Above World

HOKU HAD TOLD ALUNA they were sending help. He’d told her she wasn’t alone. Now he had to prove it.

Liu swung her wrench, her claws, and even her legs. Somehow Dash was still up, fighting by her side with just one good hand. Even so, the number of Upgraders crowded around the control center door never lessened.

They needed more help than just Liu. They needed an army.

“Zorro, wake more Meks.”

Yellow.

“Zorro, retrieve the names of all HydroTek Dome Meks and wake them up. Wake them all up!”

Yellow.

Glowing words pulsed on the display screen in front of him. At the same time, an inhuman voice spoke them aloud: “Current password grants insufficient security clearance to complete that action. Level Seahorse access required.”

“Hoku,” Dash yelled. “We are losing ground. I cannot —”

Out of the corner of his eye, Hoku saw Dash crumple. Liu stepped in to cover his spot, protecting his body with her six remaining legs.

“Passwords,” Hoku muttered, and pulled out the device he’d found in the water safe. He pressed the power button, and a spinning seahorse floated into view. Sarah Jennings said she’d stored forbidden information inside the tiny box — all of HydroTek’s secrets. Well, right now, he only wanted one.

“Zorro, disconnect from the computer.”

The raccoon pulled its tail off the magnetic port and scampered out of the way. Hoku held the device over the spot and felt the familiar tug of the magnet pulling the artifact into place.

The screen glowed and the computer’s voice spoke. “Device detected. Accessing password. . . .”

Hoku held his breath. Metal clattered on metal behind him. The screen went blank.

“Password accepted. Clearance Level Seahorse. Proceeding with command.”

Lines of tiny words streamed up the screen — so many he couldn’t read them nearly fast enough:

The list went on and on and on.





ALUNA CHARGED, her talons spinning in tight whirls around her body.

Fathom hopped back impossibly fast on his metal legs, and Aluna heard a snick from behind her. Upgraders! She dodged too late. A blazing harpoon grazed her thigh and she screamed. The wound wasn’t deep, but it stung.

“Catch her!” Fathom yelled. “Damage her arms if you have to, but leave her legs intact!”

The Upgraders charged. Some headed for her, and some ran to protect their master. If Fathom hadn’t sent so many to the woods, she would have been dead in one flash of a tail. Now she had a chance.

She spun her talons faster as the Upgraders circled her. Good. They wouldn’t be able to use their missiles and their flamethrowers now, not without the risk of hitting one another. A man with a silver head stepped in swinging a glowing red sword. She sent her talon Spite to disarm him, but with a twitch, the Upgrader sliced through Spite’s chain. The tip of the talon flew off and landed out of sight. Aluna’s heart thudded faster. The man grinned. She feigned fear to lure him into a lunge, then sidestepped, letting the Upgrader behind her figure out how to deal with the tip of his blade.

A woman with spikes growing out of her arm attacked next. Aluna dodged the swing, then jumped up on the woman’s arm and vaulted over her head. The Upgraders were used to dealing with front and back, left and right. But Aluna learned to fight in the sea. She also knew how to use up and down.

She landed hard behind the woman and yelped. Her wounded thigh burned.

Sound erupted in her ear: Hoku screaming.

“No!” she yelled. The Upgraders must have found him!

“I did it! I did it!” his voice echoed in her ear.

And that’s when she saw them. A stream of people with bodies shaped like crabs and lobsters, with wrenches and pipes and bits of metal gripped in their human hands. They swarmed into Middle Green and threw themselves at the Upgraders, weapons and claws swinging.

Aluna yelled again, this time in triumph.

Cones of flame shot across the sky. Metal clanked against metal. Men and women screamed. A snake-man — the one she had seen earlier in the cage — slithered past her and struck at the Upgrader named Giraffe with fists so fast that they blurred together in the air.

The Upgraders she had been fighting were now struggling against dozens of the newcomers. Aluna limped through the chaos, dodging blades and poison needles. She found a long metal spike and hefted it like a spear. The air smelled of smoke and oil, of sweat and ocean salt.

An Upgrader with spinning blades instead of hands charged her. She stepped quickly to the side and batted him from the air with her spear, shark-style. Fast and quick. He landed on the ground with a thud and a howl as one of his circular blades cut into the flesh of his other arm.

Where was Fathom? She hadn’t been so far from him when the fight started, but now she couldn’t find him. If only she were taller! In the ocean, height never mattered. In the Above World, she felt like she was always standing on her toes in order to see. Maybe she understood Giraffe a little bit after all.

“Aluna! Help!”

Daphine’s words screeched inside her ears.

