by Cam Baity
Blistering light grabs my attention. I pause, look out at the city. Towers falling. People screaming. An inferno. Cannot wait to revel in it once I am done here.
An Aero-copter rises into view, banks out from the Crest. An Over-crane swings away too, its claw carrying a pair of figures. Curious what’s going on out there and—
“Kaspar!”
It’s him.
Slumped across the railing. Trail of blood across the platform. I walk toward him, sniff out his pain. He is mortally wounded. Mr. Goodwin doesn’t have long.
I don’t need long.
Walk faster.
“I knew you’d find me,” he moans. “You never quit. That’s why I chose you, Kaspar. Why I loved you.”
Trying to manipulate me again. Won’t work.
I break into a run. Smell death seeping from his pores.
He throws his weight onto something behind his back. Falls to the ground. A high-pitched whir. Scraping metal. Cable unspools.
Then I am upon him. Lift his dripping form. Hungry to watch his light fade. But it is not terror I see in his eyes. Even in death, a glimpse of…relief?
A shadow pools around us. I look up. A falling star, twisted and golden.
A ray from the Crest of Dawn plummets. No time to run.
I understand. He released the winch.
We will die together.
Impact.
Platform crumples beneath us. Deafens me. Metal snaps like kindling. Beams shred. Metal warps. Shrapnel rips through me. It will be the last pain I feel.
Down we go. Free fall.
In blessed silence.
Still clutching Mr. Goodwin. I will crush the life from him before we hit the bottom. He is nearly bloodless, barely conscious. But his weary eyes find me.
Whispers. Smiles. Can’t hear, but I read his lips.
I wrap my arms around him, pull him close.
Not to kill—but to embrace.
His words.
Feel his heart puff weakly. Taste his last breaths on my neck. A stream of blood from his mouth. Reminds me of the medal back in Kaspar’s room at the Depot. How the bronze dissolved in my hand, just left the red ribbon behind.
A Medal of Excellence.
My medal.
Hug him tighter.
Look at the world one last time.
Death rushes for us—me and my maker. It is right we go together.
I see the sky start to blush with dawn. The world is already happier without me. Both of us happy that I will die this day. Happy because of Mr. Goodwin’s words.
Because he is proud.
Of me.
The Crest of Dawn was falling.
As soon as the iris closed in the belly of the Aero-copter, and the hydraulic arm holding the kids locked safely into place, Phoebe and Micah rushed to look out the back window. A colossal ray smashed through the construction site in an explosion of metal shards. It shone as bright as ever as it came down, brilliant as a slice of the sun, bursting the scaffolding apart like confetti.
The glorious icon of progress and innovation was gone.
The Foundry was no more.
The ray plummeted into the bay with a resounding splash. A plume of debris rained into the surf, falling atop a pinprick of white light—the Occulyth, submerged and sinking out of sight.
“Wait! We have to go back!” Phoebe shouted hoarsely.
“Would a ‘thanks’ kill ya?” asked a voice from the cockpit.
Micah jolted as if electrocuted. He gaped at the woman piloting the aircraft, but no matter how he tried to make sense of what he was seeing, it didn’t seem remotely real.
“Margie?” He began to laugh and sob at the same time, a gasping sort of convulsive release. Micah rushed to his sister through a gap between heaps of Televiewer gear and threw his arms around her, burying his face in her neck.
Phoebe looked through the cockpit window. The world-renowned skyline of Albright City was melting, castles made of sand succumbing to the tide of Makina.
“Take us down to the water! NOW!” Phoebe cried.
Margie looked to Micah.
He nodded. She considered it for a second, and then turned the copter around.
They stared out the windshield as the aircraft descended. The ocean rose up to meet them, its green waves capped with fang-white foam. Terror overwhelmed Phoebe. Her hands were icy, and numbness clamped down on her like a vise. She took a rattling breath to steady her nerves.
A muted glowing splotch beneath the choppy surface. Fading.
“There!” Phoebe yelled, pointing to it.
