It was all ridiculous. He was here with Jo Nash, because he had been abducted by a criminal and threatened with blackmail, and now he was stuck while a team that he should have been a part of was conducting a raid, and the criminal in question had somehow disappeared—and none of it made any sense whatsoever.
He stood up. He would go through and find Nash. What did it matter if he got in trouble? He was bored, miserable—all he wanted to do was take unnecessary risks. So why not take one now? It was just another gamble—this time, his career would be on the line.
“What are you doing?” John demanded, looking over his shoulder at Quin.
“Wait,” one of the scientists said. “Something is happening!”
Quin paused.
“They’re here!” the scientist exclaimed. “They stepped out of one of the Doors!”
“No!” John yelled at the screen. “Go, go, go!”
“Who are you talking to?” Quin leaned in. He saw the police officers running towards Nash and Mason, but then the two criminals turned and jumped through the Door that led to the swamp.
“Why aren’t they following?” John moaned, grabbing his hair and pulling.
“They’re not qualified,” Quin said calmly. He felt a sudden rush of excitement. He was qualified. He could go. He could fix this.
John knew it too. “Then you go! Or else they’ll escape!” he exclaimed. He turned to the side, grabbed a hover cam, and handed it to Quin “Go! Go!”
“You sure?” Quin asked, taking the cam from John.
“Just go!” one of the other scientists shouted. She pushed him in the direction of the Door. “They’re getting away!”
Quin held out his hand to Jo. She took it without question, and he stepped forward, pulling both of them through the Door. He could hear John yelling as the noise and confusion melted away.
“You wait here,” he whispered to her, and then turned to the officers that stood looking helplessly at the three Doors in Mason’s living room. “I’m a qualified agent sent by John,” he stated, and then jumped through the next Door into the swamp.
He landed knee-deep in swamp juice with bugs buzzing and swirling around his face. Nash and Mason were already a notable distance ahead of him, slogging through the weeds and mud. He activated the hover cam and stepped forward, his feet sinking deeper into the mud with every step.
“Hold up!” Quin shouted. “You’re under arrest!”
“Where did you come from?” Nash demanded, looking over his shoulder at Quin with a startled expression.
“You’re under arrest!” Quin shouted again.
“Dammit,” Nash said, barely loud enough for Quin to hear. “We had better move faster.”
“I said, stop!”
“They’re going to find those photos!” Nash called over his shoulder. “You should probably go back and try to hide them before you get fired.”
“I won’t get fired if I bring you in,” Quin stated, trying to pick up his pace. Moving through the swamp was difficult enough—roots and vines tripped him, mud threatened to suck him under, and water soaked into his clothes, weighing him down—but trying to move rapidly was even harder. He was impressed at Nash and Mason’s speed, but he knew it was only a matter of time before he caught up.
Then he heard a splash a short distance behind him. He turned to see Jo almost up to her waist in the mud.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded.
“I’m not letting that tramp get away! She tried to kill my dad! And she did kill Stanky!”
“Well,” Quin called, “I’m not waiting for you.”
“No need,” Jo replied, slogging towards her left. Quin frowned. She was taking a shortcut to the wooden path. On one hand, that was a great idea. On the other, what if they turned, went a different way? He shook his head and kept moving. He didn’t want to lose them.
Sweat—or was it mud?—dripped from his forehead into his eyes. He pushed as hard as he could through the water, listening to the couple argue ahead of him.
“You’re abysmal at planning!” Mason accused. “If you hadn’t been so gung ho to visit that Oliphant lab, we would have known the cops were coming. We would have been able to get out! It wasn’t even that great!”
“They took out our guards!” Nash argued. “We never would have seen them coming, and we would have gotten caught! Going to that weird lab place is the only reason we had a chance to get through to here.”
“Yeah, like this place is so good,” Mason said. “We’re up to our ears in mud and still being chased by a cop! A cop that you invited into my house, I might add! If we ever get out of this, I’m ditching you. Going off on my own! You’ve never been good for me.”
