Children of Gods: Chapter Nine
Title: Children of Gods
Authors: miabicicletta olga_theodora
Summary: Cally can’t bring herself to feel much of anything. She’s going to die. Schoolgirl crushes are no longer a part of her life.
Pairings: Bill/Laura, Sam/Kara, Lee/Kara UST, Lee/?
Rating: MA (series) T+ (Chapter 9)
Warnings: Non-graphic allusions to non-con and dub-con, character death.
Authors' Notes: As always, dear readers, we thank you for taking this trip of Space!Family doom and gloom with us. We really do love these characters, despite the fact that we're trying to kill them all. Extra awesome thanks and appreciation today to thesis-defending leiascully. Slow clap for her! SSWA!
PROLOGUE: THE SPARKS ASCEND
CHAPTER ONE: CHILDHOOD'S END
CHAPTER TWO: BEAUTY FOR ASHES
CHAPTER THREE: THE WIDENING GYRE
CHAPTER FOUR: A SHORT SHARP SHOCK
CHAPTER FIVE: ALLIANCES
CHAPTER SIX: JUMP POINT
CHAPTER SEVEN: IN THE ARMED MADHOUSE
CHAPTER EIGHT: FIRST CONTACT
---
CHAPTER NINE: MYTH MADE FLESH
Of particular interest to some scholars is the long and complex history of Jump technology as was used in the Games. For the first fourteen Games, Tributes were typically escorted or dropped into the Arena via a variety of methods, methods which rarely garnered the ratings the Gamemakers wished to attain. The historical exception would be the 5th Games, wherein Tributes were quite literally shoved out of Raptors, their falls barely hindered by the wax and feather wings attached to their arms (an unsubtle tribute to the Icarus of Colonial mythology, and an equally unsubtle commentary on so-called Colonial hubris). An impressive beginning, to be sure, but it did make for a rather small Tribute pool. The Gamemakers sought a method of introducing the Tributes to the Arena in a way that would be sufficiently flashy, but would also give them a measure of control over the pool of Tributes in question.
Jump technology was introduced into the Arena during the opening of the 15th Games, a mere five months after Tomas Vergis first patented his method for creating woven Jump portals. Despite the unfortunate occurrence at the opening of the 15th Games, in which five of the 24 Tributes were transported into the Arena minus certain vital organs (as it turned out, it really did matter how the sleeve seams were sewn), Jumping became the traditional vehicle by which Tributes entered the Arena.
The two limitations in woven Jump technology were distance and number of uses. Gamemakers were limited to five-hundred miles for the introductory Jump, which often meant that Tributes were shuttled to the appropriate planet the day before the proper beginning of the Games. Despite precautions, Arena locations (if not the exact coordinates, then at least well thought-out suppositions) were often leaked. As for number of uses, the suits were not limited to one Jump only, as was often thought. Rather it was one and a half, so to speak: the second Jump was only used to remove deceased Tributes from the field, and corpses often returned from the Arena in pieces or small heaps of ash due to the limited power available.
It was not until 49 UE that Artemis Vergis, the daughter of Tomas Vergis, furthered her father’s work by diminishing the effects of Jump limitations. If one will excuse the pun, her work proved to be a game-changer.
- From Threads of Fate: Effects of Jump Technology on Colonial Society by Joanne Pollux.
---
Kara is not a fan of riddles.
“How many miles to Babylon?” the Sphinx asks once more, and smiles. She has a great many sharp teeth, and Kara is not comfortable having them anywhere near her person.
“Where the hell is Babylon?” Kara asks Laura in a whisper, trying to remember the myths regarding the sphinx. If she recalls correctly, after a certain number of wrong answers she will find herself missing a limb. Possibly two.
“There is nothing in our mythology about a Babylon,” Laura responds quietly, looking strangely fascinated by the beast in front of them. “And I’ve never heard of a city named that, either.”
Lee’s expression lightens for a brief moment, most likely relieved that his sin of not paying attention in geography class will not be returning to haunt him today (geography class was one of the few that Kara did pay attention to, willingly. She liked the idea of wide plains, of deep woods and silence). “What rhymes with Babylon?” he asks, and visibly withers under Kara and Cally’s scornful glances. “Just... I thought it might... rhyme. Maybe.”
Tory stands back from their number, her arms crossed as she considers the Sphinx coolly. “How many wrong answers do we get?” she asks the Sphinx directly.
The Sphinx considers her for a long moment, powerful wings rippling slightly. “You’re trying to cheat,” she says in an almost quizzical tone. “You’re not supposed to cheat.” Her tail lashes in agitation.
“There are no rules in the Games,” Tory replies calmly. “The Gamemakers say so. I’m merely trying to discern the parameters of this little exercise.”
“The Gamemakers said that I get to make my own rules,” the Sphinx says petulantly, sounding for a moment like an angry five-year old.
Kara takes a slight step back reflexively, wondering if anyone else in the group has figured out yet that they are speaking to no mere construct, but an honest-to-gods hybrid in the guise of a mythical creature. A young hybrid, at that. She grabs Laura’s sleeve and tugs frantically, barely acknowledging the sound of a seam ripping. “We can’t reason with her,” she hisses in Laura’s ear. “She never grew old enough to reason.”
Laura’s eyes narrow as she considers this, noting the way the Sphinx’s muscled hindquarters are bunching in preparation to spring. Tory continues standing alone, looking entirely unimpressed by the enraged beast in front of her.
As Kara scans their surroundings to figure out the quickest exit, Laura suddenly walks toward the Sphinx and lays a hand on the beast’s head. “Sit,” Laura says in the same tone of voice she has so often used to quell a stubborn child.
