by Jacob Holo
Shoko rolled her eyes. “What, do you think I’m stupid?”
“No, I…”
Shoko ran off, joining Rüdiger and Melanie near one of the hospital pillars.
“Was it something I said?” Daniel asked.
“It normally is,” Nicole said.
“Now, come on. That’s not fair.”
“Just kidding, you big dummy,” Nicole said.
Daniel leaned against the statue next to her.
“So, Daniel.”
“Hmm?”
“Were you serious back there?”
“About what?”
“Their idea to use the original borehole.”
“Oh, that piece of garbage,” Daniel said. “I don’t know. I’m guessing they got this crazy idea stuck in their heads and they probably tried to recruit you. Right?”
“Yeah, they did.”
“See, that’s just stupid and irresponsible and unfair to you. Those idiots should know better.”
“Do you really think their idea doesn’t have a chance?” Nicole asked.
“It would be a long shot, that’s for sure.”
“You don’t sound totally against it,” Nicole said.
“Look, it doesn’t matter. No one opens the borehole. That’s just the way it is. This is not Lord of the Flies. Even if our backs are to the wall, we still have laws. We do not go behind everyone’s backs and do something that risks the whole city.”
“So you’d ignore what might be our last chance at winning because… what? Because it’s against the law? Because you’ve been told you can’t?”
“Is that what you think of me?” Daniel asked. “Do you think I’m some automaton that only does what he’s told?”
“I didn’t mean it like that. But has Viktor come up with any ideas?”
“He’ll come up with something.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“Anyway, I think the others are finished sweeping the area. Let’s head back home and try to get some sleep.”
“I’m not going,” Nicole said. “I’m staying right here.”
“I…” Daniel looked like he was about to protest. He glanced at Amy, then at Nicole. “I understand. I’ll bring your food over, okay?”
“Thanks, Daniel.”
“I’ll be right back.”
Nicole knelt next to Amy and watched Daniel leave.
“Well, sis. This is looking pretty bad. What do you think?”
Amy breathed in and out. Her chest rose and fell rhythmically.
“Yeah, I don’t have any ideas either.”
A few minutes later, Daniel returned with her food. He sat next to her, and they both picked at their meals.
Some of the resetters gave them curious looks, but no one tried to make them leave. Nicole put her head against the statue’s foot. The cool stone felt good against her skin. She closed her eyes and tried to get at least some sleep.
“You think we’re going to make it out of this?” she asked Daniel.
“I wish I knew.”
“Maybe the Mantis has the answer.”
“What?”
“Maybe my connection to it will tell me something. Just a thought. Good night, Daniel.”
Chapter 16
Mantis Mind
Nicole “awoke” in the ruins of the hospital. She opened her eyes and sat up.
The hospital was nothing more than four broken pillars around a toppled statue. Beyond it, only a few sections of the Greek Wall remained. Every nearby building had been toppled or crushed. Sentinels and creepers stalked the streets, roaring and hissing every time they found another lone tau guard. Near the inner wall, a juggernaut trampled a small pocket of resistance. Blood-curdling screams filled the air.
Nicole slipped across the rubble and crouched against what was left of a hospital pillar.
So is this what the Mantis dreams of? she thought. On the edge of her mind, she sensed a strange alien hunger. She closed her eyes, trying to feel where the sensation came from.
There!
Nicole opened her eyes to an intact section of the Greek Wall. The Mantis stood atop it, surveying the blasted city with corpses piled high beneath its bladed legs.
A conquering general, Nicole thought. She took a deep, stuttering breath. Well, not today, Mantis. Today we see who wakes first.
Nicole sneaked a look around the pillar and spotted a sentinel slithering down the street, its hundreds of legs click-clacking against the stone.
Nicole crouched behind the pillar and listened. She put a hand to her rapidly beating chest and took a deep breath. The sentinel let out a low, satisfied rumble and moved on. She heard no other reavers nearby.
