Six Strings to Save the World

by Michael McSherry

  The world takes shape again, but it’s not the cave I expect.

  I’m in a field. The grass underfoot has wide, yellowish-green blades that sweep from side to side in a gentle breeze. It’s nothing like any grass I’ve seen before. Behind me is a forest of high, spindly-looking trees. Leaf-covered vines drape the trees, falling in loose spools to the ground below. The trees, too, are unfamiliar. The field slopes gently downward toward a large lake, and across the water, I see a city.

  Its buildings are titanic, piercing impossibly high into the sky, huge grey spires with glittering black glass spotting their midlines like fish scales. Some are higher than others, but each stands tall enough that its peak is blurred by the haze of distance.

  I look back down to the water’s edge. Someone is seated there. Was she there before? I start to walk forward, not knowing what else to do. As I approach, I see the person’s green hair bouncing against the wind, her brown skin standing in contrast to the yellowish grass where she sits. It’s Sola.

  I come to stand beside her, looking down at her face. She watches the city quietly, either failing to notice me or ignoring me. “Sola?” I ask quietly. “Are we… are you, uh, online?”

  “Watch,” Sola insists, pointing up. “One war ends. Another begins.”

  Everything gets darker, and I look up, following her finger. Where before there was nothing but blue sky, the air now swims with a cluttering of dark silhouettes, moving like a school of fish overhead, obscuring the sun in their smooth, slow motions. Looking back toward the city, I see that some of the shapes are beginning to descend slightly, oblong ovals taking on more definition as they grow in size.

  Something clicks in my head. “This is Aniente.”

  “Time and time again,” Sola says, her voice disturbingly flat. “The past becomes the future. Time and time again.”

  One of the darkening shadows over the city begins to glow a dull red.

  “We will break the cycle,” Sola says. “We can put an end to it. They failed, but we can succeed.”

  A bolt of laser-thin light lances from the gargantuan shape in the sky down onto the city. The light is immediate, intense, and the world seems to fall quiet for just a moment. Then the explosion erupts upward, outward, carving through the great spires, sending them shattering as a wave of unmistakable Rez rushes outward. I shield my eyes against the light as the air fills with a deafening roar.

  Sola’s hand lashes out, grabbing me by the wrist. “We must stop it.”

  I try to open my mouth to answer, but I can’t. I can only watch as Sola looks directly up, face bathed in a warm red glow. I follow her gaze up and see that one of the shadows overhead has grown so large that it blots out most of the sky. A red iris glows in the center of the black shape, warming and coalescing a cloud of Rez.

  Then fire rains down from the sky, rushing toward me, cutting off my scream.

  * * * * *

  Tori is screaming.

  Something is wrong.

  My body’s on fire.

  “CALEB!” Mom screams.

  I open my eyes and see brilliant webs of lightning leaping from my body, touching at the cave walls, floor, and ceiling. A beam of curving, blue-white Rez is pouring forth from the Gibson held against my chest. It drives directly out the open cave entrance over the ocean outside, up toward a haze of clouds, dissipating in wave after wave of hazy Rez energy.

  My skin is blistering all over.

  But I can’t stop it.

  I’m not even playing the Gibson.

  Dorian, Lydia, and Mixy are circling me. Dorian and Lydia hammer blows of Rez at me, trying to cut off the beam of energy erupting from my guitar, but their Rez waves fizzle out of existence. Mixy bellows mightily, charging forward in an attempt to bowl me over. A bolt of electricity strikes him in the shoulder, sending him skidding sideways, sliding past me on the floor.

  “Caleb!” Tori yells. “Stop!”

  “Can’t!”

  Tori bows her violin, sending a disc of Rez spinning directly between Sola and I, snapping the length of cable tethering us together. The Rez beam stops abruptly. Steam pours off my body and from the rocks surrounding us.

  “Oh dear,” Baahir says, surveying the last of the dissipating Rez energy in the sky outside the cave. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  Mom rushes forward and drops to the ground beside me. “Are you okay?” she says urgently, not daring to touch any of my blistered skin. “Can you breathe? Caleb, look at me. Do you know where you are?”

  “Yeah,” I rasp. “But it hurts.”

  “What were you thinking?!” Dorian screams at Baahir. “What did you do?”

  “We know the location of the vault,” Baahir says sheepishly.

