Liferaft Read online

  To all the explorers who cross into unknowns,

  this one is for you.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1: Javi

  2: Yoshi

  3: Molly

  4: Javi

  5: Anna

  6: Yoshi

  7: Molly

  8: Anna

  9: Yoshi

  10: Javi

  11: Molly

  12: Yoshi

  13: Javi

  14: Anna

  15: Yoshi

  16: Javi

  17: Molly

  18: Kimberly

  19: Yoshi

  20: Molly

  21: Javi

  22: Molly

  23: Anna

  24: Javi

  25: Anna

  26: Javi

  27: Molly

  28: Anna

  29: Yoshi

  30: Anna

  The Game

  About the Author

  Copyright

  It was already dark by the time they saw the towers in the distance; organic and yet alien, silver spires rising from the cliff face like arms reaching toward a silent sky. They had been on the boat for hours, maybe. Then again, it could have been days. Time was strange here, not linear the way they were used to—minutes and hours acknowledged or forgotten and cataloged away. It was more like waves upon waves that crested on the shore, snatching bits and pieces back into some unknown depths.

  Even without the time dilation, Javi understood how the Cub-Tones had lost all sense of time, wandering this odd place for years. It was a world that erased the past every day. It reminded him of his grandfather when he began to lose his memory. “Tell me what you ate for lunch today?” he would ask every few minutes into the conversation, because he would forget and forget and forget. And then forget again.

  But there were some things that couldn’t be forgotten. Oliver was gone, though they all still carried a sliver of hope that he might return, that they would laugh with him again. Akiko had drowned. Javi could barely remember Caleb’s face. They had made new friends and left some of them behind. Molly and Cal were transforming into unrecognizable beings. They now knew that so many people before them had lost themselves to this ever-astonishing landscape.

  Javi could always tell when Molly was thinking of Oliver. Right now she was quiet, her hand over the edge of the boat, touching the surface of the water. She turned to face her friend.

  “You think we’ll see him again?” she asked.

  She hadn’t said his name in a long time. Javi sensed that she already knew the answer but wanted to believe something different. He was willing to play the optimist. That was what coming from a big family had taught him—to sense other people’s needs and to care for those needs as though they were his own.

  “Sure we will,” he said with cheer in his voice. “He’s gotta be here somewhere.” He hoped it was the right amount, not too much, not too little. He hoped she couldn’t tell he was lying. Truth sometimes had to be parceled out carefully; it could wound a person, hobble them indefinitely.

  Kira was huddled with her back to the shore, her knees drawn to her chest. Since they had lost Akiko, Kira’s beloved sister, Kira had gone silent. She’d barely spoken since the incident with the Colossus. Javi knew the blow of losing her sister was too much for her to take. They had been two halves of a shell for as long as he’d known them, and now Kira floated on the surface of this experience, looking lost, her eyes dark, her mood disconsolate. A part of her was gone forever.

  So much had changed since the day they took that fateful flight across the ocean and arrived here, in this bizarre world. They had accomplished so much, learned so much about themselves and each other. They had survived a plane crash, the loss of friends and their favorite teacher. They had battled vicious, carnivorous tanglevine, the cruelty of shredder birds, the sharp claws and beak of the dreadful duck of doom. They’d left the greedy blood sand along with all variety of menacing robots and insects. And who knew what lay ahead?

  All they sought now was to return home. This small group couldn’t afford any more loss. Javi knew he wouldn’t be able to stomach it.

  Yoshi and Anna were talking about something quietly in a corner of the boat, and Javi couldn’t blame them for latching on to each other. He wished there was something or someone in here that he could hold on to that tightly. Then again, this experience had taught him that he was a kind of glue himself. He knew he had united the group in times of crisis; it was a skill he had, a gift. He wished no one had been left behind, but he had done his best to keep them all together.