Quin shook his head. How Nash had managed to stay out of the grips of the law for so long was beyond him. Especially with someone like Mason as his second-in-command.
Nash swatted a bug that had landed on his neck, and Mason began to laugh, a deep hearty laugh that resonated in the swamp. It had begun—the plants had started to work their charms. Nash joined her in laughter, and Quin could even feel a chuckle begin bubbling up in his abdomen. But he focused on keeping his mind clear, on reaching his target—he had to catch them.
A few minutes later, their laughter dissipated.
“Ugh, this is awful,” Mason complained. It was terrible, Quin noted, to be just far enough behind them to not catch them, but still have to listen to everything they said.
“It’s a swamp,” Nash said. “What did you expect?”
“Yeah, but really, what are we doing?” Mason asked. She pulled herself up an over a log, disturbing a frog that ribbited and dove into the mud. “We should go home. This isn’t going to help us or save us. At most, it’s only going to delay the inevitable. I want to go back.”
“You can go back,” Nash replied, “but I’m not.” He gestured over his shoulder to Quin. “And I have a feeling he’s not going anywhere either.”
Quin wanted to go home too. The difference was, he knew it was an effect of the plants, and not a real feeling. “You should go back!” he called out, slapping at a bug that had settled in for dinner on his bald scalp. “It’s fruitless to try to escape!”
“Hear that?” Nash said. “He’s trying to discourage us. Pick up the pace!”
And they did. Quin sighed to himself. They were both smaller than him, and lighter, and somehow were able to go even faster than they had been. Quin was sick of swamps and he wasn’t sure he had much left to give.
After a few minutes, he heard Mason ask, “What’s that?” and realized they had reached the wooden path. Quin put in extra effort to move more quickly through the water and roots as they climbed up and began to jog down the trail. A moment later, they were out of sight. Quin didn’t hesitate. As soon as he reached the wooden path, he heaved himself up onto it. He began to run, his feet pounding against the wooden slats and leaving a wet trail behind him. If the police followed them through, they would know where he had gone. Probably.
This was what he needed, he decided after a few minutes of running. A nice jog, and an easy manhunt. Something to make him feel like he had some kind of purpose, a little adrenaline, and a good cardio workout. The heat and humidity of the swamp made him sweat buckets, and he could feel a little of the tension and stress from earlier in the day dripping off, too. He had begun to feel good, in fact, and was almost having fun.
The swamp suddenly ended, and the great green hill with all the cabins on it opened up in front of him. Nash and Mason were halfway up the hill, heading for the farthest house.
“Not the orange one,” Quin muttered to himself.
He began to run as fast as he could, and then saw Jo running from the opposite side of the hill. She had somehow managed to loop around this clearing. He was only halfway up the hill when Mason and Nash made it into the house and slammed the doors shut behind them. He knew they would immediately begin putting furniture in front of the door to try to keep it shut.
“What do we do?” Jo asked as she ran up to him. She stopped for a moment and gasped for air.
“Go through a window,” Quin replied, striding around the cabin to one side. Sure enough, there was a window—already broken.
“Isn’t this the rage house?” Jo asked, a worried expression on her face.
“Yes,” Quin said. “I think you should stand back. I’ll go in and bring them out, but at least one of us should try to stay unaffected by anger.”
“Okay,” Jo said. “I’ll only come in if you need help.”
Quin crawled through the broken window and saw that the inside of this house was in awful condition. The walls were littered with holes, and nearly every piece of furniture was broken. Shreds of eviscerated pillows covered the room, and so many feathers lay all over it looked like someone had murdered a flock of geese. There were scratches in the wooden paneling, and the curtains hung in tatters. He could hear Nash and Mason shouting at each other from another room.
“It’s your fault!” Mason screamed. “If you hadn’t been so stupid, so greedy, we never would have gotten into this mess! All we needed to do was wait to look through the Doors. If we had waited, we could have done it safely, smartly! Or better yet, if you had taken actual money from that batty old lady, then we could be rebuilding your empire now, not getting chased through a god-awful swamp by the police!”