  “That’s not going to matter now!” Dorian shouts. “The kid just sent out a Rez wave the Synthesizers could see from space! They’re going to be coming here!”

  “I didn’t try!” I say.

  Sola opens her eyes, speaking quietly. “I’m sorry to have hurt you. There wasn’t any other way to alert the others.”

  The room falls quiet as everyone turns to look at her. Mom acts first, walking across the way and slapping Sola, hard, right across the jaw. Sola doesn’t so much as flinch.

  “We have to move,” Baahir says. “Now.”

  Baahir leaves the cave, returning back out to the rebel square. “Stations!” I hear him yelling. “Stations!” The commotion from the square is immediate as rebels meet Baahir’s orders with shouts, a flurry of movement.

  “Back to the Carnegie, all of you!” Dorian orders.

  Mixy lifts Sola and her chair with two strong arms, unaided by the added strength boost of a Resonator.

  “Leave her!” Dorian hisses.

  “She is a valuable source of intelligence. Baahir’s miscalculation does not change that!”

  “Just move!” Dorian barks, leading the others through the flats.

  Tori comes to my side, lifting me up by one blistered arm and tossing me over her shoulder. I howl in pain, though I can already feel my Resonator working to repair the damage to my body. “Sorry!” Tori yells as she turns to run after the others. I get one last view out the cave opening. There’s something enormous in the sky out there: a giant black shadow, like a scar on the perfectly blue sky.

  The tunnel bends and we’re moving through the square. We join a stream of rebels rushing back down the tunnels, Resonators in hand as they join one another in yelling, raising their voices to a dull roar.

  Somewhere up ahead I hear a flurry of piano notes, and the walls around us give a mighty shake. I lift myself up enough to catch a glimpse of the rock beneath Baahir’s piano opening up, bringing him and the piano down and out of sight. We come back into cavern where the repurposed Autotuner ships sit in the sand. The air is full of a grinding roar, and the rock overhead is parting, opening the cavern up further to the sky overhead.

  Farther back into the tunnels now, Tori launches us ahead of the others, over the water, hitting the Carnegie with a jarring impact. My body screams in protest. Lydia grabs Sola and Mixy. Dorian grabs Mr. Patel and Mom, who cling wide-eyed to Dorian as he glides through the air on a gentle wave of Rez. The float-tube spits us out onto the Carnegie’s flight deck, and Mixy scrambles his way onto his drum throne, hammering into a heavy beat as the Carnegie plunges down into the water and out to the open ocean.

  “They have a big ship!” I say through gritted teeth as Lydia sets to work with her Resonator, trying to heal a bit of my blistered skin.

  “They’ve brought a destroyer into the atmosphere!” Mixy bellows as the Carnegie breaks the surface. “Scans are showing more ships breaking orbit, coming down!” We’re looking over the ocean now, watching the rebels’ aircraft swarming forward with a rainbow mix of Rez waves toward the approaching Synthesizer destroyer.

  It’s enormous, and as we watch, it turns slowly, presenting a sidelong view of the ship. It’s like a black skyscraper laid down on one side, and as it slows its appro
ach over the water it emits huge waves of red Resonance that sends the water beneath it steaming, boiling away. Several large lenses flare with blinding energy in unison, forming a steady, march-tempo beat. Even from within the Carnegie, the sound is overpowering. Mixy brings his drumming into time with the destroyer.

  Baahir’s voice suddenly breaks over the comms. “Dorian!” he shouts, voice strained. “I’m in my fighter. We’re going to try and buy you some time. Go find the vault. We have to stop the Synthesizers from accessing it!”

  “We can’t outrun a destroyer,” Dorian answers, strangely calm. “We’re going to have to fight.”

  “This is insanity,” Baahir growls, but a moment later, he’s barking orders to the rebel pilots in the air.

  “Receiving an open-band communication from the destroyer,” Mixy informs Dorian.

  “Let it through,” Dorian orders.

  Alpha’s face swims into view on the Carnegie’s display. She looks directly through the screen for a moment, eyes scanning. “You have Sola,” she observes. “I presume you intend to interfere further?”

  “Oh no, we were just about to pack up and head home,” Dorian sneers.

  “You jest, but the Composers would all be better served by leaving,” Alpha responds. “We will do whatever is ordered of us.”

