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For Jeff, wherever you are, you are missed.
CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
I. The Strange Lands
1. Rude Awakening
2. Red Flags
3. Crossroads
4. Ben
5. Lines
6. Turning Points
7. Time Shift
8. Compass
9. Laser Light
10. Solid
11. Mas’Erinhah
12. Ravan
13. Grindhouse
14. White Helix
15. Awakenings
16. Kenmore
17. You Are of Us
18. Reunions
19. Rifts
20. Chronograph
21. Fallout
22. The Underneath
23. Amplifier
24. Half-Formed Images
25. Lightning
26. Polestar
27. Luck
28. Sacrosanct
29. Nothing Stays the Same
30. The Fall
II. The Severed Tower
31. Constellations
32. Ai-Katana
33. Ambassador
34. New Friends
35. Sanctum
36. Gideon
37. Paper Dragon
38. Shift
39. What We Think
40. Vortex
41. Grow Stronger
42. Remainders
43. Balance
44. Sunlight
45. Everything
46. Repercussions
47. Citadel
Stay Tuned
Also by J. Barton Mitchell
About the Author
Copyright
Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt.
—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
PROLOGUE
SHE CROUCHED ON TOP of what was left of the old granary, staring at the strange contradictions of the landscape, everything dark and light at the same time.
The sky was full of thick storm clouds, but it would have been dark without them. This far in, what Freebooters called the Core, midafternoon looked like night, and the only illumination was a sickly shade of yellow that came from the strangely wavering, prismatic sky.
Lightning flashed from the clouds. Bright streaks of red, blue, or green, and whenever it struck, there was a flash of color. Shards of glowing crystals erupted from the ground and froze in place, and the earth was covered with their remnants, a maze of jagged, sharp walls that glowed in various colors.
They filled the remains of what was once a small rural town below, consuming the streets and roads that once ran through its center. The old buildings had fallen in on themselves for the most part, or had been blown to bits by the lightning strikes, but she could see it had been a nice place once. Quaint and quiet.
It was neither of those things now.
More lightning, red this time, illuminated a figure next to her. He was dressed in the same style of black-and-gray. Rugged-looking pants, light boots, tucked-in shirt, a vest with pockets, utility belts crisscrossing his torso. Around both their necks hung woven cloths that could be lifted up to cover nose and mouth. Also on their necks were identical pendants. Two strands of white metallic cord wrapping around each other, with bars in between them, making small spirals—or a double “helix.”
On their left hands, each finger wore a ring made of glowing crystal, exactly like the ones that filled the ground, and strapped to their backs were strange weapons. Long, double-tipped spears, almost as tall as the figures themselves, with a glowing crystal at either end, only these had been polished and shaped into razor-sharp spear points and set into rounded, brass casings that snapped into the shaft. Clearly, it was a double-pronged striking weapon, but looking closer revealed other aspects. The base was rounded into mirrored hand grips on each side, with separate gun triggers, as if the weapon could fire the crystal points from either orientation. It was a strange weapon. Ornate and well crafted, elegant even, but dangerous, too.
The man was Asian, older, probably past sixty years old. His eyes, while clear and free of the Tone, were strange. Something was off about them. They were unfocused and clouded white, and never seemed to look anywhere in particular; but there were volumes of wisdom and experience in their depths.
Next to him, the girl was much younger, sixteen or so. Black, somewhat small, but clearly agile and quick, her unkempt hair tied behind her head without any thought to appearance. Her eyes were clear of the Tone as well, but, unlike the old man, she wasn’t blind, and she wore one thing he didn’t—a pair of pure black goggles on her forehead that could be dropped over her eyes, though it seemed unlikely she could see with them on. Wearing them, she would be just as sightless as the old man.
He stared blindly toward the north. The storm clouds and the darkness obscured the horizon, but, for him, it made no difference. He could see neither.
“What are we doing here?” she asked. “I thought the point was to attack Polestar.”
“Why are you always so eager for violence?” The old man’s dead gaze didn’t waver. His voice was quiet. As much as she loved him, Gideon had an annoying habit of answering questions with questions.
“I’m not interested in violence,” the girl said tightly. “Just action.”
“Change comes through patience as much as action,” he said. “Stand by the river long enough, and the bodies of your enemies will float past.”
“It’s no secret I’m not very good at patience, Master.”
Gideon smiled. “You are more your father than you care to admit.”
The girl felt an angry heat rise within her, but she said nothing. He was right, most likely. Gideon always seemed to be right—but that didn’t mean she had to like it.
More lightning flashed nearby, green this time, and strange thunder rolled around them like waves breaking on a beach. The girl rubbed the hair on her arms, flattening it where it stood up. The Charge felt different today. “Feels like another storm.”
The old man said nothing. He only nodded.
The girl studied the horizon, but all she could see was the current storm, its thick clouds surrounding them on all sides. The lightning flashed red and blue in the air. “Ion or Antimatter?”