“You’re blaming me?” Nash bellowed. “You’re the one who decided it was a good idea to blackmail Quin Black into paying us back for a game that the police interrupted! If he hadn’t come around, they would probably never have found us. He works for the military, for Ivanna the Bard’s sake!”
“You should have never let him play your games in the first place! What kind of idiotic moron lets a guy from the military into his illegal gambling night?”
“He’s an easy mark!” Nash yelled back. “Rich! And always wasting his dad’s money!”
“That’s not true!” Quin yelled, stepping out into the room. He could feel all of his anger boiling over. His frustration at his career, which seemed to be going nowhere; his annoyance with John always nagging him about making better choices; his deep unfulfilled desire to do something meaningful with his life instead of doing busywork for the Globe—it all began to bubble up like a pot about to overflow in white foam and rage.
Without quite realizing what he was doing, he launched himself forward towards Nash—but miscalculated and barely grazed him, instead landing face-first on the floor. The pain felt good, like he had just woken up, and he grinned as he stood, staring Nash down. He swung his fist, which connected squarely with Nash’s nose.
“STOP!” Mason yelled, leaping onto Quin’s back.
Quin spun around, using Mason to knock Nash off his feet. Nash lay sprawled on the floor, a stunned look on his face. Then, Quin pulled Mason up over his head and threw her onto the ground. She landed hard and groaned as the air rushed out of her lungs. Quin bent down angrily, resisting the urge to punch both of them in the face as hard as he could—repeatedly—and instead, grabbed them by their shirts and dragged them out the back door of the cabin.
Jo was waiting, her muscles tense and a frown on her face. Quin knew he must look a little intimidating—he was breathing like a bull and more furious than he had ever been in his life.
“Open the door!” he shouted.
Jo ran across the grass as quickly as she could as Quin pulled Nash and Mason behind him. They both squirmed, but now clear of the rage house, hopefully realized that picking a fight with an enraged Quin Black was a bad idea. Quin could feel his own anger beginning to recede, and he took deep breaths of the outside air to help calm himself and clear the skap out of his system.
He dragged the two into the contentment house and threw them both on a couch in the living room. He felt a calm start to come over himself, and welcomed it.
Jo sat down in a chair facing her father and Mason, and crossed her arms.
Quin stood to one side, noticing as the hover cam came to settle in beside him.
Jo cut right to the chase.
“You tried to kill my dad,” she said, pointing to Mason.
Mason’s jaw dropped. “That’s ridiculous!” she exclaimed. “I did… no such… no such…” She was having trouble lying, Quin could see. The contentment house made it hard to tell anything but the truth—when you were truly content, there was no reason for lies, after all, right?
“You tried to kill my dad,” Jo said again, this time more calmly and with even more confidence.
Nash looked at Mason quizzically. “Did you?”
“I… I…” Mason shut her mouth stubbornly. If she were unable to lie, then she would simply not talk.
“It makes sense,” Nash said calmly, leaning back against the couch.
“It does?” Jo asked. “Why? Why does it make sense?”
“She tried to get me to take out an insurance policy on myself,” he said, his eyes drooping ever so slightly. He must be tired, Quin thought. He had used up a lot of energy trudging through the swamp and fighting with Mason in the rage house. Then Quin’s own exhaustion hit him like a weighted fist. He’d had quite the day, between slogging through swamps all morning, almost falling off a mountain, getting kidnapped and blackmailed, and then running through more swamps and participating in a police raid. He decided to sit down, too. He could always catch up to them if they tried to run away.
“How much?” Jo asked.
“One and a half million,” Nash responded. “She wanted at least fifty percent to go to her.” He gave a short laugh. “Joke’s on her though—I set it up so it all went to you, Jo.”
“Wow,” Jo said, her eyebrows raising. “That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever done for me.”