  “Hey! Look up there!” Anna called out, and they all turned to the rising crescent of the red moon. The moons had always been symbols. They were keys to the language of this place, a language that Javi and the others had learned to navigate and speak. Red and green, floating in blue. And right now the red moon was a compass. Molly said that wherever the moon was going, there they would find answers.

  “We’ve got to row in that direction,” Molly said with conviction in her voice. She lifted her glowing arm to the sky. The more time they spent here, the more Molly knew things. She had learned to speak the language of this place better than anyone, but even that scared Javi. He didn’t want to know the language of the strange machinery here, lest he become a part of it. But for Molly and Cal, it was already too late. They were hybrid beings now, not the people who had arrived with human goals and ambitions and problems.

  And yet, they still hadn’t abandoned their human concerns.

  “Maybe we’ll find him there,” Molly sighed to Javi. “Maybe he managed to get himself out of the blood sand. Maybe he’s there … waiting for us.”

  Javi nodded at her. After all, what else was there to do? Despite the recent coup with Hank, Molly was still, to his mind, their leader. He felt it was his job to keep her in high spirits. “Of course he’s still here somewhere,” he said, even though the doubts had begun to creep in. He didn’t know if they would ever see Oliver again. He hoped so.

  They were all tired as the boat leaped across that last torrent of waves, heading toward the barren beach. Javi was surprised at the surge of excitement he felt in the pit of his stomach. It was like they were adventurers discovering a new continent. Far from home and yet one step closer.

  Finally the boat docked on the rocky beach, swaying precariously from side to side, and one by one, they all got out. Javi felt a sense of hope as he saw Molly and Cal exchanging glances. He was good at observing people, and the knowing look in Molly’s eyes said it all. Whatever they were seeking, the answers would be found here. There were nine of them left and he was grateful they had each other. That they had survived this far felt like a victory in itself. He hoped they would all get out of here alive.

  The beach and the valley and the towers ahead were monochrome. They reminded Yoshi of the surface of the moon. Though he had obviously never traveled there, he imagined it would feel no less foreign than this place. Everything here was silver and rocky. It glowed, even in the dark of the night. But a tiny sliver of light was beginning to creep over the horizon, quietly announcing the beginning of a new day.

  Or what passed for a day in this place. The sun was an illusion, just as the moons were. All of it was false—just color and light meant to give the impression of an alien sky. But for whose benefit? Yoshi wondered. Perhaps they’d find out soon.

  An elaborate city lay ahead of them, with spires that reached out in all directions. The extraordinary citadel took his breath away. Yoshi wasn’t an engineer like Anna, but he could appreciate how complex this city was, how much skill it must have taken to build it. He wondered who had taken the time to build it, and why.

  “How long do you think it’ll take us
to climb up there?” he asked Anna, and he liked the way she cocked her head to the side, the way the early morning light caught her eyes.

  “Looks like it’s about … I don’t know … I’d estimate about fifteen miles from here? It’s an uphill climb, so if we go about a mile every half an hour or so, we’ll get there by noon. Or I guess when the sun is right above us?”

  “Yeah, but these rocks don’t look like they’re a lot of fun,” Javi added. He eyed the craggy and uneven surface below their feet.

  “Luckily, we’ve got enough grub and water to keep us going,” Kimberly said as she checked the pack she was carrying, counting the small parcels of the tuber paste, individually wrapped in leaves, that she’d brought with her.

  Yoshi had to give the Cub-Tones credit; they’d adapted well to difficult conditions. They planned ahead. Kimberly always carried food. She knew where to find it, and she could distinguish dangerous plants from the ones that might sustain them on their journey. She was perhaps the most prepared and discerning of all of them. It helped that she’d been here a long time, but really it was because of who she was. She was always in the background of things, making sure everything ran smoothly.