Judging by the look on his face, Kara thinks Lee is fighting the instinctive urge to drop down onto the ground himself. She can’t really blame him.
The Sphinx seems to feel the same way. “You’re cheating,” she protests weakly in an uncertain tone of voice, as if she is suddenly unclear of her own rules.
“Sit,” Laura repeats firmly, and smiles when the Sphinx obeys. “The Gamemakers said you can make your own rules, right?”
The Sphinx cocks her head slightly to the right. “Yes.”
“So you don’t have to kill us, do you?”
“...No?” the Sphinx guesses, sounding dazed.
“Exactly.” Laura smooths down a ruffled patch of fur. “What do you want to do?”
The Sphinx watches her warily, and shifts her front paws anxiously. “I want to think about this,” she says, and disappears from beneath Laura’s hand.
There is a moment when they all gaze about themselves in stunned silence, expecting some final blow from out of nowhere. As it becomes evident that the Sphinx has left for at least that present moment, Tory turns to Laura and comments idly, “That Sphinx is not going to be happy when she sees you again.”
“What makes you think that?” Sam asks, watching Laura with an admiring glint in his eye.
“The Gamemakers won’t let her.” Tory shrugs. “Forward, then?” She strides off into the forest without waiting for a reply.
“Do you think we should go in the opposite direction?” Cally asks the group at large as she watches Tory walk away. Sam settles her on his back once more.
“You don’t trust your own mentor?” Saul’s question is obviously sarcastic. He smirks as Laura shoots him a dirty look.
“The first thing she told me after the new Reaping was that she would kill me if she had to,” Cally responds, either not recognizing or not acknowledging his sarcasm. “I’m trying to avoid that possibility.” There is a pale, drawn cast to her face. Despite her words, she obviously knows very well that her injury has severely decreased the odds that she will see the end.
“Kid,” Sam says seriously, “I’m staying with you till the end.”
Despite being perfectly aware of how he had survived his previous tour of the Arena, Kara finds herself beginning to suspect him of being an exceptionally charismatic serial killer. No one, she thinks, is that self-sacrificing. Especially not a former Victor.
---
It takes another four hours before Laura realizes that they have slowly and gradually looped back around to the hospital complex. As she spots the first set of foreboding windows through the trees, she wonders who led them so carefully and cunningly off course, when no one person has been leading. With Cally’s injury their pace has slowed to a casual meander, as if they are taking a summer stroll through the woods.
Someone has led them astray, and while her first suspicions lie with Tory, she cannot rule out young Mr. Anders on such short acquaintance. She would also be foolish to disregard her own former mentor as a possible culprit.
As they gather in a tight bunch under a tree, momentarily stymied by this unexpected change of plans, Saul crosses his arms in disgust. “No one else realized where we were going?”
“You evidently knew,” Tory hisses in so perfect a display of panic that Laura begins to doubt her earlier suspicions. “Why in Hades didn’t you say anything?”
“I was too busy trying to figure out who was leading us there.” They are practically nose to nose at this point, Tory fairly vibrating with rage. “Looked like you were in the lead.”
“Going back to the hospital is a suicide mission,” she snaps. “And we’d do best to get out of here before we are discovered.”
It is not until after an arrow flies past Lee’s face, barely missing his ear, that they realize they have been spotted.
---
Her leg hurts, worse than the time she tried rollerskating down a hill and skidded the last few feet on her knees. She doesn’t like needles, has never liked needles, and it was only her desire to prove her bravery to her teammates that stayed her panic attack when Laura pulled out the sharp sliver of metal and threaded it. Heat crawls up her leg from the wound site. It itches and aches and gods, she wants her mother so badly.
She knows that it would have been far nobler to have stayed behind alone after her injury, but Cally has felt wolf-like fear gnawing at her belly ever since her name was called at the Reaping, and it does not feel all that long ago that she still slept with a worn teddy bear and sucked her thumb. She’s scared of being alone, scared of the way Tory’s eyes occasionally meet hers, filled with some hidden amusement. If Cally separates from the group, she will not be alone for long. Surely there are better ways to die than at the hands of a woman who finds her pain amusing.
She turned twelve the day before the Reaping. She left behind a group of childhood friends and the first crush she had ever had on a boy she actually knew, and if her new understanding of mortality had not taken precedence, she thinks she would have a hard time accepting help from Sam. She likes Sam, likes his kindness and willingness to help her stay with the group, and that compounded with her pre-Reaping crush would probably send her into a tizzy at any other time. Her own small group of friends had been half mad for him during the past year. Hadn’t Cally herself taped a Caprican Bucs poster onto her ceiling and defaced every schoolbook with ‘Mrs. Cally Anders’ in sprawling cursive?
‘Romantic,’ her best friend is probably sighing as she sits in her home. Cally can’t bring herself to feel much of anything. She’s going to die. Schoolgirl crushes are no longer a part of her life. She hates her friends- so safe and silly- just a little bit.
She rests her head against Sam’s back and falls easily into a doze. When she wakes- feeling lost and somewhat feverish- to harsh and frantic words, she flushes slightly in embarrassment when she notices a small patch of drool on the back of Sam’s shirt. The arrow that flies past Lee’s face quickly makes her forget such small cares, and she reflexively tightens her hold on Sam as he jerks slightly, startled.
“Frak!” Kara yelps, grabbing Laura’s hand and yanking her away from the origin of the arrow, which sprang from deeper in the forest. As they pelt toward the complex Cally clings desperately to Sam’s shoulders, waiting for the inevitable moment when an arrow finds her vulnerable, defenseless back. She finds herself absurdly thinking about her cat, wondering whether her family has remembered to feed the animal that slept curled in the sweep of her spine for the last five years.
