The Extinction Trials(35)

They were both silent a while then, Maya eating the goo, Owen staring into the sun on the horizon as it climbed out of the sea and took flight.

“You’re thinking about what we’ll find at those coordinates, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Am I that easy to read?”

“A bit.”

“I envy you that.”

“Reading people?”

“Yeah. I’ve never been able to do it.”

Maya cocked her head. “What do you mean?”

“Facial expressions. Body language. It’s like... well, it’s like a foreign language to me. I had to study it as a kid like a subject in school. Memorize patterns. But the expressions change so quickly, it’s... sort of like a flashcard that’s there and gone and you have to match it with something you’ve memorized and decode it.”

“Sounds tough.”

“It could be a lot worse.”

“Still, it’s hard for me to imagine.”

“It’s my limitation. That’s what my mom called it. Because everyone has limitations. We just all have different ones, and some are easier to see than others.”

He took out the pin they had found in the envelope with his name on it at the station. It was a firefighter’s pin, with a banner that said TEN YEARS, and three phrases wrapping around the other ring: SERVICE, INTEGRITY, and THE THIN RED LINE.

“Is that why you became a firefighter? Because your limitation wouldn’t matter in that field?”

“No,” he said, exhaling heavily. “It’s one of the reasons it was a good job for me—but as to why I became a firefighter… That’s a completely different story.”

She sensed that he was uncomfortable, and she instantly regretted pushing so far, so fast.

“I—”

“You asked if I was thinking about what we’ll find at those coordinates. I was. I’ve been thinking about it all morning.”

“What do you think is waiting there?”

“My best guess is that it’s another ARC facility. Maybe a station. Maybe this Garden Station. My hope is that we find a city at those coordinates. And that it’s a bustling, normal metropolis, full of people waiting to help us.”

“It could be another island.”

“I hope not. I’ve had it with islands for a while.”

“If it is a city, or an ARC station, what do you think we’ll find?”

“I have no idea. I just hope that my mother is waiting there.”

Owen’s mention of his mother reminded Maya of her own mother and sister. “Me too.”

Will appeared in the stairway, peering out. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”

“Not at all,” Owen said, rising and grabbing a meal and holding it out. “Interest you in green goo?”

Will smiled and shook his head. “No, thank you. I never eat breakfast.”

“It’s the most important meal of the day.”

“For some,” Will said mildly. “I’ve come to believe that every human’s metabolism is truly unique, that generalizations are only sometimes helpful. For myself, I find that eating in the morning tends to make me hungry and tired all day.”

Owen smiled. “Well, since you put it that way, I guess more goo for the rest of us.”

When Will was seated, Maya went below to check on Blair and retrieve the journal she had found on the boat. She settled back into the banquette and began reading.

“How far have you gotten?” Owen asked.

She flipped through the pages, making an estimate. “I’m maybe... a quarter of the way finished.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a journal kept by the woman we found.”

“Starting when?”

“Right about the time she woke up—in a station that sounds almost identical to the one we were in.”

Alister emerged from below, looking groggy, face puffy. He collected some goo and ate slowly as he lounged on the u-shaped couch.

To Maya, Owen said, “So the journal writer was in The Extinction Trials?”

“Yes.”

“In a cohort?”

“Yes. Of seven. Just like us when we woke up—before the old man went outside.”

“But you and Alister only found two people, right?”

“That’s right,” Maya said quietly.

“What if they had an Escape Hatch video like us… And it led them to our island?” Owen asked.

That was an idea that hadn’t occurred to Maya, and she hadn’t read it in the journal, not yet.

“Interesting...” she said. “If so, they may have come from wherever we’re going.”

“Correct. I think you should read the journal aloud to the group.”

“Blair...”

“Is young,” Owen nodded, “but she is also out here in this weird world, and we can’t fully protect her from it. She’s better off knowing more about it. She’s safer that way. The truth is, there may come a time when we’re not around to protect her.”





Chapter Thirty





When Cara and Blair had come upstairs, Owen stood before the group. “I had the morning watch, so I’ll give a report. The ship sailed through the night without incident. Power levels never dipped below 50%. We’re an estimated six days from our destination.”