“I’m coming!” she yelled, her heart stuttering in her chest. She ran for Daphine’s cage, ignoring the pain in her leg, ignoring the splashes of blood and screams surrounding her from every side.

When she found Daphine, Fathom was standing over her with a long jagged blade in his hand. Her sister’s cage had been shattered. Daphine struggled in a pool of water two meters from Fathom’s feet, trying to pull herself away from him on shaking arms.

“Leave her alone!” Aluna said, spinning her makeshift spear.

Fathom looked over his shoulder at her, a small twisted smile on his lips. “You will not play fair while this one lives,” he said. “Without hope, you will truly be my slave.”

He raised his sword.

Aluna was too far away. She’d never make it in time. Daphine, sweet Daphine!

And that’s when a brown-haired girl with wings dropped out of the sky, landed right between Daphine and Fathom, and pointed her spear at the Sea Master’s heart.





CALLI!

Aluna was relieved to see the girl was holding her spear properly for a change. But it wouldn’t matter, not if Fathom attacked her. Calli was no match for him.

Aluna kept running. She was still too far away, but Calli was giving her time. Brave, foolish, wonderful girl!

“Stand back,” Calli said grimly.

“Aviar!” Fathom hissed, but surprisingly, he did as she said and took a step away from her. Away from Daphine. “I’ve long wanted to catch one of you alive. There’s so much I could do with a pair of wings. As homage to my brother, of course.”

“My mother killed him, you know,” Calli said. She sounded strong, but Aluna could hear the waver in her voice, could see the tip of her spear beginning to quiver. “She ran her spear right through Tempest’s throat.”

One of Fathom’s hands went to his neck.

“All the more reason for me to kill you, Aviar,” he said, and lifted his sword arm to strike.

But Calli had done her job. She’d distracted Fathom long enough. Aluna yelled and swung her metal spike like a spear. It smashed into Fathom’s sword and bent it nearly in two. She stopped running and dug her toes into the mud that the water from Daphine’s cage had created.

“Fight me,” she said, panting.

Fathom dropped his mangled sword and turned on her. Behind him, Calli pulled Daphine out of danger. More winged women fell from the skies and entered the fray. Aluna thought she recognized High Senator Electra’s distinctive hawk wings only a dozen meters away.

While she was distracted, Fathom struck. Two of his arms punched out. One sparked against her metal spike, and the other slammed into her shoulder. She’d seen them coming and fell back to absorb the blows. But he was faster, so fast. Her left arm went numb from the force of the impact.

Aluna shifted her spear to her good hand and adjusted to a single-arm grip. When Fathom punched with his third arm, she knocked his fist to the side and swept her spear into a spin. Spinning protected her body and disguised her attacks.

“This world doesn’t need you, or your father,” she said. “We don’t need to be ‘protected.’ We don’t need to be ‘improved.’” Her left arm started to tingle as feeling returned.

“It doesn’t matter what you need,” Fathom sneered. “You are parts, nothing more. We will control the whole.”

He twisted and kicked at her face. She blocked with her heavy spear and sidestepped. Fathom hopped and swung the other leg out in an arc toward her face. She dropped her spear, ducked, and grabbed his foot as it passed over her head. She shoved straight up, trying to push Fathom off balance. The technique would never work underwater, where your enemy could just somersault away.

But Aluna was an Above World fighter now. There were new rules. Fathom flailed his arms and crashed onto his back. He twisted onto his stomach and tried to regain his feet, but his extra-long legs kept slipping in the mud.

Aluna vaulted onto his back and tried to pin him, but he was too strong. He bucked and she grabbed the dorsal fins jutting out of his shoulders to keep her seat. If only she were heavier or stronger! If only she weren’t alone.

But wait: she wasn’t alone. Calli and the Aviars were here. Daphine was here. The crab people were fighting all around her, along with the freed prisoners. And somewhere out there, Hoku and Dash were here, too.

“Help!” she yelled. Her voice sounded impossibly quiet in the din of battle, but got louder and louder with every word. “Help me! Help me keep him down!”

Fathom wriggled beneath her, his multiple limbs sinking into the ground as he tried to push himself up. Aluna clung to him with her weak hand and tried to slam the bottom of her spike into the back of his skull, where only glass protected his brain. One of his elbows jerked back and struck her in the temple. Her head pulsed with pain. Her vision clouded. She lost her grip on the spike.

She cringed, expecting another blow, but it didn’t come. When her vision cleared, she saw Daphine clinging to one of Fathom’s arms and Calli to another. The snake-man prisoner had wound his long tail around a leg. Even Barko the dog was there, bloodied but determined, his jaws around one of Fathom’s ankles.