It is at this moment, when the base of her spine feels practically naked and Laura trips over a cracked stretch of concrete, that the world, once more, drags itself inside out and pulls them apart.
---
JUMP!
The sky falls in.
The green-gray palette of the hospital complex blinks out of existence. Time and space flex again, a sickening stretch, wrenching at her from some indefinite place that seems to come from within even as it feels created by something far beyond her control. A voice somewhere cries out as everything becomes clear again.
Blue. Such clear, painful blue. It’s so bright compared to the dismal murk of the wooded forest that for a moment, Laura can’t tell if the sky is up or down. The water is the same endless azure shade of the sky, as if a giant mirror has been laid around them.
She takes a fast breath, head whipping around to get her bearings as best she can. She is standing on some kind of clear platform elevated just inches above the water. Waves splash the firm yet supple material of her boots as Laura searches for Lee, Kara and the rest of her unit. The other Tributes seem to be arranged on similar surfaces, positioned in a vague arc around a floating Cornucopia of new weapons and goods. The appearance of more tools and supplies should hearten her, but it only makes Laura more afraid. Take what you can, the Gamemakers seem to be saying. You’ll need all the help you can get.
This has never happened before. None of this has ever happened before. Not a second Arena, a second Jump, a second cache of goods to help them through. As far back as she can remember, there has never been a Games that moved. Judging by the startled shouts of confusion that echo across the water as her fellow competitors take in their new surroundings, catching them off guard is clearly what the planners had been counting on.
Daniel, she is certain, is horrifically impressed.
“Look out!” Kara’s voice appears beyond the din of waves and the cries of other Tributes to one another. “Look out!”
From her own perch several meters away, a panicked Kara waves, pointing helplessly at something over Laura’s shoulder. Before she can turn, a whoosh sound zips close to her left side as something hard and sleek makes a small splash before being absorbed into the glittering surface. Instinctively, Laura leaps to her right, taking as deep a breath as she can before diving headlong into the waves, without even a moment to consider what dangers might lie below.
Everything is muted as she slices through the water, trying to get as far as she can from the unseen threat that can only be Helena and her poorly aimed arrows. Underwater, Laura opens her eyes, feels the momentary sting of the warm, salty water as she does. She struggles to get deeper below the surface as she fights her unexpected buoyancy in water so different from the cold seas beyond the sharp, rocky coastline that she’s known from childhood.
She kicks hard, reaching through the water in a vain impression of the form from her long-ago swim-team days. Unlike some of the Tributes above, who had looked terrified at the idea of such a large body of water, she’s a decent swimmer but unpracticed enough to not know how far she may have gone before her breath runs out. Giving one last long kick, she breaks the surface. Several meters behind her, Helena is calling out to a slender dark-haired woman off to her side, at the middle of the arc, who is pointing at something in the water.
A jet of undiluted fear rips through her. Not long in, and already the Games have produced some terrifying scenarios -- bombs and beasts, danger at every turn. But somehow the unseen inspires a truly primal fear, and Laura treads water for only half a second before breaking for the Cornucopia as quickly as she can.
It takes at most, a minute. But it is by all means the longest minute of her existence. Desperate, she swims for her life, all other noise disappearing into the echoing sound of her own gasps and the splash of her arms through water. Her hand slaps the platform and she starts to pull herself up when a strong arm grabs her shoulder. Her heart, pounding, stutters as she whips her head up.
“You’re pretty fast,” Sam huffs, dripping with saltwater himself. Picon’s only continent is small, surrounded by shallow seas. It is no surprise that he is a strong swimmer.
“Thanks,” Laura breathes, her heart rate slowing a hair, and pulls herself up.
They’re the first two to reach the float, and Sam has already seized something that looks like a modified harpoon. Laura’s eyes scan the surface and the many now-empty platforms arranged around them. A tiny bobbing head that might be Cally has broken off, heading to the wide sandy beach that lies beyond the raft, opposite from the half moon ring of jump pads.
When she catches sight of Lee, she sighs in relief, but her ease is quickly replaced by confusion as she realizes that Lee is walking across the water. No, he’s hopping.
“Stepping stones,” she says, remembering the way the boys would tiptoe across the stream in the woods behind their house. “There are more platforms out there. Somehow he’s figured out how to see them.”
“Good, then we’ll meet him on the shore. We gotta go,” Sam says, pulling at her elbow. Though no one else seems to have picked up on Lee’s discovery, there are four more Tributes bearing down on the floating raft. Sam fires his harpoon-thing at one of them, giving Laura time to duck back and root through the cache of supplies. They have, at most, thirty seconds or so. Her choice must be a good one.
Fortunately, her decision is also an easy one. Another bow and quiver has been offered; Laura doesn’t hesitate to claim it, slinging it over her shoulder with the accompanying set of arrows. The first one was probably meant for her, too. The Gamemakers are uncommonly generous in this manner, and have traditionally seen fit to provide Tributes with items they might use to their advantage in gruesome, spectacular ways. It makes for better ratings, Laura surmises darkly. Far more entertaining to see someone speared or decapitated than watch them slowly starve to death. Helena might have gotten her hands on the first bow and quiver, but she has twice now missed her mark. It is a small satisfaction, but one that the competitor in Laura revels in.
Along with her own bow, she quickly snags a compass and another sack that might be food just as Sam lets out a laugh of delight. Laura’s head tips up as she follows his gaze over her shoulder. “What...”
But then she sees it. On the far side of the Cornucopia, gently bumping against the fiberglass frame of the platform, is a small jet-ski.
“Come on!” Sam hollers, “We gotta get Cally!” Laura darts after him.