  “Shove those orders where the numbers don’t compute.”

  For the first time I see a hint of actual amusement in Alpha’s eyes—something more than a cold, calculating mind. “No more interruptions,” she declares.

  The screen cuts to black as one of the destroyer’s lenses flares brightly. Mixy jogs the ship violently to the side, the gravity mods struggling to regulate the Carnegie’s interior against the sudden pitch. A wide beam of Rez lances through one of the rebel ships ahead of us, barely missing the Carnegie. The rebel ship boils away without so much as an explosion, sending a bit of molten flowmetal splashing down into the ocean below.

  “Break formation!” Baahir screams, and the rebel ships scatter.

  From one side of the destroyer, a cluster of Autotuner airships burst into the air, rushing forward and dodging between the destroyer’s turret blasts as it continues firing. As the swarm of rebel ships nears the Autotuner craft and the destroyer, the rebels start opening fire with Rez weapons.

  Mixy takes the Carnegie forward with a renewed surge of speed, hammering at his drums and rolling us through the air to dodge two more of the destroyer’s turret shots. As we close the distance with the rebels, the Carnegie’s own weapons spring to life, lancing out red Rez with laser precision, cutting down two of the Autotuner aircraft immediately.

  “Get in close with the destroyer!” Dorian yells. “Its turrets aren’t built for short range!”

  The rebels hear Dorian’s command and begin carving their way through the fray. More than once, I see a rebel ship hit with a burst of Rez, exploding mid-air or hurtling down into the waves below us. We hear screams over the comms, sometimes pained and sometimes angry, and oftentimes cut short by an explosion.

  “Bring us in to strafe, Mixy,” Dorian orders, rushing back toward the float-tube with Lydia.

  “We’re coming,” I say, gripping my Gibson as Tori shoulders her violin.

  “You’re hurt,” Dorian says.

  “I’ll get over it!”

  Dorian doesn’t lead us down to the cargo-bay. He brings us up, back to the topside of the Carnegie. “No cables this time!” he yells. “Draft some of the Carnegie’s Rez to push you down against the ship.”

  “Got it,” Tori nods. She looks sideways at me, face full of worry.

  I do what Dorian ordered, siphoning a bit of the Carnegie’s Rez and pooling it at my feet. Something isn’t right. Expending even that slight bit of Rez makes my body burn. I’m not healed from Sola’s hijack yet.

  An Autotuner ship comes racing to meet the Carnegie, sending two bolts of dull red Rez racing toward us. Lydia meets the bolts with a protective wave of blue Rez. As the Autotuner lines up for a second volley it explodes in a haze of purple Rez. A rebel ship roars past us, sending discs of purple Rez whizzing through the air at another Autotuner.

  Dorian looks sideways at me. “Sorry for being a bit of an ass lately.”

  “You’re just saying that because we’re going to die,” I say.

  He laughs loudly, the sound ringing through the air even as the wind rips at us and explosions rattle our teeth. “You like Metallica?” he asks.

  He starts picking at his bass then, matching the destroyer’s distorted, steady tempo. Mixy picks it up right away from below-deck, the Carnegie thrumming with a beat to match Dorian’s bass. I recognize the song a few notes in: “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” It’s got an ominous sound to it, alternating between deep power chords and drums. I answer with a series of falling high notes that crawl like spider-legs over the strings. I play my part even though my body is screaming in protest.

  Lydia and Tori blast away at intercepting Autotuners and deflect incoming fire. Dorian begins to glow, his tattoos shaking violently over his skin as we continue playing. The Carnegie closes on the destroyer’s side, dodging one last beam of Rez with a barrel-roll that makes my stomach turn and threatens to toss me from the Carnegie’s hull. Then we’re racing alongside the destroyer, and Dorian lets loose with his first shot.

  The Rez he’s been welling up coalesces into a fireball roughly the size of a pickup truck and launches through the air with a slight curve. My Rez is mixed in there, powering up Dorian the way we did before. The fireball pops and crackles with bolts of blue lightning, reminding me of the seams on a knuckleball.

