Terra Nova

by Shane Arbuthnott

  Van Orden stared at her with fire in his eyes. He looked for the syringe and saw its pieces on the floor. He turned back to her and took a deep breath through his nose.

  “I warned you,” he hissed. “Lock her in her room. Full restraints.”

  “Hey!” she shouted, and now she did fight. “Hey, no, wait!” But the orderlies were too strong for her. By the time they had dragged her into her room, she had stopped struggling, and she let them hoist her onto her bed. They strapped her down tightly, and Molly held as still as she could, praying they wouldn’t notice how loose the bed frame was.

  “How long am I going to be stuck like this?” she asked.

  “Maybe we’ll let you out tomorrow,” one of them said, and they walked away.

  “What?” Molly called after them. “Tomorrow? But it’s still morning!” She heard the door click shut, and she dropped her head back down to the bed, groaning. The frame rattled underneath her.

  It’s okay, Molly. You can do this. She stared up at the spirit in the lamp and took a deep breath. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’m okay. Everything will be okay.”

  No one came for a long time. Eventually she drifted off to sleep, only to be woken again by pangs of thirst. Still no one came. She lay still for hours, feeling her stomach knotting up, until finally the unmistakable sound of footsteps just outside her door roused her from her reverie. The key turned in her lock, and her door opened.

  “I understand there was an incident this morning,” Arkwright said, coming to her bedside with his bag. She felt its weight settle onto her legs as she closed her eyes and swallowed. Please let this work.

  “I can’t say that I am surprised,” Arkwright went on. “You are stubborn, as I have learned all too well.”

  Molly laughed despite herself. “I’m not the one who enslaved innocent spirits just to keep myself alive.”

  “Is that what you think I’ve done?” The machine was out now, and she heard the terrible ratcheting as he prepared it. She could see his arms trembling with effort, but his voice was as calm and uninflected as ever. “I suppose I should not expect better. After all, Haviland never saw the danger either. But at least he knew enough to seek some benefit for his fellow humans. You, it would seem, would rather allow the spirits to run rampant over humanity.”

  He reached back into his bag and pulled out the key for her harness. “But this is not why I am here. I do not expect to sway you, Molly. People like you are rarely concerned with reason or debate, and I certainly have nothing to gain by discussing such things with you. So let us dispense with that. Now that you have been through the process once, it should take but a moment to complete.”

  He unlocked her harness and put the key away in his bag. His weak hands struggled to bend the shoulder bars back.

  Now. Do it now, Molly thought as the iron slowly lifted off her chest. She closed her eyes and thought of people she’d left behind. Her sister, hammering at the Gloria Mundi’s engine. Meredith, falling from the sky. The child from the factory, terror in his eyes.

  She felt a crackling starting at her shoulders, but it died as Arkwright put the machine down on her chest. “I don’t know why you insist on struggling,” Arkwright said softly. He wrapped his fingers around the handles of the machine.

  Toves. She thought of Toves, brash and powerful, coming to her for help in that alley. The tunnel rat tearing into him, his stones crumbling to dust. Toves, who’d only wanted to go home.

  What was the last thing he said to me? She couldn’t remember. They’d been in the dark, and she’d been talking about almost getting him home.

  Sure. Rub it in. That was it. A thin joke over a deep well of pain. He knew he was dying when he said that.

  Her back arched, and the lightning came.

  It blinded her and made every muscle in her body spasm. The bed frame came apart as she shook, and her upper body tumbled down while her legs stayed strapped to the lower half of the bed. Arkwright’s machine scraped across her cheek and fell past her head. She thought she heard Arkwright fall too, but the ringing in her ears made it hard to tell.

  Enough, she told herself. Enough. Have to stop now. But the lightning continued, making her jaw seize so tight that she feared her teeth might crack. There was darkness swimming across her vision. No! If you can’t stop, more people will suffer. Finally the electricity faded, and her muscles relaxed.