Margie navigated toward the blob of light. They closed in on it. A hundred feet—then fifty. Suddenly, Margie shouted and abruptly steered to the side. The Aero-copter pitched violently. Debris from the construction site overhead tumbled past and crashed in the water below.
“I can’t get any closer,” Margie said. “It’s too dangerous.”
She was answered with a sudden blast of air from an opened hatch. The Tanners looked back just in time to glimpse Phoebe, framed in the gaping doorway, wind whipping around her as she jumped out.
Micah screamed her name as she fell, but the roar of briny wind swallowed it whole.
Phoebe understood the madness of what she was doing. She was too high up, and the raging sea below was thorny with gnarled scaffolding. If she didn’t break her legs on impact, she would surely be impaled. But it had to be done.
She held her arms stiffly at her sides, straightened her legs.
And prayed to no one.
Phoebe pierced the water like a harpoon. The impact and the brutal cold snapped the air from her lungs. Brine blasted up her nose, flooded her brain. Murk devoured her whole. Her body flooded with panic. Somehow, she was still in one piece, but the ocean gnashed her. Her every terror lurked in its unfathomable black jaws.
But she willed the fear away.
Salt burned her eyes as she forced them open to look below. Deep beneath a thicket of wreckage she saw the Occulyth.
Glowing dimly. Sinking.
She dove down. Kicked. Shoved the water. Fought it.
A crash above—more debris or maybe Micah coming to help.
Blackness closed its icy fingers around Phoebe. Her chest felt like it would burst. She swam down another stroke, two, three. Her body shrieked for air. She could barely feel her limbs. Though she needed to keep going down, her body betrayed her, fought for the surface. Raced for air. Quivering muscles kicked. Desperate.
She burst through into the dawn, sucked in a tremendous breath. Choked on the sour saltwater. Spluttered. Coughed.
This was her every nightmare come true.
The Aero-copter hovered nearby, its search beams bathing her in blinding light. Another mangled knot of metal crashed into the water. A sound rose above Makina’s distant rampage, the crashing waves, and pounding blades of the aircraft.
Screams. Her own screams.
The field of debris around her became the rocky shore of Callendon. She looked down at her hands—the hands of a child. Grasping at the slippery rocks, unable to find purchase. Lungs were filling with water. Ferocious undertow pulling her down. Drowning. Then lifted to safety. Gagging, Phoebe looked back. Tide swelled, ripped her mother away. A last look of fear in that perfect face as she was sucked under.
Gone. Forever.
Micah burst up nearby in a sparkling spray, banishing Phoebe’s memory. He cried out to her, but there wasn’t time—she took in as much air as she could and dove.
The silence of the dark water smothered her again. Every thrust, every kick carried her deeper. But Phoebe would not give in to the threat of drowning. Not this time. She would get the Occulyth or die trying.
Yet its glow was nowhere to be seen.
A massive gush above. She tried to swim aside. A mess of debris clipped her shoulder. Pain flared in her arm as she paddled, but she couldn’t let it stop her.
Down she went. Pressure built. It squeezed her temples and sinuses, made h
er eardrums feel like they would burst.
So dark. Just the meager glow from the seed at her throat. She could feel the Uaxtu’s gift dying, just like the Ona had warned. Summoning her back to the Shroud. Her body seemed more and more alien, like a puppet under someone else’s control.
She just needed it to do this one last thing.
So cold it hurt. Lungs burning. Vision fading. Going weak.
Deeper still. Bright patterns dancing around her. Not really there. Hallucinations of an oxygen-starved brain. Was that…a face? Phoebe reached for it.
Everything else was eroding. Even the pain in her lungs was distant. Stopped kicking. Momentum carried her down toward that beloved face, pale as moonlight.
Calling like a beacon.
Mommy?
Getting closer.
It dissolved. No, transformed.
Became a light. A white star. The Occulyth.
Phoebe held it in her hands.
Brought it…to her…
…mouth…
I blink.
The world slips away.
I’m floating in a void of white clouds.