  The projectile hits the side of the destroyer, and for a moment everything is white. The air rushes toward the point of impact, then bursts out as the fireball expands. The Carnegie is moving fast enough to escape the explosion, but barely. Fire crawls through the air as a crater opens up in the side of the destroyer, billowing smoke and spilling fragments of the ship down into the ocean. Dorian launches a second fireball at the destroyer and I do my best to give it an extra spark. But my head is swimming, and the pain is so unbearable that I can barely keep from fainting.

  “We need to find a weak point!” Dorian calls out.

  Mixy’s voice cuts through the Carnegie’s comms.

  “They’re deploying fighters topside from the launch bay. Taking the Carnegie up!”

  The Carnegie lurches violently upward and I bend my knees, feeling the g-force pulling against my cheeks, threatening to pull the blood from my head even with my Resonator heightening my endurance. The Carnegie pitches from side to side as more Autotuners turn to fire upon us, rebel ships intercepting and engaging them while the destroyer’s turrets spark bolts of instant-death Rez, more than once catching a rebel and Autotuner ship in the same blaze.

  The Carnegie traces close to the destroyer’s hull, and as it reaches the cliff-like lip of the ship’s top, Mixy barrel rolls the Carnegie upside down before making the turn, helping us keep our footing while he levels the ship off. I’m looking down (but it feels like up) at a broad flight deck where several dozen Autotuners are busy preparing more fighters to launch in the destroyer’s defense.

  Dorian bends his knees and pushes off, launching face-first toward the flight-deck and unleashing an incinerating wave of Rez that burns so hot my eyelashes curl away from the heat. The Autotuners below us are unprepared, caught in the flash-flame inferno that sends their gelcircuitry boiling away as they slump to the ground. I push off with the others as the Carnegie continues on its trajectory, dodging a few more Autotuner missiles. Lydia pushes a wave of her Rez down at the flight deck, extinguishing the flames a moment before we hit the hull.

  “We need to take out her engines!” Dorian yells, pointing down between his feet toward the center of the destroyer.

  “How do we get inside?” Lydia asks.

  “You’re not getting inside!” a voice cries out from across the flight deck.

  Alpha stands at the far corner of the flight deck, an op
en access panel behind her pouring out scores of Autotuners. Their obsidian heads and fists are welling at their centers, glowing red with charging Rez. They pulse together, synchronized with the destroyer’s beat.

  “All of this just for us?” Dorian asks, stomping against the ship’s hull.

  “Where is Dex?” I call out to Alpha. “Is he here? Is he with you?”

  “No,” Alpha shakes her head. “The Controller General has him now. And he will open the vault.”

  The Autotuners pick that moment to unleash their first volley of Rez. The energy waves ripple through the air as Lydia jumps in front of us, projecting a shield wall with an upward curve. The bolts slide over our heads, exploding harmlessly behind us.

  Tori and Dorian rush forward in the wake, seizing the opportunity to focus fire on the Autotuner’s flanks while Lydia pushes a wall of Rez straight down the middle of the flight deck at Alpha. The Synergist dodges to the right, attempting to launch a burst of Rez at Lydia’s face. Lydia dodges and sweeps the wall of Rez sideways. Alpha avoids it easily, closing the distance to Lydia in three lightning fast strides. She ducks a punch from Lydia and slams her fist into Lydia’s gut. Lydia flies backwards several feet, spinning past me. She’s dripping water onto the deck as she struggles, shaking violently, to return to her feet.

  I don’t have too long to look because Alpha rushes forward toward me, eyes aglow as she brings her Resonator up. She carves a beam of red Rez at me so fast I barely have time to dodge to one side. She touches down on the ground beside me a moment later, pivoting on one foot as the other leg comes swinging around, seeking my unprotected side. I’m too slow to dodge, but I have enough time to light myself up with a good bit of electricity.

  Alpha’s kick connects and I feel two of my ribs break. But I also feel my Rez discharge from the point of impact, crawling up Alpha’s leg. With an explosion, we’re propelled in opposite directions, rolling across the flight deck. I land in the middle of chaos as Tori and Dorian stand back to back, unleashing wave after wave of Rez onto the fifty or so Autotuners surrounding them. The Carnegie takes another pass overhead, weaponry blazing down on the Synthesizers’ heads, carving a path of destruction through them. Lydia jumps up, hovering a short distance over our heads, preparing a meteor-sized wave of Rez that slams down onto the flight-deck, jarring the ground beneath my feet.