“Neither.”
The girl looked at the old man oddly. What other kind of storms were there in the Strange Lands? “Should I pull my Arc back to Sanctum?”
The old man was silent a long time, staring at what lay hidden in the distance. “No,” he finally said. “This storm … we cannot weather. And it’s why I brought you here.”
He looked at her now, or at least as much as he could. Gideon’s stare always seemed to float just a few inches in the wrong direction. “I have two tasks for you, Avril,” he said. “One you will like, and one you will not.”
Far away, the storm swirled and parted like a giant curtain, allowing the horizon to burst into view. In the far distance, what was left of the broken buildings of a city rose into the sky, tiny slivers of brightness in all the black. Beyond them, distorted through a churning haze of fog or dust, was a massive shape that hovered over the ruins.
It looked like a giant keep or tower, yet, somehow, suspended in the air. She could
see where it was broken near the middle, the top half tearing away from the bottom, detached and falling, yet frozen in the sky. The sight chilled her the same as it always did; pure power and fate combined into one, but, still, she couldn’t look away from it. She was grateful when the clouds massed again and blocked the dark thing from view, wiping it away behind them as they bellowed inward.
In the air above her, the strange lightning flashed again, distorted thunder rolled. It sounded closer now. As though it was building.
PART ONE
THE STRANGE LANDS
1. RUDE AWAKENING
“MIRA…”
The voice was far away. A girl’s voice, she could tell. A little girl. And it sounded worried.
“Mira…”
She heard other things in her hazy delirium—dull, booming thumps that might have been explosions. Something shattering. And other sounds—strange, distorted and electronic, but familiar enough to stir fear in her.
“Mira!”
The cry yanked her painfully out of the dark. Light poured in as her eyes blinked open.
The sky was directly above. It was midafternoon, bright and sunny. Pieces of buildings and other things drifted past—windows, gutters, old billboards she couldn’t read, the top of a rusted school bus. It was as though she were floating underneath them all.
Then she figured it out. She was being carried. Through some kind of city ruins.
The world shifted again as someone set her down and rested her against something hard and rough. It felt like a wall, brick maybe.
More sensations came back. Pain in her head, a searing burn on her left leg, just above the knee. Her vision sharpened. Sounds took on clarity—and they were all terrifying.
An explosion flared up and rocked the ground from the other side of the wall. Yellow bolts of light sizzled through the air around her, ripping into other buildings she was just now noticing. A drugstore, a gas station, a post office, all of them crumbling and falling apart where they stood.
As Mira Toombs’s memory returned, she remembered where she was and why.
She’d stashed an emergency kit in these ruins years ago, inside an old school. Supplies for the Strange Lands, if she ever needed to go there on her own or in a hurry, and she’d convinced Holt and Zoey to help her find it before heading to the Crossroads.
The good news was that they’d found the pack. A black canvas bag with a strap that fit around her waist. It was still there, she could see the red δ symbol embroidered on its front flap. The bad news was that, right as she’d found it, they had shown up.
Assembly walkers. The frontline troops of the alien armada that had conquered the planet almost a decade ago, and who had been obsessively pursuing them for more than a month.
She hadn’t had time to see what kind or how many before the plasma bolts sent her to the floor and everything went dark, but judging by all the heated death flying through the air right now, there were a lot of them.
“Mira!” The voice was masculine this time. One she recognized and depended on. She felt hands on her, one of them turned her head to the left, and when it did Holt Hawkins came into view.
Mira smiled, still groggy. He looked the same as always.
His thick, wavy hair messed up and unkempt, but somehow still intentional in its look. Tall and well built, with brown eyes that never seemed anything but confident, no matter how crazy the world got. Even now, in the middle of this chaos, there was a calculated awareness of everything going on around them that somehow made her feel safe. He was one of the few that ever had.
“Mira! Can you hear me?” More plasma bolts flew by.
Mira made herself focus, quickly brushed the red hair out of her eyes. “How’d you get us out of there?”
“Wasn’t easy,” Holt replied. “You’re a lot heavier than Zoey.”
“Thanks a lot,” she said tartly.
“Mira!” It was the little girl’s voice from before. Mira felt tiny arms wrap around her from the other side, and she looked down.
Zoey’s head was buried under Mira’s arm, the little girl’s eyes peeking out through her blond hair. It always felt wrong seeing Zoey in a place like this, in the middle of something life threatening. A little girl, barely eight years old, didn’t belong here. Yet here she was.
Next to Zoey sat something else, its chin and paws across the little girl’s legs, its beady eyes staring right at Mira. She felt her usual loathing at the sight of it.
“You…” she said.
Max, Holt’s stinking cattle dog, growled back at her, but that was nothing new. The dog still saw her as Holt’s prisoner. But as long as Mira didn’t have to touch the thing, she was fine having it around. Holt had trained Max well, and he had his uses.