  As Yoshi scanned the group before him—Cal, Molly, Anna, Javi, Kira, Crash, Kimberly, Hank—he wondered, not for the first time, why this place had chosen them to discover it. What was it they were supposed to be doing here? Throughout their journey, Yoshi and the others from Aero Horizon Flight 16 had wondered what it was that they had in common with each other, much less with a group of teenage musicians or the Arctic seal hunters whose diaries they’d found. The hunters hadn’t survived this place, and yet they were fierce, prepared. This crew was just a bunch of kids with barely any life skills. How they had managed to make it this far was beyond him.

  The only connection he could think of was that they were all smart, resourceful in some way. They strategized well when they put their heads together. They were adaptable. They had to be, given the circumstances. Still, he found himself annoyed when he considered his circumstances. The only thing that made this place tolerable was Anna. Her presence made everything better. If only he could figure out how to tell her that. Yoshi kicked at a single white rock amid a sea of gray ones.

  All of a sudden, the ground beneath them trembled for a minute, before his eye caught a sliver of the red moon in the sky.

  “What in the world was that?” Anna said. “Did you guys all feel the ground shaking?”

  Just then, Yoshi heard a soft hum in his ears. He turned to look at the others and he could tell they’d heard it, too. “It happened just when I kicked that white rock.”

  “Probably doesn’t mean anything.” Javi shrugged.

  “Yeah, let’s keep our eyes on the prize, ladies and gents,” Kimberly said cheerfully as she began to scale the rocks.

  Soon, the sun was rising over the horizon as they climbed the jagged rocks that paved the way to the city. As he placed his hands on the boulders, Yoshi noticed that the craggy surface was warm despite the cool morning breeze. Looking ahead, he saw a shimmer of light flashing across the rocks, like sunlight on water, dappled and bright. He closed his eyes for a moment, wondering if he was hallucinating.

  “Hey, did anyone see that?” Hank asked even before Yoshi opened his eyes again.

  “That weird streak of light? Yeah, what was that?” Anna turned to Yoshi.

  “Is it me, or are these rocks getting warmer? Maybe I’m just getting kind of hot?” Javi was indeed sweating, but luckily they were no longer in the blood sand, where sweating was a matter of life or death.

  “Could they be heating up because of the sun?” Molly said. Her eyes were fixed on the orb of light that was just creeping over the horizon. “I mean the real sun. Since the sky is an illusion, we don’t know for sure whether it’s day or night. But when our plane went down, it was summer. In the Arctic, that means the sun would be out for—”

  Before she could say anything else, another streak of light shimmered across the rock surface until it made its way to one of the spires. The shape began to glow as red as an ember in the morning light.

  “It’s a … I think it’s a massive solar panel,” Anna said. “It’s powering that entire city. That spire … it must be some sort of—”

  “It’s another battery device! Look!” Javi pointed as the red light from the spire spread its way through the city. The spires glowed red for barely a second, and then, as if by magic, all the lights in the citadel went on at once.

  Anna gasped. “Yoshi, you must have turned on the solar panel when you kicked the rock. It’s probably some sort of switch that turns this place on.”

  From the wide grin on his face, it was obvious that Javi was marveling at the discovery, and Yoshi felt a surge of smugness. “That’s incredible! It’s so cool! It’s—”

  “It’s a massive stove that’s going to cook us!” Hank said, terror in his voice. “If we don’t move fast, the sun is literally going to fry us into tater tots.” His voice trembled in fear. “Move, everyone, now!”

  Yoshi’s stomach plunged and his legs began to instinctively climb faster. The fear triggered an immediate wave of adrenaline, which helped him navigate the dangerous rocks. With his muscles leaping almost automatically, it felt to Yoshi as though he was in some sort of video game, jumping easily from boulder to boulder. Then Kira’s foot slipped.

  Yoshi watched as her eyes widened and her fingers reached out, snatching at empty air. It was almost as though it was occurring in slow motion. First, her foot slid across the rock, and then her entire leg. Finally, all of her followed, tumbling forward. Yoshi didn’t even realize what was happening before his entire body responded in a singular instinct. Sweat broke across his upper lip, panic boomed in his chest. His arm reached out, grasping through the air, too, until he grabbed her hand just in time.

