The Unfinished World (The Armor of God Book 2)

by Diego Valenzuela

  They had set out of Zenith with the objective of finding Akiva Davenport and his Creux, Milos Ravana—the uniquely powerful machine which could be the key to saving humanity from extinction. And the Creux they had found, freed from its prison under earth and water by the combined efforts of Jade Arjuna and Phoenix Atlas, looked too much like the Armor of God. Of course all Creuxen had similar physical traits—their colossal size, humanoid shapes, armored exterior—but this even shared some of Milos Ravana’s more unique details, with only some significant differences.

  “Some of its armor is missing,” said Ezra, noticing how many segments in the Creux’s body, particularly on the sides of its torso, and its shoulders, did not reflect the moonlight. “It looks like dead skin underneath—like in Nandi’s joints, under his armor.”

  “Yes, it’s not wearing full armor. Tessa’s—”

  Ezra cringed at the mere mention of the traitor’s name.

  “—and Jed’s—do you remember Jed? The bald pilot who got burnt in an accident before you arrived at Zenith? His Creux, Nebula, was light as well,” she said. Throughout the conversation, Erin had not yet peeled her eyes from the Creux. “Some are like Nandi, Omega, or Ares—heavily armored.”

  “I remember Jed,” said Ezra, the name invoking another unwelcome memory. He had met him under terrible circumstances, having accidentally walked into his hospital room in Zenith, only to find the pilot recovering from horrible burns sustained during a mission when his Creux overheated.

  “It looks older to me,” she said. “Unfinished. Like an early model. Maybe it’s been here a while.”

  “Do you think—I mean, the reason behind these islands in the desert.”

  “It’s because of a Creux?” she said. “Yes, I think so too. You know, the Creuxen’s core is filled with the self-renovating energy that fuels them, that gives them their abilities. There was that gas down there. That stuff repels the Laani. But, you know what that means? People could actually live here, Ezra. Maybe we didn’t need to dome as much as we thought.”

  “So in every oasis—?”

  “There’s a Creux, yeah,” she said, and got up, looking at Ezra for the first time and offering her hand to help him up. She shrugged. “That’s what I think, at least.”

  “Should we name this one?” Ezra asked, half joking.

  “It already has a name—Lazarus,” she said. When he was about to ask if she had christened the Creux herself, she went on: “It’s written on its foot. Come on. See for yourself.”

  Erin was like a child with a new toy when she led Ezra across the wet canal where the river used to be. The suction of the mud almost cost him his boots, but Erin appeared weightless as she walked through, and climbed out to the other side, closer to the enormous battle machine.

  “Look,” she said, approaching the thing’s left foot. Unlike Nandi or Ares, whose feet were thick boot-like pieces that rose all the way to its knees, made to hold the machine’s enormous weight, this one had much thinner feet, tipped with sharp-looking talons similar to those at the ends of Phoenix’s boot pieces.

  On the side of its foot, at the level of the circular parts of the ankle, the name LAZARUS had been branded onto the armor in large, sloppy letters.

  “Lazarus,” Ezra said. He liked the name, even if he had never heard it before, and didn’t know what it meant. “I thought the people who discovered the Creux gave it a name. How come this guy already has one?”

  “Who knows,” she said, smiling. “I had never seen a Creux being excavated; it’s very secretive stuff, when one is found. They never involved the pilots in any way; they only brought them to Zenith and began studying them and waited for a match. We didn’t even see them in the flesh until they were ready to be used—we only saw them in the sims. It had been a while since any others had been found—we actually thought there weren’t any left.”

  “We really should let Zenith know about this,” Ezra said, walking around Lazarus’ foot to the wide space between its long, armored legs, which were bent to minimize the space it occupied. He looked up at the giant creature, wondering whom it would be that could commune with it, and give it life.

  Do not trust him, the Minotaur whispered. Ezra shook his head.

  He turned around and saw the light of the fire through the trees at the other side of the gully. No sign of Garros or Jena.

  From the other side of the giant’s leg came the sounds of clanking metal, and grunts. When he walked back around, he saw Erin climbing up Lazarus’ upper leg. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m just investigating,” she said, pulling herself up to its leg with impressive agility and strength. She turned around and offered him a hand. “Come on up.”

