Chapter 367: The Other Side

The counter had already run out when I touched the Reentry Pearl to the Oathmark.

The structure answers immediately. The runes around the base light up and start climbing the columns while the Pearl comes apart between my fingers. A familiar pressure crosses my chest, followed by the message I was expecting.

[Reentry Pearl activated.]

[Activation Cost: 30% MAX OXI.]

The world starts losing its outline.

That’s when I remember the WaterStrand.

"Shit."

I open my inventory before the transition finishes and find the Rank B filament Rae handed me. The light of the Oathmark is already eating the edges of the square when that colorless space opens again between the worlds.

The translucent shelves appear in front of me, suspended in nowhere.

[Item Transfer: Thirstfall → Earth]

I put the WaterStrand into one of the compartments.

The answer comes fast.

[WaterStrand — Rank B]

[Transfer Cost: 5,000 Scales.]

I look at the number.

Then at my balance.

[Scales: 1,394]

Of course.

The Rank C WaterStrand I brought over before cost five hundred Scales to cross. I just put a Rank B piece in the compartment expecting Ocean’s Law to show some sudden generosity.

It didn’t.

The transition is still waiting.

I open the Safe Harbor admin panel.

A few months ago, five thousand Scales would have looked like a fortune I’d need weeks to hunt down. Now the guild moves far larger sums through the factory and the contracts, and the system lets me reach the treasury even from far away.

Even so, pulling guild money for personal use has to keep looking like exactly what it is.

A registered operation.

[SAFE HARBOR — GUILD TREASURY]

[Withdrawal Request: 5,000 Scales]

[Purpose: Surface Asset Transfer.]

I confirm.

[Withdrawal approved.]

[Personal Balance: 1,394 → 6,394 Scales]

I go back to the shelf.

[Transfer Cost: 5,000 Scales.]

[Confirm?]

"Confirm."

[Scales: 6,394 → 1,394]

The WaterStrand goes rigid inside the compartment, vitrified in that impossible state between matter and information.

Only then does the light finish swallowing me.

Crossing between worlds still doesn’t feel like any kind of travel.

There’s no real movement. No acceleration. It’s as if someone takes apart the idea of distance before rebuilding it on the other side.

When my senses come back, there’s liquid on my face, a kind of gel.

The respirator is still between my teeth.

I open my eyes inside the tank.

For a fraction of a second, my body tries to repeat the panic of the first Reentry. My heart spikes, my muscles clamp, and a violent vertigo tries to convince my brain that up and down have traded places.

This time I know what to do.

I breathe out slowly through the respirator.

I wait for the pressure in my chest to drop before I take the piece out of my mouth.

The tank lid is already opening.

"Mr. Sands?" a nurse calls from outside. "Can you hear me?"

I raise a hand.

She comes over immediately.

A doctor is at the monitors, watching heart rate, neural activity, and pressure while the gel starts draining out of the cylinder.

"Conscious response is adequate. No convulsive activity."

"Pressure’s high," the nurse answers.

"It’s coming down."

I brace on the rim when the level drops below my waist.

My legs are shaking.

Not like before.

The first time, they felt like two pieces of meat my brain had forgotten how to operate. Now there’s strength in them, but my body still has to work out that the world has changed again.

Gravity feels wrong.

So does the air.

Thirstfall carries pressure in everything. OXI in the environment, salt, humidity, life, something constant touching your senses even when you aren’t paying attention.

On Earth, that disappears.

The physical silence is almost as uncomfortable as noise.

The nurse takes my forearm while I climb out.

"Slowly."

"I’m fine."

"Every Diver says that two minutes before they go down."

’Fair, buddy...’

I take the help.

My feet touch the cold floor and stay there while my body relearns how to hold its own weight. The doctor puts two fingers on my wrist out of habit, even though the monitors already know more about my heart than he does.

"Second Reentry on record?"

"Yes."

"Better than the first."

"The first ended with me throwing up on the floor."

He checks the history on the monitor.

"I can see that."

The nurse hands me a thermal blanket.

I wrap it around my shoulders and sit on the gurney while she works some of the gel out of my hair with a towel.

I look at the clock on the wall.

Something tightens under my ribs.

Rhayne has three Earth hours before her own Reentry and the clock is already running.

"I need to leave soon."

The doctor doesn’t even look up.

"You need to sit for five more minutes."

"I have somewhere to be."

"Wherever it is will like you better conscious."

I don’t have a better argument so I stay.

When the shaking eases off, I get up and go to the drawer under the tank.

I bring the back of my hand close.

The subcutaneous chip answers.

A small green light comes on and the quantum drawer slides out.

Inside it there’s a sealed surgical case.

I open it.

The Rank B WaterStrand is there.

Even after seeing one of these before, I spend a few seconds looking.

The Rank C looked like a piece of another world refusing to obey Earth’s laws.

The Rank B looks even less willing to negotiate.