“Wait,” she cries, side stepping backwards to snatch a long handled spear leaning against the Cornucopia’s shell. Lee needs a weapon, and she’ll be damned if he misses out on one for being smarter than everyone else. She tosses it vertically to Sam, who catches it easily, flipping it to rest on his knee.
Behind her, a powerfully-built boy she remembers as having a rather macabre callsign -- Skulls, maybe? -- pulls himself up on the raft, eyes flicking between her and the double-sided hatchet glimmering in the midday sun. Without a beat of hesitation, Laura whips an arrow from her quiver, notching it just fast enough to let it fire as the boy gets his fingers around the hatchet handle. At such a close range, it spears straight through his shoulder, blood splattering across the deck from where the viciously sharp point erupts through his upper back, and the impact sends him tumbling off the raft into the water. Laura does not linger to find out if he resurfaces.
She hurries off the raft, flying onto the back of Sam’s jet-ski, actively suppressing the fact that the boy whose true name she does not know cannot have been any older than Zak or Billy.
Sam guns the engine, speeding off. The ski jostles up and down over the low waves, spray flying in Laura’s face. She cranes her neck, holding fast to Sam’s waist. From here she has a better vantage point of the other Tributes, most of which have headed for the raft or for the sandy shore.
“Over there!” Sam yells over the noise of the engine. Barely distinguishable amidst the chop (which seems to be growing higher, now that so many of them are in the water), are two small heads. Kara has her arms around Cally, and is kick-dragging her towards the beach. As they speed closer, it is obvious to Laura that the smaller girl is not doing well.
Sam powers down the engine as they near Kara and Cally.
“Took you long enough,” Kara says, spitting salt water as she paddles closer to the ski. Sam eases into the water, easily treading water and helping to lift Cally up. Laura pulls her up onto the sled, noting the bluish tint to Cally’s skin, even in the strong sunshine. “I’m sorry,” Cally says shyly. “I never learned to swim.”
“It’s okay, Cally. We’ve got you now.” She glances down at Kara and Sam, who exchange a dark look at the sight of Cally’s injured leg, now red and swollen with what can only be infection.
“Take her and go. We’ll meet you on the beach.”
“You can make it to shore?” Laura asks. It’s maybe a hundred meters to the beach, and Kara has had to swim for both herself and Cally for over twice that distance already.
“Yeah,” Sam nods. “Get Lee and Saul.” Almost as an afterthought, he adds, “And Tory.”
Right, Laura thinks. Tory. As much as she doesn’t trust Tory, better that she stay close at hand than have her teaming up with the likes of Cain and Thorne, as stealthy and serious Kendra Shaw has.
Laura eases on the throttle, Cally clinging tightly to the handle and gripping the spear across her waist like a safety bar. It strikes her as strange that the Gamemakers would have allowed so generous a tool like the jet-ski into the arena, at least until she glances down at the fuel meter and finds it a hair above EMPTY. Of course. The watercraft would be a handy tool for getting a quick lead, but useful only for a very limited amount of time.
As the beach nears, the clear blue of the water shifts to a greenish shade. A school of bright yellow fish dart away, sending a shiver of dread across her damp skin as she wonders what else might be swimming in the depths. The ski bottoms out as it hits the shallows, and Cally eases off to one side. Mindful of her leg, Laura assists the girl up the slope of the beach toward a treeline of ferns and banyan trunks and laying her to sit in the sand.
She turns to survey what is playing out in the water when Lee’s voice rings out from the water’s edge.
“Laura!” Bit of sand and surf splash around him as Lee stumbles toward them, breathing heavily.
“You’re all right,” she says, looking him over for any signs of damage and resisting the strong urge to hug him fiercely.
“Fine,” he says quickly, straightening. “Where’s Kara? What happened to the others?”
Laura purses her lips, unsure how to begin answering that. This is a variable she’s never even considered becoming part of the survival game. Fortunately, Sam chooses that particular moment to let out a string of colorful curses as he half-drags Kara to her feet in the waves behind them.
“You know, I’d like you a whole lot more if you’d shut up and let me save your ass,” Sam says, shaking water from his hair while Kara pauses, falling briefly to her knees in the sand to inelegantly spit up saltwater.
“Some of us had the pleasure of being born on dry land,” Kara says as Sam takes her arm and pulls her up again. “I don’t have frakking gills.”
“No? And here I had you confused for a mermaid.”
“Shut up, Longshot,” is her angry retort. She is still quite breathless, which Laura is beginning to realize is not entirely the fault of strenuous aerobic exertion and has more to do with handsome Sam Anders than Kara Thrace would be likely to admit. Surreptitiously glancing sideways at Lee as though she is studying the dense walls of vegetation behind them, she catches her stepson’s scowl.
Wonderful. Their lives are all hanging by a thread and still there are hormones to contend with, she thinks, very glad to have her teenage years behind her.
“Now that most of us are here,” Lee says tartly, “What the hell happened to us? Is this even the same Arena? Or are we somewhere totally different now?”
Kara flops onto her back on the sand, her chest still heaving as she throws an arm over her eyes to block the sun. “Wherever we are,” she gasps. “I don’t think we’re on Caprica anymore.”
---
Coming soon in Chapter Ten...
“What we’ve been able to piece together from Athena’s information,” Simon says, gesturing to a video screen inset on the long console at the room’s center where maps of Caprica and Leonis appear, “is that there are a series of separate Arenas scattered throughout the Colonies, the contents of which are controlled by hybrids, engineered and hardwired into...well, everything. Environmental controls, artificial seismic systems, weapons deployment and such.”
“Sounds like a lot for one person to handle,” Bill comments darkly.
