Alternity (7 page)

Dawn knocks the inhaler from my lips milliseconds before I can take a puff. It skitters across the floor, banging against the rock wall and coming to rest a few feet away.

I stare at him. “What the hell did you do that for?” I demand. I dive for my medication. But he’s too quick, jumping in front of me and grabbing it before I can.

“Give that back!” I cry, my voice cracking as I struggle to take in air. I double over, wheezing and choking, my hand out, uselessly begging.

“Look at you,” Dawn says, his voice cold. “You’re so addicted you can’t even breathe without the ‘Gazer drugs. Pathetic.”

“That’s not … ‘Gazer drugs.” I wheeze. “It’s my … asthma medication.”

“You really think I’m stupid, don’t you? Or you’re so lost it isn’t even funny.”

My heart pounds. My skin’s clammy and cold. If I don’t get my breath under control soon, I’m going to die. Here, in this horrible place. Where no one knows where I am. Or even
who
I am.

Dawn drops the inhaler on the floor and crushes it under his boot.

“No!” I scream, my world flying out from under me. I fall back onto the futon, struggling to fill my lungs. My vision’s gone spotty and I’m close to passing out.

Breathe in, hold, one, two, three. Breathe out, hold, one, two, three.

Please don’t let me die. Not like this.

Suddenly I feel a presence inches from my face. My eyes flutter open to find Dawn, kneeling in front of me, holding a paper bag to my lips. Desperate, I breathe into it, then suck out the air.
Breathe in, suck out, breathe in.

“Come on,” he urges. “Breathe, Mariah. Just breathe.”

After what seems like an eternity, I manage to wrestle my lungs back into submission. Dawn removes the bag from my face and rises to his feet.

“Thank you,” I murmur weakly, though I should be yelling at him. Sure, he helped me. But if he hadn’t broken my inhaler I wouldn’t have needed his help to begin with.

“God, you’re in worse shape than I thought,” Dawn mutters, grabbing a burlap bag off the floor and swinging it over his shoulder.

“You don’t understand,” I argue weakly. “My medicine—I could die without it.”

“That’s what they’ve taught you to believe,” he says, looking down at me with sad eyes. “But you didn’t die, did you?”

His logic is irritating. “Um, well, no,” I admit. “But that doesn’t mean …” I trail off, not knowing what good it will do to explain. He’s obviously got his mind made up.

He glances at his watch. “Anyway, I’ve got to go.”

Panic seizes me. “What do you mean?” I cry, hating how desperate my voice sounds. Why should I want him to stay? He very nearly killed me. But at the same time, I don’t want to be left alone.

“I’ve got to stand in line for rations,” he explains. “Besides, the Eclipsers are on their way to get you. I really don’t want to deal with them today.” He pauses for a second and I catch him looking at me longingly with those beautiful glowing eyes of his. Then he shakes his head and turns abruptly away—stalking to the door and slamming it shut without so much as a good-bye. I hear it locking behind him.

I run to the door, grabbing the handle, but it’s no use. I bang on the metal, screaming at the top of my lungs for him to come back, but the door remains closed and locked and Dawn does not reemerge. Finally, after my voice gives out, I abandon the door and walk over to investigate what’s left of my inhaler. The glossy purple case is shattered, the vial cracked. Not good.

I turn to the rest of the apartment, desperate for some kind of answers. The first thing I discover, discarded on the coffee table, is an ID card of sorts, with Dawn’s image grimly smiling up at me. The ID lists him as
Dawn Gray—Surface Medic, nT Alpha
.

Surface medic? Is that like some kind of doctor? I frown. If he’s really in the medical profession, he should know better than to withhold someone’s medication.

I discard the ID on the coffee table, walking over to the bookcase. There’s only one book, lying on a top shelf that I can’t reach. Besides that, the bookcase displays a couple of photos, framed with crude glass and metal. The first is a group shot of a bunch of boys, dressed in identical cranberry school uniforms. The caption below reads ACADEMY ALPHA. I set the picture back on the mantel and turn to the other.

My eyes widen. I do a double-take.

No.

It can’t be.

I grab the picture and stare hard, my fingers trembling so badly it’s hard to get the image to focus. But suddenly it becomes crystal clear. A black and white portrait of a girl wielding a Japanese sword. The caption read:
Mariah Quinn: Champion Swordswoman, Lunar Park Pro Division.

