THE EPOCH CHRONICLES | ✔

twenty-nine

Thermal Lake
half a klick from Camp

━━━━

"NOW THAT'S what I call a hot tub!" A bright-eyed woman cheered, far more enthusiastic than Lale felt — but even he felt his spirits lifting at the sight of the steaming water at the bottom of a cascading waterfall.

"It's something like a thermal vent," Bradley explained, as the other recruits approached and shared their own excitement. "Up there," Bradley pointed to where the waterfall's steady stream fell from, "there's a whole pond dedicated to catching fish and even more jungle." He glanced at Lale, his light eyes amused. "I'll be teaching you all how to hunt and fish later on."

But it was clear that no one was listening anymore. The recruits began to strip, taking off their stained and sweaty suits and revealing even more stained and sweaty underclothes. Lale joined them, slipping into the crystal clear water and feeling the warmth of it seep into his muscles and untie the knot of concern bundled in his chest.

He took in a deep gulp of heated air, then ducked under water. Bubbles escaped his lips and Lale floated on his back, eyes open and staring into the sunlight streaming down onto the water's surface.

Amelia's fine, he reassured himself, as thoughts of the curly-haired girl once again resurfaced in his mind's eye. Frustration that he was still fretting over her would have heated his face if the water hadn't been warm enough to roast him already, and Lale took to the surface once again.

Bradley was standing with pursed lips on the shore, and it suddenly dawned on Lale that he had never asked his friend how safe the water was. Crocodiles? Alligators? Some other hellish abomination? Like Bradley had read his suddenly alarmed thoughts, the man raised an eyebrow.

"Water's too clear for any crocs, and too shallow for any other dinosaurs." Bradley shrugged, and Lale could see the hint of a smirk curling his lips. "Chill. I wouldn't bring you all here to get eaten."

Then why aren't you 'chilling' yourself? Lale wanted to retort. But the truth was, he himself was not chilling. At all.

While the other recruits splashed around or chatted, the marine swam to the bank and swiped back his hair, using the moment to figure out why some of the marines who stood beyond Bradley had volt-guns.

While his friend stood smugly, like he had made the lake appear himself, the men and women behind him had their hands tight on the electrical weapons. Lale counted eight, then returned to the water as smoothly as he could. A very bad feeling was clinging to the pit of his gut like a leech; beside from himself, Bradley, and those eight other marines, he saw only two other soldiers chatting with the Learners.

Where are the other marines? Lale ducked under the surface again, almost feeling like a sitting duck. Something niggled at the back of his memory — something important about the lunches the ERAA recruits all had together after JEE or training or whatever.

But why would that be important? He wanted to dig his hands into his scalp in frustration. More than four months in a comatose-like state of swirling atoms had taken its toll, but Lale remembered enough to tell himself that something was wrong with what was happening.

The marines who didn't come could just be bad at general hygiene ... or the marines who have the volt-guns are charging them with solar power ... all his anxious rebukes fell flat. Around sixteen Learners who were defenseless cornered against a waterfall. Nine marines who stayed behind.

Eight marines charging their guns to fire.

Amelia! The realization of what they faced — A genocide! — slugged him in the gut as he took to the surface, lungs too empty of air to scream a warning. Lightning burst over his head, and he smelled the curling scent of burnt hair.