“I can’t believe you would do that to me,” Mason said in a flat tone of voice. She was frowning slightly, head leaning back against the couch. “I’ve been there for you from the moment I met you! I’ve helped you run dozens of scams, hundreds of gambling nights. I’ve collected from thousands of people, broken fingers and arms, even killed for you!”
“I did tell you not to do that last one,” Nash said, holding up his finger. “Guy didn’t actually need to die—just deserved it.”
“Wait,” Quin broke in. “You can’t believe he wouldn’t make his insurance payout to you? But you tried to kill him…”
“Yeah,” Jo agreed. “Logic definitely seems off there.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Nash said, shaking his head. “I never would have had the money go to Mason. I only keep her around to do my dirty work for me, and for some fun. You were always the most important person to me, Jo.”
“Then why won’t you let me go?” she asked. “Why won’t you let me go to school and do what I want with my life? I want to be free!”
He shrugged. “You’re all I have left of your mother, you know that? If you leave, I’m left with nothing. I want you to be happy, but I want you to be happy with me. You’re my family.”
Quin felt like he was sinking into his chair. This was the most comfortable house he had ever been in. He thought it might be worth it to stick around, to stay for a while. One part of his mind was arguing that no, this was bad, that he should get out as soon as possible, but the chair was so comfortable, and the house so peaceful and calm. Why go anywhere? Why do anything? All of his anger and frustration, rage and dissatisfaction with life drained out of him. He liked this feeling. He liked being content.
“That’s sweet, Nash,” Jo said. She too was leaning back in her chair, drowsily, enjoying the peace of the room.
“I feel like I should be more upset than I am,” Mason said, looking at Nash. “You took me off the streets and then betrayed me—but I think I understand. I should not have tried to kill you.”
“How’d you do it?” Nash asked.
She shrugged. “Your brother helped me. We figured if you both died, then he would get some of the insurance payout too.”
“Also, they’re cheating together,” Jo added sleepily.
“Well,” Nash said without even raising his voice. “That was very unkind of you. Both of you.”
“I apologize,” Mason said. “Can you ever forgive me?”
“I think so,” Nash said, “but we’re done after this. There is no more you and me—it will be me and Jo from now on. Father and daughter.”
Mason took a deep breath, a tear forming in one eye. “I understand. But I think I need to be alone for a few minutes.” She stood up. “I’ll be right outside.”
There was something wrong with this scenario, Quin knew, but he couldn’t quite grasp what it was. She shouldn’t be sad—he knew that. Her own poor choices had caused the situation. In fact, she was almost entirely to blame for everything. She started this entire chain of events when she blew up Nash’s house. But there was something else wrong too. What was it? Slowly, a thought wiggled its way into his mind—Mason was going outside, but it was so calm, so peaceful in here. Why would she do that? Why would she leave? But it didn’t matter. She would come back in—he knew it. She would see that it was much nicer in here than out there, much calmer, a perfect place to be.
“You two look like you’re about to fall asleep,” Nash said.
“It’s so nice here,” Jo said, smiling lazily at her father. “When we were here last time, we almost decided to stay.”
“You were here before?” Nash asked.
“Of course,” Jo said. “We lied to you about it.”
“Why?” Nash pressed, a barely perceptible frown on his forehead.
“This is Nalada,” Quin said very slowly. “The plants here drug you with rage and laughter and sadness and longing. We didn’t want you to introduce emotion drugs to Pomegranate City.”
“Ah yes,” Nash said, nodding slowly. “I see how that could be a good way of making money. But don’t worry, Jo. I forgive you, now that I know.” He sat forward in his chair. “I am worried about Mason—I think I will go check on her.”
“We’ll be right here,” Quin said, leaning his head back against the chair. Everything else melted away, except the comfort of the chair and the peacefulness of the room around him. His annoyance of having to trudge through the swamps now seemed trivial, and his need for excitement and adrenaline faded away. His discontentment with life felt as though it had happened years ago, instead of hours. His urge to gamble faded too, and a quiet, wonderful emptiness swirled through his mind. All he wanted was to sit here, with Jo, and maybe sleep.
