boring.
“Good.” Madame’s attention returned to the Pearl. “Though I can’t argue with your results.” Her fingers danced along the top, mirroring the weaving energy inside. “Marvelous little baubles, aren’t they? To think that we ever lived without them. I still remember that first winter after the bombings. Seventy-six degrees in the middle of December. In Boston, no less.” She chuckled. “People thought it was great. Impromptu vacations. Christmas at the beach. That was before the insects started multiplying and crops began to die. I wish you could have seen it, Cassius, the way it was. Real snow, not that nonsense the Weathermen program into the Bio-Nets. Just pure white, stretching out as far as the eye could see.”
Cassius strained to imagine it. The only large-scale weather event he’d ever experienced was the arid, dusty wind of the Fringes.
Madame smiled. “You know, I’ve never been a very religious person, but every time I hold one of these in my hands I feel like we’re not alone in this universe.”
Cassius chuckled nervously. Despite growing up with her, he still found himself tongue-tied around Madame. Mostly he just let her do the talking.
“I’ll have someone put it into stasis right away,” she continued. “I look forward to our trip up to Atlas. It’ll give us some time to catch up. It feels like I’ve hardly seen you these past few weeks.”
“You’ve been busy.”
She nodded. “True, but that’s a lazy excuse, isn’t it? This is an important time in your life. I’d regret missing too much of it.”
Cassius was about to respond when a powerful wave of heat rushed through his chest, like someone had lit a fuse and buried it deep inside his body. The room fractured and spun, a kaleidoscope of carpet patterns, bookshelves, and Pearl energy. He staggered sideways, nearly toppling over onto the floor before catching himself and straightening his posture.
Madame stood immediately, revealing a slim figure covered with a fitted blouse tucked into dark trousers. “Cassius, are you all right?”
He rubbed his head. “Yeah, I just got a little dizzy there for a second.”
“You’ve been outside the Net for too long,” she spoke with a tremor of concern. “You should go lie down.”
“Maybe.” His heart pounded at double time as his chest continued to burn. He cleared his throat, making sure to conceal his discomfort in front of Madame.
Her eyes narrowed. “Are you sure nothing happened to you back in Syracuse?”
His mind raced back to the rooftop-separating from the Skyship boy, thrown across the ground. “Yeah,” he lied, careful not to stumble on his words. “I’m fine.”
She frowned, unconvinced. “All right. We’ll talk tomorrow. Get some rest and a glass of water. And please call the infirmary if you feel ill.”
He nodded and turned to leave the room, desperate to get out before he did something stupid and embarrassed himself in front of her.
“And Cassius?”
He looked over his shoulder. “Yeah?”
“I’m very proud of you.”
Her words comforted him as he staggered out the door, gripping his burning chest. He continued down the hallway, each step echoed by a thudding pain inside of him. Heat. Everywhere. So hot.
The hallway weaved into diagonals. He stumbled into the wall twice before making it to the dormitories. Panic consumed his thoughts. Cassius wasn’t use to panic, and that was the worst of all. Something was wrong inside of him. He knew it immediately, at a gut level. This wasn’t a simple stomach pain. It wasn’t the Fringe heat, or the chemicals.
He yanked open the door to his room, slamming it behind him and slumping face down on his perfectly made bed. He’d always been healthy. Rarely sick, he healed from injuries faster than most of his peers. But he hadn’t even been injured. Scuffed up a little maybe in Syracuse, but nothing serious.
A sharp pain stabbed below his heart and prickled to his feet. Each moment that followed was an exclamation point on an already panicked state of shock. He’d heard of people having heart attacks, dropping dead minutes after they felt pain, but a fifteen-year-old? There’s no way.
Desperate for water, he carefully lifted himself off the bed and stumbled toward the bathroom.
A jolt up his spine stopped him in his tracks, sending him crashing to his knees. His organs sizzled, as if his insides had started leaking poisonous acid into his body. He bit his lip to keep the scream stuck inside.
Then, just as unexpectedly as it had arrived, the pain disappeared.
Cassius ran his hand over his forehead, breathing hard. Sweat dripped from his chin to the floor. He tore off his jacket and threw it toward the bed, untucking his shirt and loosening the top buttons.
Pulling himself off the ground, he struggled to a standing position and sat on the edge of his bed. His legs wobbled. He’d just been through war.
But it wasn’t over yet.
The pain returned, nearly knocking him from the bed. This time he felt fire-flames consuming him from inside out.
This time, he screamed.
The fire burst through his skin. Like a human bomb, he exploded. Torrents of flame shot around the bedroom, engulfing every corner. His clothing seared into ashes and fluttered from his body.
It took seconds.
Seconds, and the once spotless room was a charred shell. The flames began to eat through the walls, threatening neighboring quarters. His skin remained pale, his body intact. The fire spread. The warmth inside him diluted. The pain disappeared.
Cassius slumped off the edge of the skeletal bed frame and onto the floor. Face down. Unconscious. Flames danced all around him.
4
As our shuttle bursts into Earth’s stratosphere, I dream about Pearls. I dream there’s this giant robed guy lounging around on an asteroid somewhere chucking them down at me, one after another. I stand on the Surface, watching them burn through my body as they hit, leaving swiss-cheese holes until I’m hung together by nothing more than gooey threads.
“We’ve hit 30,000 feet.” Eva’s call knocks me out of my frustratingly short nap. I pry my eyes open and look out the side window. The vast outline of Skyship Polaris blots out most of the evening sky, just out of reach-a floating, metallic castle. A string of drool hangs from the side of my mouth. Charming.
We passed the Skyline hours ago, back on the East Coast. Ever since then I’ve been able to relax a little and get some shuteye. I’ve heard stories about Shippers getting shot for landing on the Surface without credentials. We were lucky not to run into border patrol, though I guess it’s kind of hard to police every square inch of the Skyline.
Skyship Academy, a dinky, self-contained ship compared to some of the bigger models, hovers above the California-Oregon border, give or take a few miles. Puttering back all the way from New York, we’ve been cooped up in this shuttle for going on two hours. Stir crazy. I told Mr. Wilson that it was a mass stupid idea sending us all the way out to the East Coast, but he kept saying that the “opportunity was too good to pass up” (a.k.a., “we’re gonna give you losers the safest possible city with the safest possible Pearl Traders so you don’t get yourselves killed”).
Yeah. That went well.
Eva flips a switch on the ceiling. “I’m stabilizing and setting the auto-pilot.”
“Go for it,” Skandar answers half-heartedly. Eva’s always been one for protocol, though she knows she doesn’t need our advice. She’s the best pilot in Year Nine. I don’t even have my learner wings yet.
Skandar unfastens his belt and moves across the shuttle, sitting backward on the seat nearest to me, face
