“Hang gliders,” X said, deciding to start there. “How do you know we even have any?”
Arlo grinned, showing off two newly missing teeth. “Let’s just say I got acquainted with a Cazador lady the night before my first dive, and she told me a few secrets. She said her ex-husband died using one in the proving grounds.”
X remembered Rhino telling him about the island that was basically a boot camp, complete with monsters, for Cazador trainees. But he didn’t recall anything about hang gliders.
“So where are they?” he asked.
“Colonel Forge should know,” Arlo said. “And that Tomás guy, the merchant that was on the council—I’m sure he’ll be happy to hand over some sensors.”
“See if this is all true, Sergeant Wynn,” X ordered.
“Sir, all due respect, but how are we going to get them into the air?” Wynn asked. “It’s a ways from the capitol tower to the barrier, and those electrical storms are going to be hairy.
X knew that sending hang gliders out into the storms was risky, but they would be hard to detect if he could get them into the sky.
“We can use the boosters to get us in the sky again,” Michael suggested. “We just need boats to ferry us out to the barrier.”
X scratched the stubble on his chin. “It’ll be good training for the greenhorn divers,” he said, looking at Lena, Hector, Alberto, and Ted. Then he shrugged. “Hell, I might take one out for a spin myself if I can figure out how to fly it with just one arm.”
NINETEEN
The giant leeches fed twice more during the night. Each time Ada heard the sucking and crunching sounds, she considered fleeing. But there was nowhere to run, so she hid in the enclosed shelter of her capsized boat.
Not only couldn’t she run; she couldn’t flee, either. Her boat was ruined, the precious fuel was wasted, and she was stuck on this hellish island with limited water and food.
Depression washed over her like the wave that had stranded her here.
Her flashlight illuminated the dented bulkheads and toppled crates. Her broken toe was infected and throbbing. It had swollen to almost twice its normal size, making it excruciating to wear her boots, and almost impossible to fall asleep.
Sleep. That was all she wanted: to close her eyes and have a break from the living hell. She considered taking more painkillers. Not the weak ones. She was going to need the hard stuff to knock her out. But that would also leave her vulnerable to the monsters.
Ada reached down and unlaced her boot, then wiggled her foot free of its confines.
A flood of relief rushed through her toes, foot, and leg. It felt like taking a breath after being underwater too long. After enjoying a few moments of less pain, she took fresh gauze and antibiotic ointment from the medical kit. The toe was even more swollen when she unwrapped it. Thick pus wept out of the open wound where she had used tweezers to pull off the destroyed nail.
After cleaning and disinfecting it the best she could, she wrapped it with gauze, then fished inside the kit for the painkillers. There were two bottles of the anti-inflammatory she had been taking, and one sealed bottle of the hard stuff.
After a moment of looking at both, she opted for the same stuff as before, chasing down two pills with what was left in her water bottle. They settled in her sour stomach. Closing her eyes, she rested her back on the bulkhead.
Exhausted, injured, and nauseated, she finally dozed off sometime in the wee hours. She dreamed of the nightmarish leeches, only to jerk awake to that same horrid crunching.
They were closer now, feeding on something not far from her boat. Taking off her helmet, she put her ear against the metal, flinching at a noise that chilled her bone marrow.
The long, agonized wail reminded her of something she would never forget from twenty years ago: the relentless wailing of a baby dying of radiation poisoning in the Hive medical ward.
She remembered it like yesterday because that baby had been her little brother.
Whatever was making this noise was not human, but she was too frightened to open the hatch and look outside. Sitting idly inside was almost just as bad.
She pictured the leeches feasting on a mutant otter or some other mammal that had adapted to live here and was caught in the surf hunting for fish.
In her mind’s eye, the bloodsucking worms swarmed the creature, chewing through flesh and bone until there was nothing left, as they had done to the frog.
The noise came again, and Ada backed away from the bulkhead. She hugged herself, trembling.
Make it stop. Please make it stop.
She wanted to scream.
The leeches were far worse than whatever she had encountered on the research ships, and again she considered ending her life before they found her.
She was so very tired. Of the sounds of thunder and ocean. Of being afraid. Of waking to darkness.
At least on the airships there were lights. Out here there was just the black.
The wailing started again. She cupped her hands over her ears, but no matter how hard she pushed, she couldn’t block out the sounds.
She dug back into her medical supplies and pulled out the jar of the hard painkillers that she had been saving. A caution symbol marked the bottle that ITC had designed to survive for centuries. A laundry list of possible side effects ran vertically down the label. One read, Death may occur if…
The cries of the creature outside rose into long, plaintive wails. More than anything, it sounded like a child in distress.
But that wasn’t possible. No child could survive out here. Maybe no adult could.
This had to be her mind playing tricks on her.
Soon she would find out. She couldn’t stay in the damned cabin forever.
No, you have another option, Ada.
A painless option that let her choose her own fate.
In a fleeting moment of fearlessness, she twisted off the cap. She brought the bottle to her lips and tried to shake pills into her mouth, but none came.
Tilting the bottle, she looked inside to see something wedged inside.
Using her pinkie, she fished out the blockage. It wasn’t the usual cotton ball she had seen in other pill jars. This was paper.
Probably more instructions and warnings.
She dropped it, and it landed on her thigh. Then she tipped back the bottle and shook three tablets into her mouth. She kept them on the tip of her tongue for a moment, considering what she was about to do.
You tried, Ada. You gave it your best, but this isn’t worth it.
And damned if she would let herself become food to a beast. Especially the horrid leeches.
She had no reason to live and no way off the island. No friends waiting for her back home. No family left. And maybe, just maybe there was something better after this bleak existence. A real paradise, without any cannibalistic barbarians.
Whatever happened next, she prayed it would let her see her mom and dad again. She missed them now more than ever. Maybe she would even meet the brother she never got to hold.
Either way, the infinite darkness of death was better than living in the darkness of the nightmarish wastes.
She picked up her water bottle and downed the pills, then swallowed two more for good measure. Once she finished, she put the bottle down on a crate and rested her head against the bulkhead.
The crying continued outside, though not loudly enough to drown out the sounds of the leeches consuming its body. How it was still alive mystified her.
But soon, the horrifying noise would be gone. Soon, Ada would be at peace. No more monsters. No more pain. No more being sick. Only the infinite quiet of death.