The liquid filament moves on its own inside the case, folding into slow curves without obeying gravity. Deep blue, green, and gold run across the surface, disappearing and reappearing as the energy reorganizes itself.

The nurse stops beside me.

"Is that a WaterStrand?"

"It is."

She leans in a little.

"Rank C?"

"B."

The doctor takes his eyes off the monitor.

The silence that follows is familiar.

"I need a containment tube," I say.

This time nobody has to have anything explained to them.

The nurse comes back a few seconds later with a reinforced cylinder, much thicker than the one I used for the first Strand. I set the filament inside and the seal closes with a pneumatic click.

The light disappears behind the casing.

Better.

I don’t want to cross the lobby carrying fifty thousand GNC under my arm like it’s a bottle of water.

I put on the clothes that stayed in the locker during the Dive. Plain jeans, a dark t-shirt, my sneakers. Then I go up to the lobby of the District 4 Clinical Center.

Nothing here has improved.

People wait for hydration vouchers in a line near the wall. Armed guards watch the entrances. The heat outside presses against the glass, turning the light into a white layer over the street.

I head straight for the trade window.

There are four people in line.

It takes eleven minutes.

Eleven minutes I watch on the clock.

When I finally reach the counter, I set the tube on the security opening.

The clerk barely looks at me.

"Item?"

"WaterStrand. Rank B."

He stops typing and looks up, then he looks at the tube.

"Rank B?"

"That’s what I said."

The man pulls the terminal closer and brings a scanner near the cylinder.

The light runs over the seal and beeps.

He looks at me again.

"Identification."

I pass my hand over the reader.

The data comes up in front of him.

"Dryden Sands. District 4. Registered Diver..."

His eyes track something on the screen.

"Does this WaterStrand belong to you?"

"Yes."

"Origin?"

"Of course, Thirstfall."

He stares at me.

"I figured."

He takes a digital form and pushes it through the slot.

"Fill this out."

I look at it.

The thing has pages.

Zone of Acquisition.

Acquisition Method.

Dungeon / Hunt / Trade / Contract / Gift / Other.

Previous Registered Owner.

Guild Affiliation.

Declaration of Unlawful Acquisition.

"Is this serious?"

"Rank B WaterStrands don’t show up every day in District 4."

"I imagine more of them would if you let people finish the form before dying of old age."

The man doesn’t find that funny.

I start filling it in.

Acquisition: payment for services.

Previous owner: not registered.

Guild affiliation: Safe Harbor.

I keep the zone section generic. There’s no reason to hand Rae over to a public employee just because he’s curious.

When I pass the form back, he reads all of it.

Then he calls someone.

A supervisor shows up a few minutes later. Older woman, hair pinned back, the expression of someone who has spent the morning turning people down.

She checks my data.

"Mr. Sands, we need to clear something up before authorizing the purchase. A Rank B asset of this kind in a District 4 trade center requires verification of origin."

"The quantum manifest is registered."

She looks at me.

"It is."

"Then you know the item crossed in my compartment and that I paid the fee."

"That proves it was under your ownership during the Reentry. It doesn’t explain how it reached you."

"It was payment for services rendered in Thirstfall."

"For whom?"

"Is that mandatory?"

She checks something.

"No, as long as there’s no theft claim, ownership lock, or investigation attached to the item."

"Is there?"

She goes back to the terminal.

We wait.

The system finally answers.

No flag. No ownership claim. No theft record.

The supervisor breathes out slowly.

"All right."

She signs digitally.

The original clerk looks a little disappointed that I’m not a smuggler.

He pulls out a magnetic card and loads the value.

50,000 GNC.

I take the card.

The first time around, five thousand had seemed like enough money to change our lives. Now I’m holding ten times that and all I can think about is the clock.

I put it in my pocket.

"Are we done?"

"We’re done."

I leave.

The bus to my street takes a little over fifteen minutes.

When I climb the stairs of the building, I feel a completely different anxiety from the one I had the first time.

The memory is still there.

Another life.

Another door.

My mother and Lili dead on the other side of it.

But there are sounds coming from the apartment now.

A television...

Dishes...

Lili making some noise only she understands...

I put the key in the lock and open the door.

My mother is in the living room. She looks up and stops.

The cup she’s holding is forgotten between her hands for a second.

Then she sets it on the table and comes to me.

"Den."

I can’t answer before the hug.

She holds me with a strength I always forget she has.

Her face presses against my chest, and I feel her body shake before I realize she’s crying.

I hug her back.

This time without hesitating.

"I’m back, Mom."

She pulls away just enough to hold my face in both hands.

She looks at my cheeks, my eyes, my hair, like she’s checking whether some part of me stayed in the other world.

"You’re different again."

"This is becoming a habit."

She makes a sound between a laugh and a sob.

Her thumb passes near my eyebrow.

"Your father would be so proud of you."

The sentence sits between us.

My chest tightens.

"Mom..."