I look down, but there’s nothing there. I have no body. It feels kind of like when I used the whist to travel beyond the Shroud—or rather when I imagined I did. That sensation was fuzzy and vague, a struggle to sustain, but this…this is crystal clear and effortless. I’m not just a spirit or something—I am entirely me.
Am I dead? Like, for real this time?
That would explain the whole floating-in-the-clouds thing.
No, this isn’t like before. When the Ona killed me, there was only the absence. It didn’t feel like anything—I wasn’t there to feel. Whatever this is, it’s not that. There are clouds everywhere. I’m soaring through them like a bird, I’m—
No, I’m falling. I don’t know which way is up, but I feel the weight of it now, pulling me down. I’m approaching something. It’s dark, hidden behind the clouds.
It’s appearing slowly, mist parting.
It’s…me.
I see myself with Micah and Dollop and Goodwin. We’re at the Crest of Dawn, talking to the Ona. Wait, but this just happened and I—
Clouds smother the scene as I fall past it. There’s another smudge of darkness ahead, coming toward me. Coming faster this time. It’s some kind of tunnel. I’m rushing through it, barreling toward a door at the end. I blast through it.
No, this doesn’t make sense. I’m in…
Foundry Central, the huge underground train station. It’s intact, fully operational. There are people everywhere. They are screaming. Dying.
The scene bursts apart, and I fall right into another.
Now I’m above the Depot, back in Mehk. It’s a smoldering ruin. Mehkans are gathered around, and in the middle is the Ona talking to—
Me and Micah again.
I am Makina. More like I’m seeing things through Her eyes—things that already happened. Memories.
The Occulyth is doing this—that must be it.
The image dissolves, and another one appears in a swirl of clouds. It’s all gray, a world of fog, stagnant and thick. I’m groggy, waking up from a long slumber. I am somewhere deep within the Shroud.
Then the clouds go black. I’m still falling, now faster than before. Falling into the past. But it’s all black. All nothing. It keeps going and going on, all while I pick up speed. A pinprick ahead, so far away, long past this dreary stretch of nothingness. I’m hurtling toward the memory, feel like I need it. Need to escape this emptiness.
Then it is upon me.
I’m on top of Ahm’ral. Mehkans are gathered, worshipping me. The Ona is below, molting again, donning her old Bearing. I look at the green crystal landscape and the lush blue mountains basking in the ring of suns—it’s spectacular. There is no battlefield, no black smoke curling into the sky. This is what Mehk looked like before the Great Decay. Centuries ago. Before CHAR. Before the humans came.
I’m going back in time, through the mind of Makina.
Another vision. I am hovering over the Coiling Furrows, descending upon a temple hidden within, a wonder of domes and interconnecting arches. This is what Emberhome used to look like. I spy glimpses of the Aegis as I reach down and pick up the Ona, who is radiant and young again, her eyes blissfully closed.
Years whisk by me. I see the Ona—molting, then reborn, then molting again—preaching kindness to all. I see compassion and benevolence amongst mehkans, I see them praying to dynamos and temples and housings all over Mehk. I am atop Ahm’ral, which appears over and over again, as does the Shroud, which is my home. I see axials feeding the hungry in a city of angled spires I don’t recognize. I see Waybound mehkans rebuilding a village damaged in a flux storm. I see pristine wilderness and prosperous communities. My heart soars at the beauty.
Cities rise and spread. Civilization flourishes. Mehkans prosper in perpetual peace. Eons rush by in a magnificent blur. Mountains, rivers, the landscape itself, they change shape as I race through a thousand—no, ten thousand years.
And as I plunge back through time, I see that all was just. All was harmony. Before the Foundry, Mehk was everything the Ona promised.
Free of hatred and war and violence. Everyone interlocking.
I see a world following the Way. Living in peace.
I pick up speed. Hurtling faster. Time passes in a blink. But I want to remain in this joy. I want this to last. I want to believe all of this is possible.
Another vision flies toward me. It’s Ahm’ral once more, but this time it is only just being built. Something has changed. Barbed-wire lashes snap at columns of starved-looking mehkans hauling huge green blocks of ore. Slaves building the holy city.