“Get off me!” Fathom screamed. “I’ll harvest you all for parts! Karl Strand will hear of this!”

“Well, if he does, you won’t be the one to tell him,” a familiar voice said. Aluna looked up and saw High Senator Electra, her face cut and bleeding, her wing scorched, her eyes fierce. The Aviar lifted her spear in both hands, clearly intending to drive it into the back of Fathom’s skull.

“No!” Aluna said. “The device on his arm — it controls everything!”

Electra began her swing but changed the direction at the last moment. Her spear point smashed into the muddy earth, piercing the artifact on Fathom’s arm.

Sea Master Fathom screamed.

“Alive,” Aluna said, to herself as much as to the people around her. “We can take him alive.”

High Senator Electra spat. “This is your fight,” she said. “We’ll do it your way.” She flipped her spear over and smacked the butt into the side of Fathom’s head. Aluna felt his body relax.

“You did it,” Daphine said in her ear. “Aluna, my sweet, sweet sister. You did it.”

“He’s out!” Calli yelled with a whoop.

Aluna’s head felt as if it were barely attached. Her stomach lurched and she wondered, idly, if she might pass out. All around, the sounds of battle clanged in her ears. Several nearby Upgraders surrendered as soon as their leader fell.

“Sharks,” Aluna mumbled as she fell into darkness. “They never expect you to fight back.”





ALUNA SAT on the edge of a pool at HydroTek’s rim and toyed with the bandage on her leg. Just beyond the clear slope of the dome wall, the ocean spread blue and glittering to the horizon. Somewhere out there, the City of Shifting Tides was waiting.

“You’re keeping the scope?” Aluna asked. She already knew the answer, but she wanted to hear it from Daphine’s lips.

Her sister surfaced, water cascading off the glinting metal scope that had replaced her eye. Daphine’s long hair lay sleek and perfect against her head and neck, except where Fathom had shaved it off for his operation.

“Hoku has restored the power to our breathing shells, so the Elders will be tempted to continue their hiding,” Daphine said.

“But Fathom and Karl Strand know where the Seahorse Alpha outpost is. And the Trade Rock. It won’t be long before they find the City of Shifting Tides itself,” Aluna said.

“Exactly,” her sister said. “As the Voice of the Kampii, I will be a daily reminder of the cost of turning too far inward and ignoring the Above World. Karl Strand will find us. And if we’re not ready when he does, then my fate — or worse — awaits all Kampii. Hiding is no longer an option.”

“We need allies, not isolation. We’re at war,” Aluna said. “Not even Father will be able to deny that when he sees what happened to his favorite child.”

Daphine stuck her tongue out and swam closer. Aluna fought an urge to recoil. She still wasn’t used to her sister’s mutilated face. Daphine relaxed against the pool wall and splashed her tail in the water.

“He’ll be happy to see you, you know,” Daphine said. “He was angry, of course, but only until he realized you were gone.”

Aluna studied her hands, pretending to examine the calluses. Her sister stopped splashing.

“You are coming home,” Daphine said, suddenly serious.

“How can I? We captured Fathom, but who knows how many of Karl Strand’s clones are out there? He wants to take over the Above World. Our victory won’t stop him — it’ll just anger him. You said it yourself: it’s just a matter of time before they find the City of Shifting Tides. The Kampii will never be truly safe until Karl Strand is dead.”

“But you took the seed, Aluna. I saw you.”

“Then why don’t I have a tail?” Aluna asked. “It’s been almost a week. Back home, the transformation starts right away.”

“Ocean Seeds are most potent when they’re hot,” Daphine said. “The one you took had grown cold. It’s still working inside you — just slowly.” She rested her hand on Aluna’s arm and squeezed. “Come home, Aluna. Talk to him. If you don’t want to stay after that, then I’ll help you pack myself.”

Talk to her father.

She was a hero now, a warrior. But would he see her any differently? Would he look at her and see anything besides a defiant child?

“I’m sorry, but I can’t,” she said. “Not yet. Maybe not ever.”

Daphine smiled sadly. “You’ll have to say good-bye to the Above World eventually. It might take weeks or it might take months. But you’ll have to say good-bye.”

“I know,” Aluna said quietly. She could feel the seed in her body, shifting things around. Most of the time she could ignore it, but twice now the pain had made her scream. Whether or not it gave her a tail, the Ocean Seed would not let her forget the choices she’d made. “But there’s a war to fight, and even if I don’t make it to the end, I want to play my part in as many battles as I can.”