But then another memory swam into his consciousness—an image of John, red-faced, yelling at Quin. “I thought you were my best friend!” he had yelled. “But maybe you’re too stupid to be my friend!” Quin knew that insulting someone’s intelligence was the worst insult John could ever give to anyone. He felt a twinge of guilt for hurting John, for making him so angry, for betraying him. He should apologize, and then maybe bring him here to experience this wonderful place where all of his troubles melted away.
Quin sat up slowly.
“Jo,” he said.
“Hmmm.”
“I have to go find John and apologize to him.”
She nodded. “He was really mad.”
“Do you want to come?” he asked.
“I guess so.” She shrugged. “Can we come back though?”
Quin nodded. “I’d like that.”
They stood together, and Quin felt a little dizzy, like he was slightly drunk. They strolled casually outside and looked around. Mason and Nash weren’t outside, where Quin had thought they’d be. He looked around, confused.
“Where did they go?” he asked Jo. He took a few deep breaths, trying to clear his head, and looked around. The dizziness faded slowly.
“There’s Mason,” she said casually, pointing towards the wooden trail that looped around the hill. She was running back towards the Door. “And there’s Nash.” He was running in the opposite direction, deeper into the planet.
“Oh no,” Quin said. Comprehension rushed back into his head. They were getting away. He was supposed to be catching them, but they had a head start in opposite directions.
“I’ll take Mason,” Jo said, her eyes alert once more. Without hesitating another moment, she scurried down the hill towards the swamp.
“I guess I’ll take Nash,” Quin said, and once again, he began to run.
This run was different than the last. He took gasps of air as full as he could, hoping that the air here was clean enough to clear the remaining contentment out of his lungs. He couldn’t believe how powerful the drug in that house had been—he had been ready to stay there forever and never leave. He was grateful that John’s anger had provided the niggling sense of guilt that had dragged him up off the couch. Otherwise, he would still be there right now, dreaming of nothing, dying of contentment. And so would Jo.
The more he breathed the outside air, the better he felt. He knew there was still a risk of him inhaling the flowers’ perfume as he ran, but at least out here the air was free to move, and he wasn’t breathing distilled essence of emotion—only getting whiffs of it as he went. And running was good too. He would metabolize more oxygen and move past potential dangerous areas much more quickly.
The wooden trail curved through the trees. Nash had quite the head start, but Quin could hear his feet pounding against the boards in the distance. All Quin needed to do was slowly close the gap, one step at a time. He poured all of his energy, all of his willpower into his legs and feet, feeling his muscles flex and burn, feeling the sweat roll down his skin in rivers, feeling his breath rip through his mouth into his lungs. He felt exhilarated, fulfilled, alive—for the first time in a long while.
The swamp around him slowly became more and more deciduous, less muddy, with more ground shrubs and less groundwater. He seemed to be going up at a slight incline, and he saw fewer and fewer of the skap plants. That was a relief. Then more and more coniferous trees appeared, mixed in with the deciduous, and he was decidedly out of the swamp. The bugs began to leave him be, and the smells here were more familiar—similar to the forests on Sagitta, to the forests of Earth.
Then Quin burst out into an opening, and the world gave way around him as the wooden trail rose up, up away from everything, now a narrow bridge spanning a gorge that plunged down hundreds of feet to where a tiny river gurgled and rushed, slowly carving the rock deeper and deeper. Nash was almost across to the other side, but Quin had to pause for a minute as a wave of dizziness rushed over him, no doubt an aftereffect of contentment.
He took a few deep breaths and then began to slowly jog, in awe of the beauty around him, but also careful to focus on the bridge so as not to lose his sense of balance. He was almost on Nash—he wouldn’t get away now, unless Quin was stupid and fell off the bridge.
When he reached the other side, the wooden path continued, leading him through a narrow pass in the small mountain range. The temperature cooled slightly as he moved into the mountains, and he found it refreshing. The air smelled wonderful and clean on this side of the gorge. He estimated that he had run nearly three miles.
