Two splashes sounded right outside our cavate. I shouldn’t have peeked my head out-what exactly did I think I would see in the dark? — but some instinctual curiosity as to whether or not they’d fallen in prompted me to do so before my brain thought better of it. I saw one thing before jerking my head back, actually four things. Two violet eyes and two blue eyes. Glowing in the freaking dark. What the hell?
A pancake couldn’t have been pressed flatter to the wall than my back was. My heart pounded against my ribs, the image of those glowing eyes burned into my own retinas. They’d been out in the center of the river, the violet pair turned toward the blue pair as the men continued their conversation. Men. Was that the right word? I didn’t know why, but for some reason, glowing eyes disturbed me more than the idea of a monster.
The voices faded until only the sound of running water remained.
“So Simon,” I said, the pitch of my voice uneven, “what episode of Star Trek has aliens with eyes that glow in the dark?”
At that point, I wasn’t sure if I was joking or not. I’d never once entertained the idea of aliens or extraterrestrial influence for the weirdness of the monster-like I’d said, scientists were doing all sorts of funky things with gene manipulation these days-but this was different. Nobody was supposed to be making mutant people. Even if somewhere, some unscrupulous Dr. Frankenstein was, those guys appeared to be in their twenties. I sincerely doubted the technology had been that advanced more than two decades earlier. I tried to remember when the first sheep had been cloned. Back in the 90s sometime. But those riders weren’t clones. They were… what? I didn’t know. Genetically enhanced human beings? If they had see-in-the-dark eyes, who knew what else they might have?
“Gary Mitchell’s eyes glowed silver in Where No Man Has Gone Before,” Simon said.
“What?” My mind had been zipping from thought to thought so quickly that I’d forgotten what I’d asked and it took me a moment to remember.
“It was the second Star Trek pilot. Remember the one where the cast hadn’t yet been solidified? And they were down on that planet with the two officers who developed psionic powers? Their eyes glowed silver. I don’t remember if they were shown glowing in the dark ever, but uhm… why do you ask?”
“No particular reason.” My short laugh had a hysterical edge to it. I clasped my hand over my mouth to muffle the noise, afraid it would travel. Those two might not have noticed me sticking my head out, but they’d spot our duct tape rope when they got to the hole. I stiffened. Temi would still be up there, and they might not look kindly upon her after the fire extinguisher incident. “We better follow them.”
CHAPTER 14
The duct tape rope was gone.
“Not good,” Simon whispered.
Daylight still entered through the hole in the ceiling, but less of it than before. The sun must be dropping behind the trees up there. Even though I had no idea what those two… people had done down here, besides burning a hole into the rock, I was more than ready to get out of the forest. That would, however, prove difficult if we couldn’t escape the passage.
“Any idea how far the river flows before it pops above ground again?” Simon asked.
“Not until Wickenburg. And just in case you’re thinking of taking a swim, the odds of the ceiling remaining high with a breathable supply of air the whole way are not good.”
“No wonder this isn’t on that site for Arizona’s best tubing spots.”
I closed my eyes, trying to listen for voices up above. Several moments had passed since we’d last heard the words of Eleriss and Jakatra. After our brief encounters, it was strange to think of them by first name, but I couldn’t consider them normal human beings now, so calling them “men” seemed even odder.
“Temi?” I risked calling up.
Somewhere high above a peregrine falcon screeched. I tried to decide if that was a bad omen or not. At least it wasn’t a vulture.
“Temi?” I called again, louder this time.
Simon sprang up, trying to touch the walls at the bottom of the hole. He didn’t come close, managing only to get both of us wetter.
“You jump like a geeky white guy,” I said.
“Yeah, there weren’t a lot of NBA teams scouting my high school.”
“Is this the high school you’ve mentioned before that had a hundred and fifty students?”
“That’s the one,” Simon said.
“Did it have a basketball team?”
“Of course. Football too. If we hadn’t had jocks, who do you think would have tormented me between classes?”
“The girls you tried to woo by quoting Star Trek episodes?”
“No, I would have been happy for such attention from them.”
When my calls didn’t produce a rope-dropping savior, I reluctantly uncoiled my whip. It was already wet from my trek through the river, and I didn’t have any confidence in my ability to crack it through a hole, much less get the popper to wrap around something up there, but I might as well try. It’d distract me from how cold my lower body was-not to mention the slimy something that had just brushed past my hip.
I prodded around with a foot, searching for a rock to stand on, something that would get more of my body out of the water. “Can you give me a boost?” I finally asked.
Simon eyed the whip dubiously. “Do you promise not to hit me?”
“I’ll try.”
“That wasn’t a yes, was it?”
“Sorry, this is going to be awkward. I might hit myself.”
“That doesn’t make me feel as good about being whipped as you’d think,” Simon said.
“I’m not even sure the hole is wide enough for what I plan. Boost, please.”
Simon grumbled under his breath but clasped his hands together to make a step for me. He sank down, hissing at the coldness of the water, so I could clamber from there to his shoulders. When he stood, I could reach the bottom of the hole. Too bad the stone was too slick to climb. At least I could brace myself with one hand.
I’d never tried to snap the whip directly over my head, and it took me a minute to find a position where I could send the thong through the hole. It took several more minutes to figure out a technique that would get the popper and the fall out of the hole up above. At last, the whip made a muted crack. Now if I could find something for it to latch onto… Unfortunately, our friends had cleared away all the foliage around the hole. But there’d been a stump a couple of feet up the bank. Maybe…
“Not to complain,” Simon said, “but every time you snap that thing, your clod-stompers grind into my shoulder.”
“While I appreciate your uncomplaining support in holding me up, I feel compelled to-” I snapped the whip again, knowing it’d be luck and repetition rather than skill that wrapped it around the stump, if I managed the feat at all. “Compelled to point out that they’re running shoes. The heel isn’t hard.”
“It is when it’s under a hundred and-”
“Careful,” I said, as the whip, failing to grasp anything, tumbled back down to be coiled again. “I might forget our deal not to hit you.”
“Right.”
I snapped the whip again. This time, to my surprise, it didn’t flop limply back into our hole. It’d caught on something. I was about to give it a tug to see if it would support our weight, when someone up there finally spoke.
“That would be my ankle,” Temi said.
“Oops,” Simon said.
“Temi, is it safe up there?” I asked. “Can you lower our rope?”
“Your rope was… incinerated. I’ll see if I can tie the whip to this stump.”
“Incinerated?” Simon asked.
I thought of the glowing eyes. What else could Eleriss and Jakatra do? I let go of the handle to give Temi some slack.
“Can you reach it?” she asked a moment later.