Another impression. A huge army of mehkans on the march, dynamos emblazoned on their chests. They drag prisoners across the ground and kick them, beat them.
A new scene consumes my vision. I’m falling through the sky like a comet, plunging toward something with deadly fiery force. It’s a sprawling city on the coast. There are hundreds of thousands of mehkans down there. They look up at me as I come to take their lives. Their structures start to melt before I even hit. Ore liquefies as I smash down. Rises around me in great white waves. I know what this is.
Bhorquvaat.
Images assault me now. I see the Ona—molting, then reborn, then molting again—preaching fear to all, fear of me. I see the Waybound army razing towns, entire cities. I see axials commanding the torture of those who refuse the Way. I smite the idols of ancient deities, level their offending shrines. Mehkans die by the scores, nonbelievers subjugated and slaughtered. All in my name.
I wish I could close my eyes to this nightmare.
Now I’m back in my home beyond the Shroud.
No, this is Rust Risen. I massacre the Uaxtu in front of their kin. Elaborate temples crumble beneath my feet. The Ona watches as I incinerate pools that teem with gear-shaped lily pads and black puffball blooms. The seeds of the Uaxtu, destroyed by me and my prophet. These mehkans are a threat, but not because they are evil or corrupt.
Because living beyond the Shroud and evading death exposes the Way as myth.
The uncontrollable speed, these visions—it’s too much.
Feels like my head is going to pop.
The clouds are a blur as I tumble helplessly through them. Another memory unfolds. I am in the darkness again, and the Ona beckons me forth. Her Bearing is gone, and the Occulyth covers her mouth. I feel a cold, oppressive weight squeezing. I recognize this sensation—I am crossing the membrane between worlds. But when I emerge, I do not see red mesas around me or the pipework trees of the Chokarai. I am deep in the Coiling Furrows, in the very same place where Emberhome will be built.
Another membrane? It can’t be. But that means that there’s—
Another world.
Neither human nor mehkan.
A new scene unfolds before me. A world made of…light.
That’s the only way I can describe it. Light
made solid, grown into hills and plains and rivers. The landscape around me shifts with life. I sense different densities and colors…Colors I’ve never seen before, never even imagined. I cannot comprehend this place. It’s so strange, so beautiful. And yet familiar.
Because this is Makina’s true home.
A pressure in my head. Pain. Searing. Not my head—Makina’s. Something is moving. A blurry figure resolves before me. Or is she inside of me? It’s the Ona.
She’s doing something to my mind.
I’m thrust into another memory, still in this world of light. I see the Ona again, but she is weak. I am caring for her. Nurturing her. She needs me. But the Ona is distracted, studying something in the luminous distance. Beings of bluish-gold light, graceful, floating. I help the Ona to drink from an incandescent white stream, like liquid pearls. It rejuvenates her. It looks just like her glowing blood.
I feel like the truth is almost within my grasp.
I’m falling too fast now.
I feel hot and fragmented, like I’m breaking apart.
I plunge into another memory. I wander the rolling hills of light, roaming across prismatic plains. There is a smudge on the horizon. I part-fly—part-swim toward it. It’s the Ona, climbing out of a crevasse. In the memory, I know this is the first time she has appeared here. She is broken, near death. I must help her.
She’s battered and bloody—her blood is dark mehkan ichor.
The scene shatters. I plunge into another. Can barely see it.
I am communing with other figures of formless cloud and light, pink like jellyfish, very gentle. They are tending to a rowdy herd—the same bluish-gold creatures that the Ona was observing. The pink beings implant glowing nodes into the heads of each creature within the herd, and then place a white object over their own shapeless mouths. Instantly, I see the unruly herd become docile and obey their shepherds.
I know this thing, bright upon their faces. The white star.
My thoughts are wildfire.
The image blurs and flares. I am the speed of light. The fractured memory is barely coherent. I feel the presence of others. Turn to look. There are figures coming to join me. Six, seven, eight of them, with a handful of young ones as well.