Authors: miabicicletta olga_theodora
Summary: Cally can’t bring herself to feel much of anything. She’s going to die. Schoolgirl crushes are no longer a part of her life.
Pairings: Bill/Laura, Sam/Kara, Lee/Kara UST, Lee/?
Rating: MA (series) T+ (Chapter 9)
Warnings: Non-graphic allusions to non-con and dub-con, character death.
Authors' Notes: As always, dear readers, we thank you for taking this trip of Space!Family doom and gloom with us. We really do love these characters, despite the fact that we're trying to kill them all. Extra awesome thanks and appreciation today to thesis-defending leiascully. Slow clap for her! SSWA!
PROLOGUE: THE SPARKS ASCEND
CHAPTER ONE: CHILDHOOD'S END
CHAPTER TWO: BEAUTY FOR ASHES
CHAPTER THREE: THE WIDENING GYRE
CHAPTER FOUR: A SHORT SHARP SHOCK
CHAPTER FIVE: ALLIANCES
CHAPTER SIX: JUMP POINT
CHAPTER SEVEN: IN THE ARMED MADHOUSE
CHAPTER EIGHT: FIRST CONTACT
---
CHAPTER NINE: MYTH MADE FLESH
Of particular interest to some scholars is the long and complex history of Jump technology as was used in the Games. For the first fourteen Games, Tributes were typically escorted or dropped into the Arena via a variety of methods, methods which rarely garnered the ratings the Gamemakers wished to attain. The historical exception would be the 5th Games, wherein Tributes were quite literally shoved out of Raptors, their falls barely hindered by the wax and feather wings attached to their arms (an unsubtle tribute to the Icarus of Colonial mythology, and an equally unsubtle commentary on so-called Colonial hubris). An impressive beginning, to be sure, but it did make for a rather small Tribute pool. The Gamemakers sought a method of introducing the Tributes to the Arena in a way that would be sufficiently flashy, but would also give them a measure of control over the pool of Tributes in question.
Jump technology was introduced into the Arena during the opening of the 15th Games, a mere five months after Tomas Vergis first patented his method for creating woven Jump portals. Despite the unfortunate occurrence at the opening of the 15th Games, in which five of the 24 Tributes were transported into the Arena minus certain vital organs (as it turned out, it really did matter how the sleeve seams were sewn), Jumping became the traditional vehicle by which Tributes entered the Arena.
The two limitations in woven Jump technology were distance and number of uses. Gamemakers were limited to five-hundred miles for the introductory Jump, which often meant that Tributes were shuttled to the appropriate planet the day before the proper beginning of the Games. Despite precautions, Arena locations (if not the exact coordinates, then at least well thought-out suppositions) were often leaked. As for number of uses, the suits were not limited to one Jump only, as was often thought. Rather it was one and a half, so to speak: the second Jump was only used to remove deceased Tributes from the field, and corpses often returned from the Arena in pieces or small heaps of ash due to the limited power available.
It was not until 49 UE that Artemis Vergis, the daughter of Tomas Vergis, furthered her father’s work by diminishing the effects of Jump limitations. If one will excuse the pun, her work proved to be a game-changer.
- From Threads of Fate: Effects of Jump Technology on Colonial Society by Joanne Pollux.
---
Kara is not a fan of riddles.
“How many miles to Babylon?” the Sphinx asks once more, and smiles. She has a great many sharp teeth, and Kara is not comfortable having them anywhere near her person.
“Where the hell is Babylon?” Kara asks Laura in a whisper, trying to remember the myths regarding the sphinx. If she recalls correctly, after a certain number of wrong answers she will find herself missing a limb. Possibly two.
“There is nothing in our mythology about a Babylon,” Laura responds quietly, looking strangely fascinated by the beast in front of them. “And I’ve never heard of a city named that, either.”
Lee’s expression lightens for a brief moment, most likely relieved that his sin of not paying attention in geography class will not be returning to haunt him today (geography class was one of the few that Kara did pay attention to, willingly. She liked the idea of wide plains, of deep woods and silence). “What rhymes with Babylon?” he asks, and visibly withers under Kara and Cally’s scornful glances. “Just... I thought it might... rhyme. Maybe.”
Tory stands back from their number, her arms crossed as she considers the Sphinx coolly. “How many wrong answers do we get?” she asks the Sphinx directly.
The Sphinx considers her for a long moment, powerful wings rippling slightly. “You’re trying to cheat,” she says in an almost quizzical tone. “You’re not supposed to cheat.” Her tail lashes in agitation.
“There are no rules in the Games,” Tory replies calmly. “The Gamemakers say so. I’m merely trying to discern the parameters of this little exercise.”
“The Gamemakers said that I get to make my own rules,” the Sphinx says petulantly, sounding for a moment like an angry five-year old.
Kara takes a slight step back reflexively, wondering if anyone else in the group has figured out yet that they are speaking to no mere construct, but an honest-to-gods hybrid in the guise of a mythical creature. A young hybrid, at that. She grabs Laura’s sleeve and tugs frantically, barely acknowledging the sound of a seam ripping. “We can’t reason with her,” she hisses in Laura’s ear. “She never grew old enough to reason.”
Laura’s eyes narrow as she considers this, noting the way the Sphinx’s muscled hindquarters are bunching in preparation to spring. Tory continues standing alone, looking entirely unimpressed by the enraged beast in front of her.
As Kara scans their surroundings to figure out the quickest exit, Laura suddenly walks toward the Sphinx and lays a hand on the beast’s head. “Sit,” Laura says in the same tone of voice she has so often used to quell a stubborn child.