  When she could open her eyes there were only a few traces of lightning running across her skin. When those too faded, she was in darkness. The lights were out, both in her room and in the hallway. She looked up at the lamp in the ceiling and thought she could make out a faint glow, but it might have just been the stars that still dotted her vision.

  She raised her arms. Pieces of the bed frame were strapped to them, but they hung loose now, letting her arms move freely. She undid the restraints on her arms and struggled to sit up and reach the restraints on her legs. Her hands—her entire body—would not stop shaking, but she managed to dig out the buckles on the leather straps and then fell to the floor. She eased herself out of her unlocked harness.

  She crawled over to the lump that lay beside her bed. It was Arkwright. Still breathing, but unmoving. She could see blisters on his skin where the lightning had burned him, just as it had burned her. For a moment she wanted to hit him, unconscious or not, but instead she rose and kicked his machine across the room, hearing it smash against the wall, parts scattering across the floor. She didn’t waste any more time on it but went to Arkwright’s bag on the far side of her bed and dug around in the darkness. Her hand closed on the heavy iron key.

  She looked up at the lamp again. “Thank you,” she said to it. “That was perfect. Now, we won’t have long. Remember what—”

  She didn’t have time to remind the spirit of their plan. There were footsteps in the hall, and seconds later her door burst open. In the darkness she could just make out the orderlies rushing in. She closed her eyes tight and turned her face to the floor.

  The lamp flashed, so bright that it was almost blinding even with her eyes closed. She heard shouts and someone fell to the floor. She blinked several times, until she could see their vague outlines, and jumped to the nearest orderly. As Theresa had promised, there was a truncheon clutched in his hand, and she snatched it away while he was still blinded. She ran back to the center of the room.

  When she stretched, she could just slide the tip of the truncheon between the bars of the cage. She slotted it in, gripped it with both hands and jumped as hard as she could. She heard a crunch as the iron-laced glass gave way. She dropped the truncheon and heard it clatter on the ground.

  A small flickering light flew out of the wreckage of the lamp to hover just above her head. Several wings fluttered along its back, and its orange glow illuminated the room.

  “Thank you,” Molly said. “Go now—get out.”

  In the spirit’s light, Molly could see the orderlies gathering themselves. Two of them were still rubbing their eyes, but three were getting to their feet, standing between her and the door. Molly searched for her dropped truncheon and lifted it just as one of them rushed at her.

  Before he reached her, the small igneous spirit streaked across his chest. His shirt caught fire. The spirit whirled between the orderlies, setting them all ablaze before zipping away down the hallway. While they batted at their flaming clothes, Molly forced herself between them and ran into the hallway.

  She hurried down the hall, pausing at each lamp to crack it open. The freed spirits filled the space with flickering, shifting light that disoriented her, but she kept her eyes firmly on the ceiling above her, on the next spirit waiting to be freed. More orderlies ran into the hallway, but they shied away from the igneous spirits that zipped through the air. They don’t have iron weapons, Molly thought. They didn’t consider the lamps a threat.

  After she’d finished in the hall she broke open the lamps in the common room. By the time she was done, the spirits had melted a hole in the window and we
re flying out through it. Molly doubled back.

  Most of the spirits had cleared out, but there were still several in the hall, flashing with fire and darting at the orderlies like angry will-o’-the-wisps. Molly thanked them silently and ran to Wîskacân’s door. It was locked.

  Damn it! Should have grabbed a key from one of those orderlies. She looked through the window and saw Wîskacân staring at her from his bed. He sat up shakily. Molly tried kicking the door, but it barely moved.

  She held the key up in her hand and he stood, almost falling in his haste. He looked unsteady, but he pushed himself along the bed toward the door as Molly kicked it again and again. The doorframe was iron-rimmed. The spirits wouldn’t be able to help her here.

  Wîskacân had reached the window. He pressed his palm against it and closed his eyes. A red light flared in his palm, and smoke began to rise from the glass. His jaw tightened as the red light grew, and the surface of the window blackened. He stumbled and cried out. Even on his knees he kept his hand on the glass, the light burning bright, until the harness overwhelmed him and bore him down to the floor.