Zoey flinched as another explosion rocked the ground.
“We have to get out of here,” Holt said. “Can you move?”
“I think so.” She felt the wound on her leg and grimaced. It wasn’t bad, the plasma bolt had only singed her, but it stung nonetheless. “What are you thinking?”
“I have … kind of a plan.” He wasn’t entirely convincing. “We gotta find a residential neighborhood.”
The corner of the wall exploded in shards of plaster. There was a series of loud thuds on the roof above them, and Mira craned her neck to look up.
Staring down at them, a silhouette against the bright sky, was a powerful and terrifying machine. As she’d guessed, it was an Assembly walker—but of a type, up until a month ago, she’d never seen before.
Green and orange, like the ones that had chased them into the Drowning Plains; three legs, a tripod, lithe and agile—but it was different, too. It looked more heavily armed, with blocky equipment on its back. Also, it looked newer. Its armor and colors were unscratched.
LEDs flashed on its body, and its red, blue and green–triangular, three-optic “eye,” the same one all Assembly walkers had, whirred as it focused down on her.
Mira stared back at it, frozen in fear.
“Come on!” she heard Holt shout as he yanked them up.
A mass of metallic netting fired from the walker above and slammed into the ground, barely missing. It was clearly meant to snare them.
“At least they’re not trying to kill us,” Holt yelled—and then ducked as a stream of plasma bolts sparked into the ground all around him.
“You were saying?” Mira shouted back.
As they ran, strange noises filled the air. Trumpet-like sounds almost, but electronic and distorted. They seemed to echo from everywhere, answering each other back and forth.
Max raced past, charging after Holt as he dodged another blast of plasma.
“Mira!” Zoey shouted behind her. The little girl was falling behind, her little legs unable to keep up. Mira lifted Zoey onto her back and ran after Holt.
Holt headed for a row of crumbling houses nearby, but the walkers were everywhere. She could see them in the streets, leaping between old buildings or cars. They were surrounded.
As they ran, Mira saw Holt’s hand slip into his jacket pocket. A second later, a sphere of yellow energy crackled around him briefly, then disappeared.
Mira’s eyes widened. Had she just seen what she—
Mira ducked as plasma fire whizzed harmlessly by and sparked against what was left of a delivery van. They were out in the open, the walkers shouldn’t have missed. But somehow they had.
Mira kept running, following after Holt and Max.
Zoey screamed as a tripod leaped into view behind them and gave chase, its cannons beginning to hum; but before it could get close, an errant stream of plasma bolts slammed into it, sending it spinning and crashing to the ground in flaming debris, a victim of friendly fire.
Another improbability.
Mira kept running with Zoey, weaving in and out of old cars, headed for the houses just ahead. She caught Holt, and together they rounded the side of an old, badly leaning billboard—and came skidding to a jarring stop.
In front of them
stood another Hunter.
The thing sprung toward them … and the decrepit billboard chose that moment to come crashing down. Holt shoved Mira and Zoey out of the way as the structure collapsed in a shower of wood and steel, and buried the tripod where it stood.
When the dust cleared, Mira checked Zoey. She was fine. So were Holt and Max. Mira looked at Holt with suspicion.
“How are you—?” Mira began.
Holt grabbed Zoey before she could finish, pulling her onto his back as they all started running again. Another flash of color, orange, flared around him, and Mira’s heart sank as she saw it.
There was no denying it now. The colors. The improbable outcomes that kept saving them. The Chance Generator was in Holt’s pocket, and he was using it.
Ahead of them she saw what Holt was running for. The exterior garage of a ruined house; a small, barely standing building that still covered what remained of an old, rusting pickup truck.
Holt ran for it as fast as he could, carrying Zoey with him, and Mira followed. Max must have figured it out, too, because the dog dashed ahead and bounded into the back of the truck.
Mira felt the heat of plasma fire as she ducked inside the garage.
The truck was in bad shape, a hulking piece of metal with broken windows, but, miraculously, it had four working tires.
“Zoey, get inside,” Holt told the little girl as he sat her down. She climbed into the old truck, over to the passenger side.
“This is the plan?” Mira asked skeptically.
“If Zoey can get it running, yeah,” Holt replied. “Might outrun those walkers.”
“This thing couldn’t outrun a beached whale!” Mira yelled.
“Do you have a better idea?” he asked.
Mira frowned at him. She didn’t.
“You’re driving.” Holt headed for the truck’s rear.
Mira moved for the door, jumped inside. “And what are you going to do?”
“Whatever I can.” Holt jumped into the rear with Max. More of the trumpet sounds outside, coming closer. “Zoey, do it!”
Zoey looked at Mira from the dirty passenger seat. Mira nodded back. “Hurry, honey. If you can.”
Zoey smiled. She closed her eyes and concentrated. “I can.”
The Severed Tower Page 1
