She was mindful of Yorso’s warning that she’d be punished for not taking it easy. Even so, she’d not been able to resist checking on the situation after waking. After eating lunch, she’d had to confirm all was still well.
Tina hadn’t dared to hope for the results she’d witnessed. Yet it was obvious Osopa and Tukui were winning her brother over.
She retreated from the exercise field to return to the apartment before she was caught spying. Once she was out of earshot, she allowed laughter to join her tears. She giggled and wept the whole way.
“I love my clan. I love Tukui, Osopa, and Yorso. I love them!”
Chapter Twenty
Zac opened his eyes as the bedroom door creaked shut. He lay on his side facing the wall, certain Tina had left, but needing to be sure. He was still for several seconds that dragged like hours, listening to Callie breathe.
He guessed Tukui and Osopa had been right about her needing to take a break. It was the same as when his mother had taken a ‘me-day’. Mommy insisted on those once a month. Zac wasn’t sure what made me-days special. Mommy hadn’t gone anywhere exciting. She stayed at home, lying in bed and reading until lunch. Her afternoon would be spent taking a bubble bath, watching old movies, and eating fancy chocolates she wouldn’t share with him. Since she always had a treat ready for Zac too, he didn’t mind. She’d do her nails and other boring stuff. Dinner was ordered in so she didn’t have to cook or clean up. As dull as me-day seemed to him, Zac noticed how happy it made Mommy.
When Tukui and Osopa brought Zac to the apartment that evening, Tina had acted pretty happy too. She’d been interested in whether he’d had fun watching Osopa and Tukui at their jobs. “Tell me all about it,” she’d invited, her gaze bright. He had, enjoying how fascinated she’d been with his descriptions and her enthusiasm at his accomplishments.
In bed, Zac turned over to inspect the room. The space was dim, but he could see the two tubs that held his and Callie’s small but growing collection of toys, the bureau that held their clothes, the shelves of books. He slid out of bed and crept to the door. He peeked through the crack. His big sister never closed the door, concerned he or Callie might need her during the night.
He saw dim light spilling from the living room, highlighting the wall across from the bedroom, and the darkened doorway to the bath. A low hum of conversation, the words too quiet to be distinguished, reached his ears. He heard Tina laugh.
The sound tugged at something in his chest. She was nice. His daddy had said she was, but when Zac asked if she could come visit, he’d answered in his don’t-bother-me voice, “She’s better off where she is. We’re all better off without her here.”
When Daddy wasn’t around to get mad, Zac asked his mother why he couldn’t meet his big sister. “Daddy feels bad when he sees Tina. She reminds him of someone he loved a long time ago.”
Zac didn’t understand, but he knew when he shouldn’t keep asking questions. He’d almost forgotten he had an older sibling before the explosions ruined everything.
Tina was nice. She’d been excited to meet him and Callie, and she never got cross no matter how he acted. She’d be perfect, except she was fond of the Kalquorians.
Zac had forgotten himself while having fun with Osopa and Tukui. He’d been allowed to play a victim for the emergency rescue scenario, which had been almost as cool as watching the Nobeks fight. Tukui had told him he did a great job pretending to be hurt, and maybe he could do it again for future training. Zac had warmed to that praise. He’d especially enjoyed Tukui and Osopa complimenting his efforts in front of Tina.
Now he felt guilty. Earth had warred against the Kalquorians. He wasn’t supposed to be friends with them. It was wrong to want to.
They were keeping him from his parents. Zac could accept the city was blown up, but his parents would have gotten out in time and headed home. They couldn’t be gone. They weren’t soldiers who’d fought the war. There was no reason for them to be dead.
Someone had to find them. If the air and water were being poisoned as Tukui said, they had to be rescued. There were bad people outside the site, people making war against other Earthers as well as the Kalquorians at the site.
Daddy doesn’t have a blaster to protect Mommy. If he did, he doesn’t know how to fire it. Zac knew how, though. Osopa had taught him, and Zac could teach his father. He could tie a tourniquet too, thanks to Tukui. If his parents were hurt (not dead, not dead), he could help them with that.
He had to find them.
Zac crept from the door to his closet. His jacket hung in there. Tina had been delighted he’d put it away himself, praised him for keeping his things neat. “Best brother anyone ever had,” she’d proclaimed with a hug. She hugged a lot, when he let her. He liked her hugs.
Why did she have to be friends with the enemy keeping him and Callie from the rest of their family?
He searched his jacket’s secret inner pocket and found the tracker he’d snatched, safe and sound. He took it to bed, careful not to disturb Callie, and pulled the covers up over his head. Just to be extra safe, he pulled the pillow over his head too.
He whispered to the tracker, holding it close to his lips. “Tracker, activate.”
It did so with a beep. Zac winced and waited, listening.
When no one came to see what all the noise was about, he murmured, “Search for address: 263 Acorn Drive, Alexandria, Virginia.”
The tracker beeped again. Zac held his breath.
His mother had drilled him on his home address, his parents’ work addresses, and all the phone numbers they could be reach at should an emergency occur. But when the emergency had actually happened, they’d never answered. Something in his stomach clenched.
Maybe they are dead.
No. Impossible.
Strange green characters bloomed in the darkness, odd writing that looked more like little drawings than words. Kalquorian writing. Those were replaced by a glowing grid pattern that zoomed into another set of grids, then another.
Within the grids, a red line twisted and turned, running through several squares. Zac frowned, trying to remember what Tukui had told him.
Two grids that had collapsed into a third. Tukui had shown him that same configuration, but for directions to Zac’s daycare. That meant each square on the display had to be over two miles long.
He counted the squares twice. His house was over thirty miles away. A long distance to walk. Maybe too far for a five-year-old boy.
He looked at the end of the red line, where his house was. His heart thumped painfully. His parents were there, wondering why they couldn’t find him and Callie. They hadn’t shown up at the daycare after everything went bad, but maybe the roads had been blocked. Maybe they’d had to walk, and hadn’t reached it until after Zac was taken to the rescue site.
His home was in an area of the grid that was shaded white, almost at its edge. Zac wasn’t sure why it was colored differently from the rest, but it didn’t matter. He had to get there.
“What team is assigned to that grid?” he whispered.
Tukui had said the tracker was programmed to understand a few Earther languages, so the addresses and directions given by humans could be quickly accessed. It wasn’t programmed to speak anything but Kalquorian though. It chattered the grunty-sounding alien words at him. Most were incomprehensible, but the repeated word Dramok was clear. He thought he heard Nobek twice too. Which made sense. Each rescue team had a pair of Dramoks to negotiate and two Nobeks to protect them.