"You came back whole. You’re growing, doing all of this by yourself, and you still come home thinking about us. Alden would—"

"I found Dad."

Her hands stop on my face.

Nothing moves.

The cup is still on the table behind her.

"What?"

"I found Dad."

She takes a step back.

Her hand hits the table.

The cup falls and the ceramic breaks on the floor.

My mother doesn’t even look.

Her mouth stays open while she tries to make sense of the words.

"Alden is still alive?"

"He is. I told you before, but now I’m planning to save him."

Her voice comes out almost without sound.

"Are you sure?"

"I’m sure."

Her eyes fill again, but now her expression can’t choose between hope and fear.

"Where is he? Did you talk to him? Den, where is your father?"

I take hold of her arms.

"I can’t tell you everything yet... I just discovered some new information since last time."

"Why?"

"Because there are dangerous people involved and I still don’t have all the answers. The less you know right now, the safer you are until I fix it."

She shakes her head slowly, trying to keep up.

"Wait... Is he a prisoner?"

"He is."

The word lands.

My mother brings a hand to her mouth.

"My God..."

"Like I said... I’m building a plan."

"You’re going after him?"

I look her in the eyes.

"I’m going to bring him home."

I don’t say I’ll try... not about that.

She hugs me again.

We stay there a few seconds until a small sound comes from the other side of the room.

’Lili... I miss her...’

I turn.

She’s in the bouncer, waving her arms in our direction like this whole conversation is an inconvenience standing between her and the attention she deserves.

I let go of my mother and moved over, kneeling next to her.

"Hey, troublemaker."

Lili smiles.

That toothless smile is still one of the few things in the universe capable of shutting down entire parts of my head.

I kiss her forehead.

"I missed you too."

She grabs one of my fingers.

I watch her for a moment.

Then I remember the card.

I stand and go back to my mother.

"I don’t have much time."

I take out the magnetic card and put it in her hand.

"Here."

She looks at it.

"What is this?"

"Fifty thousand GNC."

My mother goes still.

"Fifty thousand?"

"Yes."

"Den..."

"I sold a Rank B WaterStrand."

She looks at the card again.

"Rank B?"

"It was a productive week."

Her hand starts shaking as she tries to give it back.

I push it back to her.

"No."

"Son, this is yours."

"Now it’s ours."

"I can’t—"

"You can."

I keep my hand over hers.

"Buy food without checking the price first. Water. Medicine. Anything Lili needs. If something in here is broken, replace it. Don’t save medicine for tomorrow because you’re afraid you won’t be able to buy more later. Change the TV, repaint everything. You choose, Mom. It’s ours now.

She lowers her eyes.

That hurt more than I meant it to. I know how many times she has done exactly that.

"I’m taking care of you now."

My mother takes a deep breath.

Then she nods.

She puts the card away like it might break.

"Your father really would be proud."

I smile.

"Then I’ll have to bring him back so he can confirm it."

This time she laughs while she cries.

"I’m going to take a shower, Mom. Could you make something quick for me to eat, please?"

"Sure, Den."

The hot water takes off the smell of the gel and part of the Thirstfall feeling still sitting on my skin. I spend a few seconds in front of the mirror afterward, looking at a body that keeps changing faster than any teenager’s should.

Broader shoulders.

Arms that don’t look fragile anymore.

The white streak still running through my hair.

I look less like the kid who made that first Dive.

Maybe because I’m becoming less of him.

I put on clean jeans, a dark shirt, and a light jacket. No suit. I’m not going to close a deal, threaten an executive, or lie to some powerful man.

I’m going to pick up a friend.

When I come back to the living room, my mother has cleaned up the pieces of the cup. The card is put away. Lili is still awake.

"You’re leaving now?" she asks.

I look at the clock.

"I have to."

"Here’s two sandwiches... but where are you going?"

"District 3."

She frowns.

"Now?"

"Someone important to me is coming back from Thirstfall today."

Her expression becomes dull.

"How long?"

"More than eight months diving."

My mother goes quiet.

She understands.

Anyone with a Diver in the family understands.

Eight months in a tank doesn’t just mean a long trip. Down there it was more than two years, and up here the house kept existing without her, with moved furniture and a life that didn’t wait.

"Is she going to wake up alone?"

"If I’m late."

My mother looks at the clock.

Then at me.

"Then go."

I come closer.

She straightens the collar of my jacket the way she did when I was a kid.

"Don’t let her wake up alone, Den."

I swallow.

"I won’t."

I hug my mother one last time.

I kiss Lili’s forehead again and go down the stairs.

The heat off the street hits me the second I leave the building.

I check the clock.

What’s left is worse than I expected.

The normal route to the Esmeralda Quarter takes almost three hours by bus.

I have a lot less than that.

I stand on the sidewalk for a few seconds, running through routes, express lines, and any option that doesn’t put me there after the Reentry.

Rhayne waited years to come back.

I look at the time again.

"Am I going to make it...?"

I’m already walking before I find the answer.