“Have you told Hoku about the seed?” Daphine asked.

Aluna shook her head. She hadn’t told any of them. She looked at her sister. “Can it be our secret? Please?”

“Oh, little one.” Daphine rose up in the water and wrapped her arms around Aluna. “For you, I would do anything. You have already done everything for me.”


Hoku strolled through Middle Green with Aluna and Calli and watched the technicians clean up after their old master. Liu scurried around with the other Meks, stopping to wink at Dash every chance she got. Hoku glanced nervously at Aluna, but she didn’t seem to notice.

Most of the Upgraders were gone now that their slave collars had been removed. He doubted they’d seen the last of them. Some Upgraders hadn’t been slaves at all, but Fathom’s willing henchmen. And he was sure that some of them had scurried off to report to Karl Strand. Not that Strand didn’t already know. When Hoku had woken up all the Meks, he’d used all the power Fathom had been sending to his father. Karl Strand would notice, all right. He’d notice and want revenge.

The Dome Meks were already working on their defense systems, but to Hoku, it wasn’t enough. As long as the Kampii generators were here, his people would be in danger. Someday, he’d have to do what the Aviars had done — take back the power and the control and make the Kampii wholly self-sufficient.

Fathom was imprisoned in a stasis pod, just like the ones the Dome Meks used for extended sleep periods. Hoku had voted for a more painful and humiliating incarceration, but in the end, logic won out. If Fathom was a genetic copy of Karl Strand, then there was a lot they could learn by studying him, both mentally and physically. Not to mention his access to Strand’s tactical information. Aluna was right. They’d be foolish to destroy him.

“Hey, look, there’s Dash!” Aluna said.

Hoku watched Aluna jog ahead, content to stroll more slowly with Calli. The three of them joined Dash under the shade of a huge tree. The horse-boy was squeezing an apple with his new mechanical hand. The goal was to squeeze it as hard as he could without completely pulping it. The medteks had tried to save his mangled hand, but it had taken too much damage during his fight with the Upgraders.

Next to Dash, Zorro sat behind a pile of smushed apples, happily gorging himself.

“Zorro is going to get fat eating all of those!” Aluna said.

“Zorro saved my life,” Dash said. “He gets as many apples as he wants.”

“Well, then Calli gets an apple, too,” Aluna said. “I’ve lost track of how many people she’s saved.”

Calli blushed and stuttered, “Then you and Hoku and Dash should get a whole orchard!”

Hoku grinned and motioned to a spot under the tree. He and Calli sat side by side, a little closer than they used to, but still not as close as he’d like. Aluna sat next to Dash and reached a finger toward his new arm.

“Does it hurt?” she asked.

Hoku could tell that she still felt guilty about breaking it back in the SkyTek dome. If it hadn’t been so useless during the fight, Dash might have been able to defend himself longer.

“I cannot feel much with it,” Dash said, shrugging. “But it is strong, not so easily broken. I will grow accustomed to it.” He smiled at Aluna. It was a very different sort of smile from the one Dash used with Hoku.

Aluna blushed and didn’t take her hand off his arm.

“So, when are we leaving for the desert?” she asked.

The Equian woman they’d saved, Shria, had relayed some terrible news. Another of Karl Strand’s clones — Sand Master Scorch — had been seen in the desert. If they stood any chance of rallying the Equians against him, they needed to move fast.

“We leave tomorrow, early, if that is acceptable,” Dash said.

“And I’m going with you,” Hoku blurted out. He’d wanted to tell Aluna sooner, when they were making plans, but he’d never found the right time. “I know I should go back to the Kampii, but I can’t. Not yet.”

She looked up at him, her eyes wide with surprise. He rushed on.

“I’ve always needed you, Aluna. You’ve looked out for me and taken me on amazing adventures,” he said. “But it’s all different now. I’m not the same. Nothing is the same. I’m figuring things out, more every day. Maybe now . . . I can help in ways that you can’t. And besides, this is my fight, too.”

“It’s our fight,” Calli corrected him.

Hoku looked into Aluna’s eyes, and suddenly her arms were around him. She hugged him tight, hugged Calli, and laughed her big belly laugh.

“I promise not to send you away again, or to leave either of you behind,” she said. “I used to think I could do everything myself, but I can’t. Not in the Above World. You’ve all saved my life, and I won’t forget it. You make me stronger than I am by myself.” She smiled grimly. “What did Sarah Jennings say? The world needs us, and we need each other.”

Hoku had said that nothing was the same, but he knew he was wrong. Aluna was still his best friend, and he was still hers. Underwater or above it, they were in this fight together.