Judging by the look on his face, Kara thinks Lee is fighting the instinctive urge to drop down onto the ground himself. She can’t really blame him.
The Sphinx seems to feel the same way. “You’re cheating,” she protests weakly in an uncertain tone of voice, as if she is suddenly unclear of her own rules.
“Sit,” Laura repeats firmly, and smiles when the Sphinx obeys. “The Gamemakers said you can make your own rules, right?”
The Sphinx cocks her head slightly to the right. “Yes.”
“So you don’t have to kill us, do you?”
“...No?” the Sphinx guesses, sounding dazed.
“Exactly.” Laura smooths down a ruffled patch of fur. “What do you want to do?”
The Sphinx watches her warily, and shifts her front paws anxiously. “I want to think about this,” she says, and disappears from beneath Laura’s hand.
There is a moment when they all gaze about themselves in stunned silence, expecting some final blow from out of nowhere. As it becomes evident that the Sphinx has left for at least that present moment, Tory turns to Laura and comments idly, “That Sphinx is not going to be happy when she sees you again.”
“What makes you think that?” Sam asks, watching Laura with an admiring glint in his eye.
“The Gamemakers won’t let her.” Tory shrugs. “Forward, then?” She strides off into the forest without waiting for a reply.
“Do you think we should go in the opposite direction?” Cally asks the group at large as she watches Tory walk away. Sam settles her on his back once more.
“You don’t trust your own mentor?” Saul’s question is obviously sarcastic. He smirks as Laura shoots him a dirty look.
“The first thing she told me after the new Reaping was that she would kill me if she had to,” Cally responds, either not recognizing or not acknowledging his sarcasm. “I’m trying to avoid that possibility.” There is a pale, drawn cast to her face. Despite her words, she obviously knows very well that her injury has severely decreased the odds that she will see the end.
“Kid,” Sam says seriously, “I’m staying with you till the end.”
Despite being perfectly aware of how he had survived his previous tour of the Arena, Kara finds herself beginning to suspect him of being an exceptionally charismatic serial killer. No one, she thinks, is that self-sacrificing. Especially not a former Victor.
---
It takes another four hours before Laura realizes that they have slowly and gradually looped back around to the hospital complex. As she spots the first set of foreboding windows through the trees, she wonders who led them so carefully and cunningly off course, when no one person has been leading. With Cally’s injury their pace has slowed to a casual meander, as if they are taking a summer stroll through the woods.
Someone has led them astray, and while her first suspicions lie with Tory, she cannot rule out young Mr. Anders on such short acquaintance. She would also be foolish to disregard her own former mentor as a possible culprit.
As they gather in a tight bunch under a tree, momentarily stymied by this unexpected change of plans, Saul crosses his arms in disgust. “No one else realized where we were going?”
“You evidently knew,” Tory hisses in so perfect a display of panic that Laura begins to doubt her earlier suspicions. “Why in Hades didn’t you say anything?”
“I was too busy trying to figure out who was leading us there.” They are practically nose to nose at this point, Tory fairly vibrating with rage. “Looked like you were in the lead.”
“Going back to the hospital is a suicide mission,” she snaps. “And we’d do best to get out of here before we are discovered.”
It is not until after an arrow flies past Lee’s face, barely missing his ear, that they realize they have been spotted.
---
Her leg hurts, worse than the time she tried rollerskating down a hill and skidded the last few feet on her knees. She doesn’t like needles, has never liked needles, and it was only her desire to prove her bravery to her teammates that stayed her panic attack when Laura pulled out the sharp sliver of metal and threaded it. Heat crawls up her leg from the wound site. It itches and aches and gods, she wants her mother so badly.
She knows that it would have been far nobler to have stayed behind alone after her injury, but Cally has felt wolf-like fear gnawing at her belly ever since her name was called at the Reaping, and it does not feel all that long ago that she still slept with a worn teddy bear and sucked her thumb. She’s scared of being alone, scared of the way Tory’s eyes occasionally meet hers, filled with some hidden amusement. If Cally separates from the group, she will not be alone for long. Surely there are better ways to die than at the hands of a woman who finds her pain amusing.
She turned twelve the day before the Reaping. She left behind a group of childhood friends and the first crush she had ever had on a boy she actually knew, and if her new understanding of mortality had not taken precedence, she thinks she would have a hard time accepting help from Sam. She likes Sam, likes his kindness and willingness to help her stay with the group, and that compounded with her pre-Reaping crush would probably send her into a tizzy at any other time. Her own small group of friends had been half mad for him during the past year. Hadn’t Cally herself taped a Caprican Bucs poster onto her ceiling and defaced every schoolbook with ‘Mrs. Cally Anders’ in sprawling cursive?
‘Romantic,’ her best friend is probably sighing as she sits in her home. Cally can’t bring herself to feel much of anything. She’s going to die. Schoolgirl crushes are no longer a part of her life. She hates her friends- so safe and silly- just a little bit.
She rests her head against Sam’s back and falls easily into a doze. When she wakes- feeling lost and somewhat feverish- to harsh and frantic words, she flushes slightly in embarrassment when she notices a small patch of drool on the back of Sam’s shirt. The arrow that flies past Lee’s face quickly makes her forget such small cares, and she reflexively tightens her hold on Sam as he jerks slightly, startled.
“Frak!” Kara yelps, grabbing Laura’s hand and yanking her away from the origin of the arrow, which sprang from deeper in the forest. As they pelt toward the complex Cally clings desperately to Sam’s shoulders, waiting for the inevitable moment when an arrow finds her vulnerable, defenseless back. She finds herself absurdly thinking about her cat, wondering whether her family has remembered to feed the animal that slept curled in the sweep of her spine for the last five years.