Nicole took another look beyond the hospital ruins and spotted a fallen column against a collapsed house. It took her towards the Mantis. She checked both directions. Satisfied the way was clear, she sprinted towards the column. When she reached it, she ducked down and put her back to the column’s base.
A woman screamed in the distance. A juggernaut roared, and the scream cut off. Distantly, Nicole felt a surge of pleasure at the sound.
“Oh, you’re a sick one, Mantis,” Nicole muttered, creeping along the toppled column. She sighted a modern brick wall that might have been part of a storehouse.
Nicole checked her surrounded, rose into a crouching run, and sprinted towards the brick wall.
Again? Find the corpse-eater!
Nicole hit the wall with her back and sank low. She could still see the standing section of the Greek Wall. The Mantis swiveled its head back and forth.
“Yeah, you come and get me,” she whispered.
A sentinel roared in the distance, too far away to have found her. Nicole noticed a smashed-in section of the outer wall. The mound of debris had thick columns sticking out at odd angles. The pile’s slanted sides could serve as an uneven ramp to the Mantis’ perch.
Nicole dashed towards the debris pile. When she reached it, she crouched low and kept walking. She wiped her sweating hands on her jeans.
Locate and eliminate!
“Haven’t found me, have you?” Nicole whispered, crouch-walking forward. She rounded the debris pile. The black sandy plains lay to one side, ruined city to the other. The ghostly specter of Ludwigsburg Castle floated over the plains. The mouth of the new borehole filled the sky. Most importantly, the Mantis stood atop the broken wall, staring the wrong way.
Nicole reached towards the debris pile and felt the fluted surface of a column under her palm. With a grunt, she lifted the thick disc of solid marble into the air. Its weight pressed down on her, but she held it aloft.
The Mantis turned. It locked onto her with eight ruby eyes.
A sentinel reaver roared behind her, crashing through a stone wall in the city. Nicole launched the marble disc. Its edge punched through the sentinel’s body and blasted out the other side. The sentinel collapsed to the ground, fire and hissing fluid gurgling out of its wide mouth. It dragged itself closer.
Nicole reached to either side of the sentinel, grabbed whatever she could, and crossed her arms. Speeding marble pebbles struck the sentinel’s head like a barrage of high caliber bullets, shredding it into gooey pulp.
Nicole grabbed another column disc, turned, and threw it at the Mantis.
The disc struck below the Mantis, cracking the wall. The creature did not move.
Converge and eliminate!
Two sentinels raised their heads within the city. A third exited a tau tunnel in the plains. They roared and charged towards her.
“Come down here and fight me!” Nicole shouted. “Or are you afraid of me?”
The three sentinels stopped. They rose into upright S’s several stories tall and watched her.
I fear no human!
The Mantis leaped down and landed heavily in front of her, scythe-arms to its side. It rose to its full height, towering over her. Nicole backed away. She grabbed another column disc, lifted it with a grunt of effort and threw it. The Mantis moved almost
as fast as Daniel, dodging in a silvery blur. The disc shot past it.
The Mantis kept its distance and stroked its two scythes together as if sharpening them.
You know what I plan. You have seen the borehole. But you cannot stop me. Your world will end.
“Oh, yeah?” Nicole shouted. She pulled out a knife from within her hoodie and flung it at the reaver. The blade broke the speed of sound with a clap. It struck the Mantis in its chest and blasted out its back. The Mantis staggered, clutching the wound with its lower arms. Thick pus drained out.
You understand nothing.
Nicole lifted another column fragment, her mind burning with pain. She shouted and hurled the heavy stone at the Mantis. It struck the Mantis in its head, smashed it in, and punched through its entire body.
“What’s there to understand?” Nicole shouted, panting.
The dream did not end.
Nicole looked around, momentary elation turning to dread. How could the dream not end?
You are powerful, but unskilled.
Nicole turned in circles. The sentinels held their positions. The Mantis lay splattered in pieces. She took a deep breath and tried to figure out what had gone wrong with her plan.
My mind. My rules.