  But the center of the window was warped and charred now, burned halfway through. Molly wound up and swung the truncheon as hard as she could.

  The sound of the glass shattering was deafening. It rained down on both sides of the window, covering Molly and Wîskacân in glittering shards. Molly shook herself to clear them, and looked down the hall. Theresa was standing at one of the windows, just a few feet away. She gestured impatiently and mouthed one word: Go.

  Molly leapt through the broken window and landed next to Wîskacân. She crouched down and pressed the key into the lock on his chest. The lock resisted for a moment and then opened, the shoulder bars coming loose.

  Wîskacân heaved them up and forced himself to his feet, stepping out of the harness. He stumbled against the bed and cried out, but the cry turned almost instantly to laughter. He stood and smiled at Molly. “Now we go.”

  Out in the hall there was a bang and a squeal. She turned to see the remaining igneous spirits rushing through the air toward the common room. One collided with the frame of the window and fluttered into the room with them.

  Molly ran to the window. Down the hall there were two men wearing dark goggles, with silver swords on their shirts. Disposal. How did they get here so fast? They held anti-spirit guns, and both men fired clouds of iron filings into the air. One of the igneous spirits was caught in the blast and flickered out like a snuffed flame. The others sped on.

  Molly turned back to Wîskacân. He stood in the center of the room, arms wide. He was singing something under his breath, a song that pounded like a heartbeat, in a language she didn’t understand. His hands traced a circle in the air, leaving a line of fire behind them. When the circle was complete he put both hands in the middle and pushed. The air inside the circle seemed to warp and shimmer, and then a dark hole opened. A wave of heat hit her.

  She heard the guns go off again, just behind her. The Disposal agents were outside the window, the igneous spirits scattering ahead of them.

  “Whatever help you’re hoping to call through that font, I hope it—” She stopped when she saw what Wîskacân was doing. He stood with one leg in the font, beckoning to her.

  “What? You want me to go through?”

  “Come. Now!” he said.

  She heard the crunch of broken glass behind her, and a Disposal agent grabbed her arm. She swung at him with the truncheon, and he let her go. Molly turned back to Wîskacân.

  No choice, she thought, and she ran and dove through the font.

  ELEVEN

  She landed flat on her stomach on something soft and yielding. It felt almost like grass. She blinked hard, but her eyes wouldn’t focus, and she closed them. She gripped the small grassy fronds with her fingers.

  The fronds gripped her fingers back.

  She leapt up, brushing at her face. Her eyes finally focused. She was standing on a hill covered in vivid orange blades of grass that probed at her bare feet like curious fingers. She lifted one foot uneasily, but the stuff didn’t seem to be doing her any harm. She put her foot back down slowly.

  With a snap the font closed behind her. She turned. There was a faint circle of flame in the air, but it guttered out quickly. And beyond it…

  She was looking at a sky so full of stars that it was more white than black, and just above the horizon was the moon. She fell to her knees, head spinning.

  The moon had wings.

  At first she wasn’t sure they were moving. But as she stared, unable to look away, the wings reached their zenith and began to flex downward, vast feathers spreading as they caught the air—or whatever was there for its wings to catch. The wings beat slowly—so slowly that after several minutes of her gaping up at them, they had barely begun their descent.

  I’m in the spirit world. I went through a font, and I’m in the spirit world.

  She realized she was gasping as if she had been running—or as if she was at high altitude without enough oxygen. The air in her lungs felt thick and heavy, yet even deep breaths left her feeling winded.

  Wîskacân was standing a few yards away. He looked different here though. There was a reddish glow to him, as if a bed of embers sat just below his skin. His fingers crackled with a white flame. He stood there, breathing deep, eyes closed. His stooped shoulders slowly lifted, and his head came up. He seemed to have grown a foot taller.

  He turned and looked at her with eyes that flickered with fire. He spoke, but the sounds warped and shifted, and she couldn’t understand.