It is at this moment, when the base of her spine feels practically naked and Laura trips over a cracked stretch of concrete, that the world, once more, drags itself inside out and pulls them apart.
---
JUMP!
The sky falls in.
The green-gray palette of the hospital complex blinks out of existence. Time and space flex again, a sickening stretch, wrenching at her from some indefinite place that seems to come from within even as it feels created by something far beyond her control. A voice somewhere cries out as everything becomes clear again.
Blue. Such clear, painful blue. It’s so bright compared to the dismal murk of the wooded forest that for a moment, Laura can’t tell if the sky is up or down. The water is the same endless azure shade of the sky, as if a giant mirror has been laid around them.
She takes a fast breath, head whipping around to get her bearings as best she can. She is standing on some kind of clear platform elevated just inches above the water. Waves splash the firm yet supple material of her boots as Laura searches for Lee, Kara and the rest of her unit. The other Tributes seem to be arranged on similar surfaces, positioned in a vague arc around a floating Cornucopia of new weapons and goods. The appearance of more tools and supplies should hearten her, but it only makes Laura more afraid. Take what you can, the Gamemakers seem to be saying. You’ll need all the help you can get.
This has never happened before. None of this has ever happened before. Not a second Arena, a second Jump, a second cache of goods to help them through. As far back as she can remember, there has never been a Games that moved. Judging by the startled shouts of confusion that echo across the water as her fellow competitors take in their new surroundings, catching them off guard is clearly what the planners had been counting on.
Daniel, she is certain, is horrifically impressed.
“Look out!” Kara’s voice appears beyond the din of waves and the cries of other Tributes to one another. “Look out!”
From her own perch several meters away, a panicked Kara waves, pointing helplessly at something over Laura’s shoulder. Before she can turn, a whoosh sound zips close to her left side as something hard and sleek makes a small splash before being absorbed into the glittering surface. Instinctively, Laura leaps to her right, taking as deep a breath as she can before diving headlong into the waves, without even a moment to consider what dangers might lie below.
Everything is muted as she slices through the water, trying to get as far as she can from the unseen threat that can only be Helena and her poorly aimed arrows. Underwater, Laura opens her eyes, feels the momentary sting of the warm, salty water as she does. She struggles to get deeper below the surface as she fights her unexpected buoyancy in water so different from the cold seas beyond the sharp, rocky coastline that she’s known from childhood.
She kicks hard, reaching through the water in a vain impression of the form from her long-ago swim-team days. Unlike some of the Tributes above, who had looked terrified at the idea of such a large body of water, she’s a decent swimmer but unpracticed enough to not know how far she may have gone before her breath runs out. Giving one last long kick, she breaks the surface. Several meters behind her, Helena is calling out to a slender dark-haired woman off to her side, at the middle of the arc, who is pointing at something in the water.
A jet of undiluted fear rips through her. Not long in, and already the Games have produced some terrifying scenarios -- bombs and beasts, danger at every turn. But somehow the unseen inspires a truly primal fear, and Laura treads water for only half a second before breaking for the Cornucopia as quickly as she can.
It takes at most, a minute. But it is by all means the longest minute of her existence. Desperate, she swims for her life, all other noise disappearing into the echoing sound of her own gasps and the splash of her arms through water. Her hand slaps the platform and she starts to pull herself up when a strong arm grabs her shoulder. Her heart, pounding, stutters as she whips her head up.
“You’re pretty fast,” Sam huffs, dripping with saltwater himself. Picon’s only continent is small, surrounded by shallow seas. It is no surprise that he is a strong swimmer.
“Thanks,” Laura breathes, her heart rate slowing a hair, and pulls herself up.
They’re the first two to reach the float, and Sam has already seized something that looks like a modified harpoon. Laura’s eyes scan the surface and the many now-empty platforms arranged around them. A tiny bobbing head that might be Cally has broken off, heading to the wide sandy beach that lies beyond the raft, opposite from the half moon ring of jump pads.
When she catches sight of Lee, she sighs in relief, but her ease is quickly replaced by confusion as she realizes that Lee is walking across the water. No, he’s hopping.
“Stepping stones,” she says, remembering the way the boys would tiptoe across the stream in the woods behind their house. “There are more platforms out there. Somehow he’s figured out how to see them.”
“Good, then we’ll meet him on the shore. We gotta go,” Sam says, pulling at her elbow. Though no one else seems to have picked up on Lee’s discovery, there are four more Tributes bearing down on the floating raft. Sam fires his harpoon-thing at one of them, giving Laura time to duck back and root through the cache of supplies. They have, at most, thirty seconds or so. Her choice must be a good one.
Fortunately, her decision is also an easy one. Another bow and quiver has been offered; Laura doesn’t hesitate to claim it, slinging it over her shoulder with the accompanying set of arrows. The first one was probably meant for her, too. The Gamemakers are uncommonly generous in this manner, and have traditionally seen fit to provide Tributes with items they might use to their advantage in gruesome, spectacular ways. It makes for better ratings, Laura surmises darkly. Far more entertaining to see someone speared or decapitated than watch them slowly starve to death. Helena might have gotten her hands on the first bow and quiver, but she has twice now missed her mark. It is a small satisfaction, but one that the competitor in Laura revels in.
Along with her own bow, she quickly snags a compass and another sack that might be food just as Sam lets out a laugh of delight. Laura’s head tips up as she follows his gaze over her shoulder. “What...”
But then she sees it. On the far side of the Cornucopia, gently bumping against the fiberglass frame of the platform, is a small jet-ski.
“Come on!” Sam hollers, “We gotta get Cally!” Laura darts after him.