  Ezra was reluctant to join her, but he did share her curiosity, and also wished to inspect Lazarus more closely. He followed her path up the colossus’ leg, finding his footing in small grooves in the armor. It was a more difficult ascent than Nandi, whose lower abdomen had a climbing route that seemed deliberately built for that purpose. The wet, muddy surface of Lazarus’ armor was not helping.

  Erin helped him up and they found themselves standing together on Lazarus’ hip—or rather, his lower abdomen.

  The wind was blowing, and the thick mantle of clouds that covered most of the sky was much thinner to allow greater visibility, thanks to light shed by moon and stars.

  “I’m glad we’re here,” she said, taking in the cold air. “I know you’re scared, Ezra, and I’m scared too, but . . . I’m glad we got the chance to be here, and see this, before everything else ends. If it does.”

  She put her arm around him in a hug, and he smiled, immediately recognizing her love as friendly, and wishing for nothing else. Erin had become the sister he always wished his actual sisters had been—a friend, and a teacher.

  “What are you doing?” asked Jena from twenty feet below. Ezra walked to the edge of Lazarus’ hip and saw her and Garros standing next to the Creux’s leg, looking up at them.

  “Nothing,” Ezra yelled. “Just looking.”

  Even from this distance, he could tell Garros was worried; he could see it in his eyes. Maybe Jena’s song had brought back some feelings he had buried—like Ezra, he had never truly understood the mystery of their survival in an accident that had killed four people, including two friends, just a few months earlier.

  Maybe it made him second-guess his luck and wonder if he was overdue for another tragedy.

  The hiss of machinery behind him made Ezra turn around. He almost slipped on the muddy steel when he saw Erin standing before the opening doors that could only lead to the Creux’s Apse.

  Light that matched the mist they had found underwater spilled into the darkness, turning Erin into a black silhouette, barely a shadow before a radiant sun.

  “What’s that sound?” Garros yelled. “Erin?”

  “Garros, come on up!” said Erin, excited. “This thing is working.”

  “Don’t touch anything! I’m coming up!” Garros said and started to climb up Lazarus’ leg.

  “Look at this,” she whispered, and wasn’t sure if the words were meant for him. “The Apse is completely different—there is no Egg, it’s just—”

  This was dangerous business. Ezra started remembering all the horror stories he was told about Milos Ravana before Akiva was matched to it. Before Zenith developed the protocol to find and determine matching pilots, lives were lost—and four of them by Milos Ravana’s hand. The powerful Creux which had gained the status of monster in Zenith did not even have to move to kill the invaders; it had just rejected four possible pilots, liquefying them—boiling them alive inside the Egg and leaving nothing but shreds of meat and cloth.

  And just as he began to feel that horrible nausea, remembering the deadly process known in Zenith as Assimilation, Garros climbed the last step to join him—

  Just in time see Erin fall into the light inside of Lazarus.

  The doors of the Apse closed, leaving behind only the echoes of her horrified
scream, lost to the dark forest.

  ф

  Vivian had never been inside a dormitory that wasn’t her own.

  She used to picture a beautiful future in which she’d become the Leader of the Creux Defense Squad, and even in those fantasies, the concept of being inside another pilot’s sleeping quarters seemed ridiculous. Why would she need to ever do such a thing?

  As it turned out, the reason was to have a talk with another pilot’s crewmember, whom she couldn’t meet elsewhere, and request her help.

  Rebecca Miles, a former crewmember of Absolute Omega, was also the only member of the Creux’s team that was still alive. Omega’s pilot and the former CDSL, Alice Nolan, had died in an explosion that took three more lives: two crewmembers, and Corporal Susan Higgins—the only person with whom Vivian had ever made a significant connection since joining the army. Of course she had become close to Director Blanchard and General Adams, but Susan could understand Vivian in ways no one else had before, or since.

  Rebecca had been suffering from depression (and what Dr. Logan had recognized as survivor’s guilt) for months. It wasn’t until she found a new purpose as a crewmember to Jed Townsend’s Nebula 09 that she slowly recovered her will to live.

  To remain.

  “I really don’t want to look into it any more, Vivian,” said Rebecca.