And she looks exactly like me.

SEVEN

My fingers fumble; I drop the picture, and it crashes to the stone floor. The glass frame shatters into a million pieces, cutting into Mariah’s face.

My face.

I sink down onto the sofa, trying to get a grip, not wanting to lose my breath again. My mind whirls with confusion, trying to make sense of it all. I’ve never posed for a photo with a sword. Hell, I’ve never held a freaking sword to begin with. And yet, there’s no mistaking it. This is a picture of me. My face. My body. It’s absolutely identical, down to the heart-shaped birth mark on my left shoulder—the one Craig likes to nibble on when kissing me in the hallway—and the same winding daisy chain I’d regrettably had tattooed around my ankle last spring break, much to my parents’ chagrin.

The girl in the photo—she isn’t just a lookalike, someone who could easily be mistaken as me; she’s an exact replica. She is, in all respects, me.

But how is that possible?

A loud knock on the apartment door causes me to nearly jump out of my skin. I glance over, nervous. Who could it be? Then I remember. The Eclipsers. Glenda and her friends. At last. Maybe now finally I’ll get a chance at some real answers. And hopefully a one-way trip back home.

“Glenda?” I venture. “Is that you?”

The door swings open and a tall, broad-shouldered man steps through, surrounded by an army of six soldiers, all dressed in silver uniforms. I tense, remembering the uniforms from my dream. Are these Eclipsers? Or some other group altogether?

“Hello, darling,” the man coos in a deep-throated English accent. I give him a once-over, cataloging him quickly. He’s blond. Handsome. Strong Roman nose, piercing green eyes. Well built, too. As if he’s clocked in quite a few hours at the local underground gym. He’s dressed much differently than Dawn, wearing an old-fashioned black suit, much like the proprietor at Moongazer Palace, though his is tailored to fit and the fabric looks expensive.

“Thank goodness we found you,” the man says, stepping across the room and taking my hand in his. Before I realize what’s going on, he pulls me from the couch and gallantly kisses the back of my hand.

I yank my hand away with a frown. Something’s wrong. I don’t know why, exactly. Just … these guys don’t seem anything like how I’d imagined Eclipsers. Not that I had a clear picture, mind you, but still.

“I, um—”

The blond man waves a hand. “No, no, dear,” he interrupts. “No thanks necessary. It’s my pleasure to rescue you. After all, you wouldn’t be in this horrid mess if it weren’t for me. I tried to take all the precautions, but he stole you away seconds before my men could arrive. I do apologize for the inconvenience. For making you have to spend time in this” —he looks around the room with disdain—“place.” He smiles broadly. “Now, come along. We’ve got primo reservations at Luna Park Terrace and the maitre d’ simply deplores tardiness.”

He gestures to the open door, and his guards step aside to allow me to exit. I rise from the couch. What am I supposed to do now? Go with them? I don’t even know who they are.

“I don’t …” I hedge, trailing off, not even sure what questions I should be asking. I look around the apartment, which up until this moment has been my prison cell. The place I’ve been dying to escape. So why do I have the sudden urge to stay put?

I catch the man’s glance at my shattered inhaler, still lying where Dawn left it. He looks up at me. “Your asthma medicine,” he says in a concerned voice. “What happened?”

“Uh, it … well, there was an accident,” I say, not knowing why I feel the need to cover for Dawn. After all, he very nearly killed me and it certainly was not an accident.

The man raises an eyebrow. But “I see” is all he says. “Well, no worries, we’ll get you set up with a new one as soon as we’re home.” He pauses, then adds dramatically, “Skye.”

My jaw drops. “You know who I am?” I ask incredulously. “You don’t think I’m Mariah?”

The man chuckles. “Mariah. What rubbish. Don’t tell me you’re starting to believe the Dark Siders’ wild tales. You’re Skye Brow from New York City. An honored guest here in our humble land of Terra. But surely, my dear, you must know that already.”

I let out a sigh of relief. Finally, someone who knows who I am. Who recognizes the real me. And here I was starting to believe Dawn’s crazy stories. What an idiot. A million questions tangle in my throat, warring to be asked first. “Why am I here? How did I get here? What’s Terra? Why does everyone think I’m this Mariah girl? How do I get back home?” The questions come fast and furious.