  “I don’t…” The heavy air in her lungs wouldn’t cooperate, wouldn’t let her form words. She hung her head and tried to breathe, but each breath left her feeling emptier. She felt Wîskacân’s hand on her shoulder, and he was trying to help her stand. Her vision was beginning to spin. “Can’t… breathe…” she huffed. “I need…”

  Instinctively she reached out for air, for wind, and heard a whistling on the other side of the hill. Wîskacân gripped her shoulders hard and shouted something in her ear. “What? I can’t hear.”

  Behind him, a glimmering river of wind rolled over the hill. It was huge, like one of the jet streams that crossed the upper atmosphere but flowing with dark purples and fire reds. The wind roared down on them like a tidal wave, and Molly tried to push it back, but it was past her control now, hurrying to meet her call for air.

  It struck them both and sent them spinning. Wîskacân tumbled away, disappearing below as the wind bore Molly up, up, up, until she thought she might be lost in the sea of stars. It gathered around her, tangling her in its streams, spinning her head over feet across the orange hills.

  She gripped at it, found solid purchase in the winds and finally stopped spinning. Stop! she tried to command it, but it would not stop. Wait! Slow down. Please.

  At last it seemed to hear her, and the river of wind eased, dipping back down to the ground. When she was close enough, she released her grip on the winds and fell out of the river, tumbling down onto the orange fields. She lay there, holding herself as still as she could for fear that she might call the monstrous wind again, and watched the last streams of light flow away past the horizon.

  She stood on shaking legs and looked around. Wîskacân was nowhere in sight. She tried to find the hill they had arrived on, but she couldn’t pick it out among the rolling orange grasses.

  I did that. I called that down on us. Where is Wîskacân?

  She picked a direction and started running, scanning the ground ahead of her, but she saw no one. Her lungs burned. What did I do? What if he’s hurt?

  She tried to run harder, but she didn’t have the breath. She climbed to the top of one of the hills and stared around. To her left there were tall trees clad in blue leaves that seemed to sway without wind. To the right there were only more orange fields. And between her and the horizon there was nothing, no one.

  I did it again, she thought. I tried to help him escape, and n
ow—

  There was a boom in the sky above her, so loud it hurt. She looked up to see storm clouds blooming out of nothing, spreading across the sky. Lightning raced along the bottom of the clouds.

  Oh no.

  The first lightning strike hit her straight in the chest, and she fell, every muscle in her body rebelling. I didn’t mean to do this. I didn’t want this.

  The lightning was striking all around her now, so fast that the cracks of lightning bolts sounded like rain. Fires started in the orange grass, and the fronds waved frantically. More lightning hit her, and her thoughts began to spin. She felt like she was on fire, the pain unendurable, and then she was beyond pain, dizzy with shock. The lightning kept coming, the world around her growing darker with each strike. I think I’m dying.

  Legerdemain, she thought. Da. I’m sorry.

  Her head lolled to the side, and she saw something in the distance. It looked like a person, but it held its hands up and caught the lightning when it fell. It came closer and closer, blue bolts crackling all around it.

  Wîskacân? As the shape approached, it looked more and more familiar. The long limbs, the dark hair, the broad shoulders, the eyes glimmering with embers. No, no, get away, I don’t want to hurt you again. She opened her mouth to call, but another lightning strike made the muscles of her jaw seize. Another bolt struck her, and another, but then Wîskacân was at her side, his hands held above her to catch the lightning before it struck. She watched the sparks exploding between his fingers until her vision began to swim, and she passed out.

  Molly woke to the sound of water splashing. She opened her eyes—and immediately regretted it. Even her eyelids hurt. She tried to lift her arm, but the pain was too much.

  She heard footsteps, and Wîskacân stepped into view, looking down at her with his dark eyes. He was holding some kind of leather bag in his hand, and he knelt down and put it to her lips. Water poured into her mouth. She swallowed it greedily and tried to follow the bag when he lifted it away.