The Gauntlet (The Cage 3)

Mali

WIND WHIPPED THROUGH THE ruins of the Gauntlet’s control rooms. Mali hunkered close to the wall of the recess room, her braids flying around her head. The other captives shifted anxiously as the last remaining support structures groaned precariously.

“This place isn’t going to last much longer!” she called to Leon, cupping her hands around her mouth so the wind wouldn’t tear her words away.

He jerked his thumb toward the Axion standing guard in the doorway. “Tell that to the guys with the guns.”

Willa rested her hand on Mali’s other arm, pointing toward the monitor, which was flickering between static and displays of the coded symbols. Willa shaped a few gestures with her fingers. Mali hadn’t ever officially studied sign language, but over the years, trapped in different enclosures and cages with a variety of species that couldn’t always speak the same language, she had picked up the basics. She recognized several of Willa’s signs.

Axion. Storm. Clever. Watch screens.

Mali nodded. “I understand.” She twisted toward Leon to translate. “Willa says the Axion aren’t stupid—they know this place is about to go but don’t want to leave until they’re certain Cora has lost. That monitor is still showing some scrolling symbols, which means Cora’s still in the puzzles. It isn’t over. They’re still trying to get into the chambers.”

Willa’s hand clenched harder on Mali’s arm. Mali turned around with a questioning look. The chimp’s wide eyes were riveted to the screen.

Serassi’s eyes were on the screen too. “Fascinating,” she said.

“What is it?” Mali asked, feeling a fresh twinge of panic. “Can you read it?”

“Yes.” Serassi spoke in a hushed voice, eyes shifting nervously to the closest Axion guard, whose back was turned. “The storm is causing bad fluctuation, but I can make out most of it.” Suddenly the corners of her mouth dipped in a smile. “Cora’s made it to puzzle twelve.”

Mali clamped her hand over Willa’s, crying out with relief.

“That girl’s a fighter, for sure,” Leon said incredulously.

Mali squinted in the wind, trying to see through the doorway to the central vestibule. “It looks as though the monitors in the main room have all shorted out completely. I do not think the Axion know the extent of her progress.”

The main support beam groaned again. Even the Axion guard looked over his shoulder to give it a nervous stare.

“What about Cassian?” Mali asked quickly.

“The coding reports that Cora is alone in the puzzle,” Serassi said, keeping her voice low. Her brow furrowed as she tried to interpret the scattering of symbols on the screen. “It doesn’t mean he’s dead. The Gauntlet has been separating them and putting them together at random intervals. If he is in a different part of the Gauntlet, the monitor won’t register that, since it is only following Cora’s progress.”

Leon eyed the groaning beam. “She’d better solve that last puzzle fast. . . .”

“Wait,” Serassi said, focused intently on the screen. “There is new information. It is difficult to read, with the distortion. It seems Cora is in some sort of Earth-like scenario. I can read the symbol for trees. A road.”

“That could be anywhere back home,” Leon said.

“I’m trying to read more,” Serassi said tersely. “The puzzle has the coding for the color red. Red means a morality puzzle.”

“She’s good at those,” Mali said, hope in her voice. “It’s the intellectual and perceptive puzzles that give her the most trouble, but she must have already passed those. She’s been reading Lucky’s journal as a moral guide.” Mali swallowed, squeezing Willa’s hand in her own and Leon’s in the other. She couldn’t tear her eyes off the screen, though the symbols meant nothing to her.

You can do it, Cora. Think of Lucky.

Serassi continued to focus on the screen. “Now I am reading the symbol for water. It’s distorted. I can’t quite make out more details. Rain, I believe.”

“It’s simulating somewhere back on Earth, with trees and a road and rain,” Leon said. “And it’s moral? What’s she supposed to do, stop a flash flood or something?”

“Wait—another water symbol,” Serassi said. “A river. There is distance between Cora and the water. She’s above it. She’s—”

Serassi’s face went suddenly slack.

A dark premonition took hold of Mali. “What happened?” She grabbed Serassi, shaking her. “What about a river?”

“It’s Cora,” Serassi muttered, her eyes wide. “She . . . fell. She fell into the water below. It happened just now. The symbols are going crazy. They’re coming so fast.” Serassi swung her head around, meeting Mali’s gaze directly. “She . . . she’s dead. Drowned.”

Mali’s hand froze on her arm. Suddenly the wind didn’t seem as loud. The puddles didn’t feel as cold against her feet. She felt the blood draining from her extremities in a way that made her dizzy.

“She lost,” Serassi stated.

An awful numbness spread through Mali’s body. “No,” she whispered.

She sank back against the wall, stunned.

She didn’t know which piece of information was harder to process—that Cora was dead or that she had lost. Cora had been their last hope, and she’d gotten so far. They had traveled the galaxy to be here. They had learned to achieve things no human had before. They had fought their way to the very end of the Gauntlet.

She pressed her hand against her mouth, silencing a sob.

Willa started making a strange huffing noise that Mali thought might be how she expressed her grief. She glanced toward the Axion guard, but with the chaos from the storm, he hadn’t heard their exclamations.

“Hey . . .” Leon pulled her into his arms, holding her tight. “Listen, she died for a cause. We’re still here. We’ll still fight, however we can. We won’t go down easy.”

But even despite Leon’s reassurances, a blackness had appeared in Mali’s chest. She heard Leon’s words as only hollow sounds. Fighting was useless. They’d already fought and lost. They’d be enslaved now, not just humans but all the species, or else slaughtered. She stared at her hands, at the scars, and started shaking with anger. She had promised herself never to be a victim again. And yet here she was. Her fingers started trembling harder, tingling even. She shook them, thinking it must be the cold. But they tingled in a way that felt . . . strang

e.

She pulled away from Leon, looking down at her hands.

Why did they feel so different? Like energy was pooling in her fingertips. That energy spread into her palms and up her arms. She didn’t dare touch Leon, fearing the energy, like he might shatter into dust if she touched him.

“I feel odd,” she said.

Leon started knitting his fingers too, as though they were spasming. “It must be the cold,” he said. “And the shock of . . .” He nodded toward the monitor that had reported Cora’s death.

But the feeling was now spreading throughout Mali’s body faster. She felt suddenly ten pounds lighter, as though she were barely even sitting on the ground anymore. It was a mix of euphoria and confidence so powerful it was almost scary. The sensation crept up her spine, her neck, into her head. A starburst of electricity radiated through her brain, and she gasped and clutched at a piece of the shattered wall.

“Mali, look!” Leon pointed to Mali’s hand.

Mali glanced down at the piece of wall beneath her fingers. It was made of something strong, like steel. The power of the storm, even of the bomb, had only barely managed to dent it. And yet the portion in her hand was crumpled like a ball of paper.

She whipped her hand back.

“How’d you do that?” Leon said. “You bent metal!”

At the same time, Serassi’s head slowly tilted up. Her hair hung in messy waves by her ears, but there was a different look on her face. One not of despair but of wonder. Serassi knit her fingers against the back of her skull, eyes wide. “Impossible . . .”

“You feel it too, don’t you?” Mali said.

“What?” Leon asked in alarm. “What’s going on? Why are my hands all tingly?”

“Because it’s happening,” Serassi said, her voice shaking. “The evolutionary jump. It’s happening. It’s strongest with me and Mali because our perceptive abilities are already honed, but it’s starting with you too, Leon. It’ll take more time with you and the others, but it’s happening. You feel different, don’t you?”