Then the mountain pass ended and Quin skidded to a halt as he rounded a corner. In front of him spread a small city, with a spire rising high into the air in the center and houses upon houses stretching out from it in a neat wheel. The flag that hung on the spire was tattered navy and gold, and from here on the wooden path turned to asphalt—first a parking lot filled with old, rusted vehicles, and then a road. Quin was surprised to see so many vehicles when he didn’t see any people on the trail. Perhaps they had simply gone a different way than he had come from.
Nash was already partway down the road, but Quin could tell that he was tiring. Four miles was a long way to go, and Nash wasn’t young anymore; plus, Quin doubted he ran as a regular form of exercise. Nash would have to stop or walk soon to rest. That was when Quin would catch him—unless Nash found a good place to hide. If he made it into the city far enough ahead of Quin, then he could turn down any number of streets, blend in with the people, or hide in a house or behind a building. Quin might never find him.
Again he picked up his pace. He narrowed his eyes and focused on the moving figure of Nash, and Quin ran as though his life depended on it.
But Nash reached the city before Quin and disappeared into the buildings.
Quin pushed all of his remaining energy, all of his willpower into his muscles and ran as fast as he could, his feet pounding against the pavement, straight into the city, the direction Nash had taken. He ran by more rusted vehicles and house after house until he arrived at the spire in the center. If he had to search the entire city, he would start here and work his way out.
To his surprise, he found Nash standing silently, staring at the spire. It rose up over the city on four legs, a patterned staircase curving up the middle. At the bottom was a pile of bones.
Quin spun to look around him and realized what his brain had not connected before—the city was dead. The vehicles hadn’t been used in decades; the houses were empty. He saw no people, felt no movement, heard no sounds. They stood in an empty city, and in the center rose a pile of bones. From it, a plant grew, its leaves and tendrils poking through the eye sockets of the skulls, wrapped around arm and leg bones, making a ladder of the rib cages. The plant had probably had ample fertilizer as the bodies decayed.
“What… what happened?” Nash asked, his eyes wide, mouth agape.
“They’re dead,” Quin replied, not even thinking about the inanity of his comment.
“Yes,” Nash said. “What happened?”
Quin walked to the nearest house and opened the door, peering in. Inside were four more skeletons, sitting on their couches. At the next house, one of the bodies lay on the floor, and two others sat in chairs. In the back yard, three more bodies sat comfortably, as if they had simply died as the sun set and not moved since.
He stepped back out into the park in the middle of the city and stared up at the metal spire.
“They’re dead,” he said again.
Then he stepped forward and looked more closely at the plant. He saw that it had green speckles on its leaves and green buds opening slowly, about to bloom.
“Of contentment,” he finished.
“A whole city?” Nash said.
“A whole city,” Quin replied.
Nash looked around him and then turned to Quin. “I think you had better get me out of here,” he said. “I don’t want to die here, too.” He looked exhausted. “But it’s miles back to the Door.”
“No,” Quin said, “actually I don’t think so.” He pointed past the spire, at a tall building on the other side of the city. The sign, barely visible from where they stood, read “Hemen Temple of Feeling.”
“What’s that?” Nash asked.
“That’s our exit,” Quin replied. He gripped Nash’s arm tightly enough to leave bruises, and began to stroll down the road that led towards the temple. The wind howled, and the trees creaked as they swayed. He listened for any sign of life at all, but it was still as empty as it had been this morning—no sounds of laughter or conversation, of construction or moving vehicles—nothing.
When they finally reached the temple, he led Nash up the steps slowly, and turned to look out over the city one last time. It was eerie knowing the reason the city had died. It was strange, knowing that he could have been one of them.
“Let’s go,” he said, guiding Nash through the temple. His feet still echoed eerily in the silence. Skeletons still sat contentedly in the chairs, staring ahead. The Door still glittered on the dais. He led Nash up to it, and they stepped through, the dead city drifting into darkness behind them.