The Twenty Five Percent Rayanna

Solving the Fifth Clue

          As the sun sets, its last rays of lights glitter off the top of the water, making the lake appear silver in color. Kat and I stand on the shore, looking around. And in the silence, I reflect on each time Altair brought me here. In this world, he seems to be kind. He's in charge and makes sure you respect his position, but nothing like the Altair of the other world. Here he has been caring and romantic. Letting me know of his interest in me and even asking for permission to date me. It's been a wild six months or so. My only hope is that I don't have to return to the other world, to the other Altair.

           "Did you hear me, Rain?" Kat asks.

              I look over at her and see that she is staring at me, expecting some kind of answer. "Uh. No, I didn't. Sorry. I was lost in thought."

              "What about?" Kat asks.

               "Nothing much. Just how vastly different my two lives are, and how different the people in them are."

              "Hm." She replies. She's silent for a moment before speaking again. "I said, I guess we are going to have to go for a swim. I don't know any other way to get or even find the fish that we need."

            "It's getting kind of dark. Shouldn't we at least wait until morning light? Won't that make it easier?" Something about her idea doesn't sit right with me. I have an odd feeling in the pit of my stomach. What is it?

             "I'd rather go ahead and get it done and over with. That way we have all day tomorrow to figure out the last clue." Kat says, bending over. She pulls off first one shoe and then the other before heading out into the lake.

             The water is just to her ankles when I realize what's been troubling me. "Stop!" I yell. "Get back out, now!" How can I be so stupid?

             "What is it?" she asks, turning to look at me.

            "Something has been bothering me since you mentioned going into that water. And then I remembered, it's dangerous. We are to never go into the water. Ever! Come out!"

             "Who told you this?" she asks, not moving.

           "Altair did. On the day I first arrived here. We were on a picnic, and I wanted to get in the water. He said not to. Some kind of plant or another."

             "Asqar Sicine?" she asks.

            "Yes. I think that was the name of them."

                 "Oh, boy. I'm glad you remembered. Drowning is not the way I want to die." Kat says, walking back over to me and putting her shoes back on.

              "What exactly are those plants? All Altair told me was that they were some kind of water vine. He said if you got tangled in them you would drown."

            "That's a very basic explanation of them. They are genetically engineered water plants. I'm sure that even your people have been taught that plants are alive, right?"

              "Yes of course," I answer.

               "Okay, good. Most plants are alive in the sense that they eat and breathe. These plants are more than that. They are alive in the sense that they can sense movement in the nearby water. They will then, send out vines to grab ahold of whatever is nearby and pull it towards its roots."

             "And then you drown?"

            "Then you drown, and it eats you."

             "Eats you? It's a plant, how does it eat you?"

               "It has mouths located near its roots. It pulls you to its roots, where it will eat your dead body."

               "That's pleasant," I say, sarcastically. "Why would anyone create something like that, on purpose?"

                "Why does anyone create anything? Who knows? The point is, we need one of those fish, and I don't have a clue how to do it."

            "Can I borrow the lantern a minute?" I ask.

                  "Sure." She says, pulling off the backpack and rummaging through it. She pulls out the lantern and hands it to me. "What do you need it for?"

           "I just want to see something." I open the lantern door and blow lightly on the Pulsis Powder to reactivate it. Pulsis Powder, that's an invention that took time to get used to. How a small sand-like grain can illuminate anything, is beyond me. But illuminate they do. Once the lantern is lit, I shut the lantern door and stand with it out in front of me. I walk to a nearby rocky outcropping and hold the lantern out, over the small section of water. Try as I might, I don't see anything except for the bottom of the lake. Of course, I remember Altair telling me I won't see the plants even if I tried looking. Noticing a few grains of Pulsis Powder on me, I lightly blow them off my hand and watch as they settle onto the surface of the water. Within seconds, I notice movement just below the surface of the water. "Uh, Kat."

              "What, now?" she asks.

               "I think I found something."

               "Oh, yeah?"

                "I'm pretty sure it's the fish we need."

                  "How did you do that?" she asks moving to the water, the backpack on her back, again.

              "I blew a few stray pieces of Pulsis Powder into the lake and now something is swimming around, below it."

              "The light. Of course. The particular fish we need is attracted to light. There's our solution! There is how we will get one."

               "How's that?" I ask, curiously.

               "We will dump a little powder into the water, once the fish start to gather; we will scoop one of them out, pluck a scale, and put the fish back. Then we will have one last clue before winning. Simple."

               "Only one problem with that."

                 "What's that?"

                 "How will we catch a fish if we can't go into the water, and we don't have a net?"

                   "Guess we will have to do something about that." She says, setting the backpack down.