A reaver exhaled. Nicole felt heat on the back of her neck. She spun around.
The Mantis stood over her, a scythe-arm rising swiftly. It pierced through her stomach, lifting her into the air. She screamed, her mind swimming with pain. The Mantis looked into her eyes, lenses narrowing as it appraised her. She vomited blood.
You are such disgusting creatures. But you have your uses.
The Mantis sliced off her head, sending it spiraling upward. The world spun around her and turned black.
* * *
Nicole awoke curled in a fetal position next to Amy’s bed. Daniel was already gone. She touched her neck and found moist patches of blood from fresh cuts around her throat. She wept softly.
“Just a dream. Just a dream,” she whispered, eyes shut tight. Explosions boomed in the distance. A sentinel roared. More explosions shook dust from the walls, and the reaver went silent.
Nicole sat up. She brushed the strands of hair off Amy’s face and rubbed the back of her hand against her sister’s forehead.
“I wish I could talk to you, sis,” Nicole whispered. “I could really use some advice right now.”
Nicole left the hospital and walked down a random street, alone with her thoughts. She wasn’t sure how long she walked under the glowing lampposts. When the street ended, she turned and took another one.
Nicole’s mind buzzed with dark thoughts. She wondered about the fate of Chronopolis, of her new friends, and of her own survival. She wondered what would happen when the Mantis and its army completed the new borehole. What would become of her home? What would the reavers do once loosed upon an ignorant world?
Everyone and everything she had ever known would die. That was what.
The din of battle continued from the wall. At no time was she really lost. It was hard to lose her bearings in the city. She could always follow the flashes of light to the Greek Wall, follow them back to the brave men and women fighting and dying for… for what? A lost cause?
Nicole wiped her eyes. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been crying. She rubbed her face again, a sense of clarity forming in her mind. She knew what she had to do, what she had to try. She only needed the courage to see it through.
If there is a way, Nicole thought. If there is even the slightest hope of victory, then we must try. We have to. Even if I somehow survive this, what difference does it make if reavers destroy the world I knew? Would I want to live in such a world, knowing that I might have prevented the deaths of so many?
Nicole found her thoughts falling on Amy and even their parents. Images of reavers cutting them down in their sleep flickered through her mind. She clenched her eyes and gritted her teeth, trying to banish the gory visions.
I cannot sit by and do nothing! I refuse to do nothing! Even if it’s suicide, I have to try!
Nicole opened her eyes and looked up. The Greek Wall stood before her.
The sun peeked over the horizon, casting long shadows behind the wall. Nicole spotted Rüdiger and the others near the main gate. Daniel wasn’t anywhere in sight. She found a staircase and walked up to meet them.
“How is everything?” Nicole asked, sliding in between Rüdiger and Shoko.
“Quiet for the moment,” Rüdiger said. “The reavers have been probing the wall all morning, but I’m not sure what that means. We might see an all out attack any second or we might not see an attack all day.”
“I’ve given some thought to your idea.”
“Oh?”
“We can’t do any good here,” Nicole whispered. “The outer wall will hold or fall no matter what we do. Is there anyone else we can go to for help?”
“No one I’d feel safe asking,” Rüdiger said. “It’s bad enough that Daniel knows.”
“Then we do it alone.”
“You’re serious.”
“Very. Surprised?”
“To be honest, yes,” Rüdiger said. “Naturally, I’d hoped you would agree, but I didn’t think it likely.”
“When do we leave?”
“I need to prepare the flyer,” Shoko said. “If I start now, I can have it ready in two hours.”
“Every minute is important,” Nicole said.
“It can’t be helped,” Shoko said. “Fueling the flyer with that much reaver blood takes time, and I don’t want to rouse suspicions.”
“The thing runs on reaver blood?”
“Most First and Second Founding machines do,” Shoko said.
“You know the wide road behind the main gate?” Rüdiger said.
“Yeah?”
“Follow it all the way back. It’ll take you to a gate in the Egyptian Wall. We should leave one at a time to avoid arousing suspicion. I’ll make sure Melanie knows, too.”