  “Kira, be careful!” he cried in Japanese as he pulled her up. “Move fast, but watch where you’re going!”

  “We have to get up there soon, or we’ll be charred to death,” Hank called out. “Everyone, speed up!”

  Yoshi’s heart raced. He had managed to catch Kira, but the challenge of getting to their destination wasn’t over yet. And so began a race with the landscape. Their palms scratched and bruised, their faces sweaty, Yoshi and his friends panted as they climbed through the rocky incline as quickly as they dared. Yoshi’s heart beat swiftly in his chest the whole time.

  They helped each other navigate all the way up to the city of spires, and only just in time. As he stepped off the rocks and onto the walkway that surrounded the city, Yoshi saw a white wall of vapor rising from the rocks. He watched as a small green spider was fried to ash in an instant.

  “A crematorium,” he whispered to himself, grateful that they’d made their way up the rocks alive.

  “This is brilliant,” Anna said. “A solar-powered city. That spire must be the battery or the—”

  But before she could add anything, the spire began to turn in place. It rotated around exactly 160 degrees, kicking off the rotation of another one next to it. They were both moving now, attaching themselves to a larger spire. Yoshi marveled at the strange sight before him. “It’s like a motor or a—”

  “It’s some sort of engine,” Javi said.

  “That’s funny,” Kimberly laughed. “It all looks like a rocket ship from the future!”

  Yoshi squinted his eyes. Despite their different time frames, she was right. The whole assemblage did resemble something out of a sci-fi movie.

  “Those two spires, they look like … rocket boosters on a space shuttle,” Javi added. “Do you guys think this is some sort of—”

  By now, Cal was nodding his head vehemently, the green rash lighting up his forehead. “Controls to life raft activated. Controls operational,” he said in that strangely robotic voice of his.

  “This whole place is an enormous ship,” Molly finished Javi’s sentence for him as they looked ahead in awe. “A kind of rocket ship. Maybe a
rocket ship that can get us out of here.”

  Molly understood things about the rift, despite herself. She knew, for example, that this place had been waiting for them to find it. Or actually, it had been waiting for her. It was as though it was practically whispering the words into her ears. She turned to look at Cal, to see if he sensed something, too, but even before she saw his face, she knew: They both belonged here. With each new day, every new rising of the false sun, they became more and more distant from the past that had once been their lives, and they were inching close to … what? She had no idea.

  Once they stepped from the craggy rocks to the pathway that wound itself through the city, she noticed that the ground beneath her was made of clear glass. Slippery and beautiful, a ribbon of iced milk underneath their feet.

  “It’s the engines idling,” Javi pointed out. “The heat must have melted the entire sand floor into glass.”

  “They would have to have been idling for years in order for—” Anna paused. “Oh.” Molly could see that she understood now. The engines used to turn on every day and then idle, as though there was a giant car waiting on the curb for its passenger to arrive, hazard lights blinking. But now they looked old and slightly rusted, as though they hadn’t turned on in years.

  “But who is it waiting for?” Yoshi asked. “Us? Why us?” It was a legitimate question. The legitimate question.

  “Only one way to find out,” Molly said to him. “We open the door, climb inside, and buckle our seat belts.”

  “Or not,” Crash said, fear in his voice.

  Molly watched Kira, her arms wrapped around her waist, her eyes still dull and tired. She was standing apart from the rest of the crew. Molly was afraid that Kira had lost the will to go on. She knew what that could do to a person. She’d seen it happen to her mother, and after what happened to Oliver, she’d even sensed the beginnings of that same despair within herself. And as close as they were, Oliver wasn’t family. She couldn’t imagine what it must be like to lose a sister.

  Molly was grateful when Yoshi turned to Kira and whispered something in Japanese. Kira nodded, then looked away. He turned to the rest of them. “We need to find the interior of the ship. Once we get there, we have a way out.”