“Wait,” she cries, side stepping backwards to snatch a long handled spear leaning against the Cornucopia’s shell. Lee needs a weapon, and she’ll be damned if he misses out on one for being smarter than everyone else. She tosses it vertically to Sam, who catches it easily, flipping it to rest on his knee.
Behind her, a powerfully-built boy she remembers as having a rather macabre callsign -- Skulls, maybe? -- pulls himself up on the raft, eyes flicking between her and the double-sided hatchet glimmering in the midday sun. Without a beat of hesitation, Laura whips an arrow from her quiver, notching it just fast enough to let it fire as the boy gets his fingers around the hatchet handle. At such a close range, it spears straight through his shoulder, blood splattering across the deck from where the viciously sharp point erupts through his upper back, and the impact sends him tumbling off the raft into the water. Laura does not linger to find out if he resurfaces.
She hurries off the raft, flying onto the back of Sam’s jet-ski, actively suppressing the fact that the boy whose true name she does not know cannot have been any older than Zak or Billy.
Sam guns the engine, speeding off. The ski jostles up and down over the low waves, spray flying in Laura’s face. She cranes her neck, holding fast to Sam’s waist. From here she has a better vantage point of the other Tributes, most of which have headed for the raft or for the sandy shore.
“Over there!” Sam yells over the noise of the engine. Barely distinguishable amidst the chop (which seems to be growing higher, now that so many of them are in the water), are two small heads. Kara has her arms around Cally, and is kick-dragging her towards the beach. As they speed closer, it is obvious to Laura that the smaller girl is not doing well.
Sam powers down the engine as they near Kara and Cally.
“Took you long enough,” Kara says, spitting salt water as she paddles closer to the ski. Sam eases into the water, easily treading water and helping to lift Cally up. Laura pulls her up onto the sled, noting the bluish tint to Cally’s skin, even in the strong sunshine. “I’m sorry,” Cally says shyly. “I never learned to swim.”
“It’s okay, Cally. We’ve got you now.” She glances down at Kara and Sam, who exchange a dark look at the sight of Cally’s injured leg, now red and swollen with what can only be infection.
“Take her and go. We’ll meet you on the beach.”
“You can make it to shore?” Laura asks. It’s maybe a hundred meters to the beach, and Kara has had to swim for both herself and Cally for over twice that distance already.
“Yeah,” Sam nods. “Get Lee and Saul.” Almost as an afterthought, he adds, “And Tory.”
Right, Laura thinks. Tory. As much as she doesn’t trust Tory, better that she stay close at hand than have her teaming up with the likes of Cain and Thorne, as stealthy and serious Kendra Shaw has.
Laura eases on the throttle, Cally clinging tightly to the handle and gripping the spear across her waist like a safety bar. It strikes her as strange that the Gamemakers would have allowed so generous a tool like the jet-ski into the arena, at least until she glances down at the fuel meter and finds it a hair above EMPTY. Of course. The watercraft would be a handy tool for getting a quick lead, but useful only for a very limited amount of time.
As the beach nears, the clear blue of the water shifts to a greenish shade. A school of bright yellow fish dart away, sending a shiver of dread across her damp skin as she wonders what else might be swimming in the depths. The ski bottoms out as it hits the shallows, and Cally eases off to one side. Mindful of her leg, Laura assists the girl up the slope of the beach toward a treeline of ferns and banyan trunks and laying her to sit in the sand.
She turns to survey what is playing out in the water when Lee’s voice rings out from the water’s edge.
“Laura!” Bit of sand and surf splash around him as Lee stumbles toward them, breathing heavily.
“You’re all right,” she says, looking him over for any signs of damage and resisting the strong urge to hug him fiercely.
“Fine,” he says quickly, straightening. “Where’s Kara? What happened to the others?”
Laura purses her lips, unsure how to begin answering that. This is a variable she’s never even considered becoming part of the survival game. Fortunately, Sam chooses that particular moment to let out a string of colorful curses as he half-drags Kara to her feet in the waves behind them.
“You know, I’d like you a whole lot more if you’d shut up and let me save your ass,” Sam says, shaking water from his hair while Kara pauses, falling briefly to her knees in the sand to inelegantly spit up saltwater.
“Some of us had the pleasure of being born on dry land,” Kara says as Sam takes her arm and pulls her up again. “I don’t have frakking gills.”
“No? And here I had you confused for a mermaid.”
“Shut up, Longshot,” is her angry retort. She is still quite breathless, which Laura is beginning to realize is not entirely the fault of strenuous aerobic exertion and has more to do with handsome Sam Anders than Kara Thrace would be likely to admit. Surreptitiously glancing sideways at Lee as though she is studying the dense walls of vegetation behind them, she catches her stepson’s scowl.
Wonderful. Their lives are all hanging by a thread and still there are hormones to contend with, she thinks, very glad to have her teenage years behind her.
“Now that most of us are here,” Lee says tartly, “What the hell happened to us? Is this even the same Arena? Or are we somewhere totally different now?”
Kara flops onto her back on the sand, her chest still heaving as she throws an arm over her eyes to block the sun. “Wherever we are,” she gasps. “I don’t think we’re on Caprica anymore.”
---
Coming soon in Chapter Ten...
“What we’ve been able to piece together from Athena’s information,” Simon says, gesturing to a video screen inset on the long console at the room’s center where maps of Caprica and Leonis appear, “is that there are a series of separate Arenas scattered throughout the Colonies, the contents of which are controlled by hybrids, engineered and hardwired into...well, everything. Environmental controls, artificial seismic systems, weapons deployment and such.”
“Sounds like a lot for one person to handle,” Bill comments darkly.