. I'm just saying I haven't died, and they said I would.”

“From the tumor or the TS?”

“They said both would kill me. But a tumor hasn't killed me, obviously. And I stopped taking the TS-8. I couldn't get it after I went AWOL. That was hell, by the way. I went through withdrawals. Lots of barf. Not pretty. That's part of why I look like an anorexic runway model. My body's so screwed up I don't know if I'm sick or recovering or going to die in five minutes. But I'm still kicking. I know that.”

“Proves nothing.”

“I didn't say it proved anything. Just said I need to get out of here. They aren't very understanding about the desertion thing.”

“They let a friend of mine go home.”

“Did they?” She looked genuinely surprised, and there was a hint of hope in her expression, but mostly doubt.

“That's what she said. She begged and they agreed. She was a mess. Maybe you should have just cried a lot if you didn't want to be part of the team anymore.”

“Right. The almighty ‘team.'”

“They're my friends. You're a stranger. No offense.”

“Your friends aren't that great. You don't even trust your roommate.”

“That's because he's a tool.”

“The rest aren't much better.”

“How do you know? Eavesdropping? Sneaking under huts?”

“I just know.”

“Yeah. How?”

“Because they hunted me.”

“What?”

“There were two of us. We were the leftovers. I started the TS last, and he wasn't on it at all. They didn't have any more missions for us. They were bringing in new kids, but keeping us isolated from them. Pilot told me I was going to be going away for some ‘individual training.' He said to meet him at the boat the next morning, but I started getting a bad feeling about it. We agreed to run. Ward, Pilot, and some of your friendly teammates came after us.”

“Then where's the guy?”

“I don't know. I haven't seen him since we separated to split up our pursuers.”

“Maybe he's lost in the jungle?”

“Maybe.”

“You say ‘hunted,' but what if they were just trying to find you?”

“The athletic guy threw a dart at me while I was in a tree. A fall from that height would have been fatal.”

“Donnie? He's an ass.”

“His minion and the big guy were after me too.”

“Tegan and Owen? Why would those guys hunt someone who hadn't done anything wrong?”

“Because Pilot told them to? And Ward could make up anything in a team briefing. How do you know
your
targets were bad guys?”

“Oh, please,” Cam sniffed. “Our first mission was to rescue doctors from pirates. Pirates have been bad since time immemorial. Three severed heads pretty much confirmed it.”

Siena went to the doorway to make sure no one was coming. “Look, idiot,
I
was your team's first mission. You weren't there because you were the last-minute replacement for the poor sap that fell over the cliff chasing me. And I know damn good and well that I'm not a bad guy.”

Cam fumed. It was interesting information, he had to admit, but was it true? And he didn't like losing the logic fight. “Are you going to give me my diamonds back?”

“No. I'll need them when I get to civilization. If you're staying here, you won't.”

“Fine. You're right.”

“You're right, I'm right.”

“I mean about the diamonds. About the rest, I'm not sure.”

“Who do you think is funding all of this? They're still testing TS. On us.”

“Not on me.”

“You ever heard of a control group? You're the athletic, smart, normal human guinea pig they compare your enhanced teammates to. They're not going to give it to you. Ever.”

“Ward told us that the TS was experimental right up front. We knew that when we signed up.”

“Then you know that the organization has to be a fucking pharmaceutical company, right, Cam?”

For a moment Cam couldn't speak. The idea was so overwhelming that it bounced around in his head and he had trouble getting hold of it.

“Just because there's money behind all this doesn't mean it's evil,” he said.

“Unless we were never dying to begin with.”

 

CAM'S PLAYLIST

27. OH YEAH, MAKE ME
  

by So It Begins

28. THE ENDLESS NOTHING

by Necromoor

29. HOPE AND CHANGE

by That Weird Girl

“I wouldn't wish me on your worst enemy.”

Cam groaned and rolled over. Owen was up and annoying him already.

“So what's on the agenda today? Got plans? I'm just hanging out. What are you doing?” Owen had black hair, Cam noticed, the blackest he'd ever seen, so dark that, from behind, his head looked like a hole in reality perched on his sunburned neck.

“I was thinking I might explore the jungle a bit,” Cam said. “Maybe find some coconuts.”

Owen looked confused. “Okay. Cool.”

It wasn't cool. It was stupid and a lie. Cam dressed and headed off toward one of the climbing ropes strung up on the bluff. There were three, including the southern one on the cliffs he'd come down initially with Ward. It was the highest. The others were plenty tall as well, but not so harrowing. They were the two used for practice runs in the jungle. Cam walked toward the one in the middle. Owen watched him go, and Cam watched Owen watch him go out of the corner of his eye. When his roommate ducked inside the hut again, Cam hurried back and slid underneath into Siena's hollow space.

Owen was already in Cam's footlocker. Cam could hear his dark-haired roommate emptying it and then stacking everything back inside. The floor was thin, and though he couldn't see through it, he heard every step. Owen went to the desk next. He was looking for the notebook, Cam realized. Cam had Ari's diary in his pocket, but he'd left his own, which said almost nothing. He'd been tempted to write “Screw you, Owen!” on the last page, but decided it was better not to let his roommate know he was onto him. He might be able to learn something. Thirty minutes later, after Owen had made a thorough search of the condo and Cam was getting cramps in his legs, he slid out from underneath and backtracked to the bluff.

“Hey Owen!” he called, approaching the condo. “I'm back!”

When he walked in he almost laughed. Owen was seated comfortably on their padded bench, a book in his hand and his feet up as though he'd been relaxing.

“Oh, hey. Any coconuts?”

“I saw one, but it was too high.”

“Oh well.”

“Yeah. I didn't bring a tool along to help me reach it. Hey, any idea when our next mission will be?”

“No,” Owen said, perking up at the opportunity to probe. “Why?”

“I'm just eager to get back to it. The second and third missions were so insane. It gets you pumped, right?”

Owen looked confused, an expression he was good at. “I guess so.”

“Which was your favorite?”

“Of the two we…?”

“Of all of them.”

His hesitation told Cam most of what he needed to know. Owen didn't correct him. His new roommate didn't know if Cam knew there'd been a first mission before he arrived, and he wasn't sure whether he should acknowledge it. Siena was telling the truth.

Owen finally recovered. “The pirates was my favorite. Being on the scuba team was awesome! Did you see me shoot through the hole in the door?”

“Yeah,” Cam said. “You were … awesome.”

Hours later, Owen was off spearfishing in the lagoon, and Cam flipped open Ari's diary, looking for information. He discovered that the notebook was more than a titillating account of his encounter with Jules. There were details about doctor visits and training exercises, meals, and even bickering among Deathwing members. It was a record of their service in the organization. Valuable. Dangerous. It had been meant to be used for strategy notes, but Ari was a voracious writer. Cam had written very little—it felt too much like an assignment from one of his college courses, and he'd be damned if he was going to spend his last year of life doing homework.

“Knock, knock,” Wally called from the doorway, and Cam slapped the notebook shut.

“Yeah? What?”

“Doctor visit.”

“Now?”

“No. Fifteen minutes. Saddle up.”

*   *   *