Nicole nodded.
“And under no conditions should you tell Daniel what we’re doing,” Rüdiger said. “He’s too close to Viktor. We can’t trust him.”
“Yeah, I think that’s obvious from yesterday,” Nicole said. “Sorry about blabbing in front of him.”
“That’s all right. No harm has come of it.”
“Here they come!” Shoko shouted, pulling a throwing star out of her belt.
Reavers flooded out of the five closest tau tunnels in a wave of roaring, giant centipedes. Fire spun around Rüdiger, collecting between his hands. From the base of the wall, Nicole lifted the head of a broken statue. She held it high in the air.
“Is this all they’ve got?” Nicole asked. “Five or six sentinels? We can take them easy.”
“This won’t be all they send,” Rüdiger said. He loosed a fireball into the advancing reaver lines. Nicole threw the stone head, which banged like a warship’s cannon when it broke the sound barrier. It joined an airborne wave of fireballs, crossbow bolts, concussion bombs, and freeze shots. The firepower slammed into the reaver lines, blasting two sentinels to pieces and scattering whole formations of drones and creepers. The survivors charged through. Tau guards along the wall drew their swords.
A juggernaut exited the tunnels, trumpeting with rage. It charged forward, following the first wave straight towards the main gate.
“Now it gets interesting!” Rüdiger shouted.
Chapter 17
The Original Borehole
Shoko left the wall first. Rüdiger slipped away one hour later, according to a nearby sun dial on the wall. A sun dial!
Nicole was the last to leave the wall. She checked the people around her. Most of them seemed oblivious to her presence. When she was sure no one like Viktor or Daniel was in sight, she took the stairs down and started jogging along the main road.
The road weaved its way to the Egyptian Wall through outer city districts in various states of repair. She passed the triple-decker Parthenon along the way. Some
one had erected a large black sign with red text near an archway at its base. Nicole glanced down until she found English words that read: PANDEMONIUM COLLEGE. It was one of the few outer city buildings that looked completely intact.
Nicole kept going past the college and eventually reached the Egyptian Wall. From the bottom, the wall looked like a sheer cliff of sandstone, though Nicole doubted sandstone was the actual building material. It had to be ten stories high, taller than anything in the outer city besides the college.
Rüdiger, Melanie, and Shoko waited near a small rectangular archway at its base. Solid stone blocked the way inside.
“Ready?” Rüdiger asked.
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Nicole said.
Shoko placed her hand on a circular panel to the right of the archway. The blocking stone rose into the Egyptian Wall. The machinery inside the wall didn’t make a sound.
“This way,” Shoko said, walking in. Orbs along the ceiling cast a bluish light. Nicole crowded behind the others. Shoko had to open ten more doors before they exited into the city interior.
Nicole stepped out and looked around. “Let me guess. You call this the Egyptian City, right?”
“Or the second city,” Rüdiger said. “The borehole is under the dome in the city center.”
Nine obelisks formed a ring around the Egyptian city, though only three were intact. The others had toppled to the ground or lay across one of the three pyramids. Nicole thought the pyramids might be hollow on the inside because one had sunken in on itself. The other two pyramids looked amazingly well preserved. They had sleek limestone sides covered in red hieroglyphs instead of the weathered stone steps of the real pyramids. Mundane orthogonal buildings ringed each pyramid.
Shoko led them past the feet of a towering statue and along the base of one pyramid. Just beyond it, they entered a long rectangular building. Nicole walked in and gasped when she saw what was inside. She reached into her hoodie and pulled out a knife.
Rüdiger patted her shoulder. “Calm down. This reaver is dead.”
Nicole paused for a moment, her muscles tense and ready for battle. Not that she doubted Rüdiger. The sentinel reaver was obviously dead. It hung from the ceiling, its belly plating removed and in a pile to one side. All its legs had been severed and stacked next to the belly plates. Clear hoses dangled from its exposed internal organs. She could see yellow fluid gurgling through them.