The man chuckles again. “All in good time, Skye, all in good time. But first, I think you need your medicine. You’re looking quite pale. Come with me and we’ll arrange for a new inhaler immediately. Before you have another attack. Then we can discuss returning you home.”

I pause again, torn. On one hand, I finally have someone who recognizes me as me. Who is promising a sensible explanation for all of this. Not to mention the offer to help me get home.

On the other hand, shouldn’t I wait for the Eclipsers? After all, Dawn said they could help.

Why trust Dawn?
asks a voice in my head.
He kidnapped you and tried to delude you into thinking you’re someone else. He’s threatened you with weapons, dragged you underground, and locked you in his house after almost killing you by destroying your medication. Not really a guy who inspires much confidence.

I can’t argue with the logic and I make my decision: I’m going with the stranger who at least seems to know who I am. Who accepts the fact that I’m from Earth, and isn’t going to feed me more disturbing lies. Who’s going to get me home—which, let’s face it, is mission number one.

“Let’s go,” I say.

I follow him and his men out of Dawn’s cave and down the twisty passageways toward the town square. To my surprise the formerly bustling city center is now startlingly vacant. I look around; where did the throng of mutants go? At the moment I almost expect tumbleweed to float across the abandoned space.

It’s then that I catch the eyes peeking from every window. From around every corner. The people are all hiding. Are they afraid of this man and his guards? I suppress a shiver, trying to convince myself it’s just from the draft.

My entourage stops in front of a shiny black limo parked just outside the town’s main gates. My host presses a button on a remote and the car doors rise like the DeLorean in
Back to the Future
. Still not positive I’ve made the right choice but not sure what else to do at this point, I reluctantly crawl inside. The interior is luxurious, made of some rich, soft, leatherlike material. Crystal decanters hold sparkling liquid and the lighting is soft purple. The blond man takes a seat across from me and his guards file in, two up front and four at our sides. The driver fires up the engine and the doors swing silently shut. Like Dawn’s bike, the limo rises a few inches off the ground and takes off down the tunnel at great speed.

The silence that follows is more than a little unnerving and I decide it’s time for some answers. “So who are you?” I ask. “Since you already seem to know everything about me.”

He smiles serenely. “They call me Brother Duske. I’m a senator down here in Terra. A member of the Circle of Eight.”

Shit. I stare at him, cold seeping through my insides, even though the car is well heated. This is Duske? The man I was warned about by Dawn and Glenda? The one I was told to avoid at all costs? And here I am, in a hover car with him and his soldiers, flying through the tunnels at top speed.
Oh, Skye, what have you gotten yourself into?

“Judging from your face I gather you’ve heard terrible rumors about me from the Eclipsers,” Duske says, raising an eyebrow “How embarrassing.”

I blush. “It’s just that … well …”

Well, what, Skye? You think he’s evil because some random strangers told you he was? The same people who also told you that you’re a revolutionary leader for their downtrodden world? Maybe not the most reliable source, just FYI. In fact, maybe they wanted you to avoid Senator Duske because he would tell you the truth—that you’re not the precious rebel leader they want you to be. Ever think of that?

“Sorry,” I stammer. “It’s just—well, I’m feeling a bit like Alice in Wonderland today. You know, I knew who I was this morning, but I’ve changed several times since then?”

Duske laughs appreciatively. “I promise, Skye,” he says. “All will be made clear to you very, very soon.”

His words effectively end the conversation and we continue to zoom down the underground highway going this way and that. I soon lose track of all the twists and turns—the place is like a maze. Finally, we stop in front of a tall, vertical glass tube shooting up into the darkness. As I watch, curious despite myself, the driver presses a button on the car’s console and a glass door slides open. He backs the car into the tube and then presses another button. I realize that we must be in some kind of glass elevator. Very Willy Wonka. A moment later, the door slides closed, and I feel the sensation of rising fast.

Suddenly, the elevator shudders to a stop and the doors slide open. The driver steps on the gas and we float back out onto the open road. I gasp as I take in the stunning landscape before us. We appear to be in the center of a city, a hustling, bustling metropolis that looks remarkably like Times Square if Times Square were set deep underground.