  “I understand, and I’m sorry for even asking,” she said. “I just want you to help me understand a few things. It’s important. What happened with Absolute Omega was when things began to go wrong in here. I promise I only need your help with this, and I won’t bother you ever again.”

  Rebecca looked around the room, colored in green and blue. “You know—being here makes me feel a little safer,” said Rebecca. “At least now I don’t have to see Absolute Omega in every corner.”

  Vivian didn’t reply.

  “General Adams really thinks Proposition Tomorrow is a lost cause?”

  “That’s what she told me,” said Vivian. “She says there is a traitor in Zenith.”

  “There was, but she is dead,” Rebecca said. “Tessa killed her.”

  “I know Kat is dead. It’s someone else, and what’s worse is that I can’t figure out why anyone would want to sabotage us,” Vivian said. “But someone told Heath about Kat, about what happened when Ezra left. I want to find him or her; stopping any further attacks on us is the only way I can think that can save Zenith. And . . . even if they close this place, I want to at least know who’s to blame.”

  “Ezra Blanchard is to blame,” Rebecca said, and Vivian could hear bitterness in Rebecca’s voice; Ezra Blanchard’s name was sour in her tongue, and she didn’t blame her. “If Zenith is shut down, I’ll be out of a job again, and I don’t want to go back to the army; I worked hard to be placed in Zenith, I still have things I want to do—I want to see Nebula functional again, help Jed get better.”

  It was like Rebecca truly believed Roue wouldn’t last much longer without the protection of the Creux. If the creature that had birthed the Laani returned to its original self, it would crush the city in one fell swoop.

  At least that’s what Director Blanchard believed.

  “I could really use your help with this, Rebecca. I promise I’ll let you focus on your new job afterwards. I still doubt that Alice lost control of Absolute Omega. Something else happened the day of the test. I know a part of you agrees,” she said. “The docking chambers are closed until Roue votes for Proposition Tomorrow; this is my chance to look at the records of that test more closely, and I need someone who can operate the computers, who has access to them.” She gathered her courage to speak again. “And I—I think it might give you some closure, to understand exactly what happened that day.”

  Rebecca looked away from Vivian, and then nodded. “Stop, I don’t need to hear any more about Alice. I’ll help you now, but I want you to know it’s the last time I want to hear anything about Absolute Omega. It’s something I’m trying to put behind me. Do you understand?”

  “Yes. This will be the last time this bothers you; I promise,” said Vivian.

  She hated to sneak around and break the rules, but it became marginally easier when Zenith was so empty. Vivian wondered if some employees had already been transferred back to Roue, because when she and Rebecca made their way from the dormitories to the compatibility labs, there were very few signs of life within the complex.

  The compatibility labs themselves seemed particularly lifeless—it was the first time she walked into the chamber and it was completely silent, lacking the buzzing of live machinery that normally underscored it.

  “I was afraid of this,” said Rebecca, walking toward the door leading to the docking chambers.

  It was closed. It was locked.

  “We don’t have access to the chambers. What’s your plan?”

  “I—I don’t know,” said Vivian, embarrassed; she should have prepared better before getting Rebecca involved. If she had obtained any authority in her eyes, it wouldn’t last long.

  “Poole—Vivian Poole. Rose Xibalba. Support Class,” a third voice flooded the room through speakers.

  Vivian turned around; the chamber was still empty. She walked to the center of the labs and looked up at the window a few feet above, at the observation deck where the crew operated the equipment. There was a woman standing there; Vivian could see her outline in the opaque glass.

  The voice spoke again through loud speakers “What are you doing here?”

  “Hello?” she said out loud. “Who’s there?”

  There was no answer. The shadow disappeared from the window, and a few seconds later, a familiar face emerged into the labs from a door so well hidden, Vivian had never even noticed it.

  It was Dr. Mizrahi, one of the directors of Zenith, and a woman of questionable sanity whom Vivian hadn’t seen in many days. “Vivian Poole? What are you doing in here?”

  “Dr. Mizrahi,” she said, feeling like a criminal caught in the act. “I just—uh, I wanted to go look for something in the docking chambers,” she said stupidly, wishing Rebecca would help her fabrication, but she didn’t appear to be interested enough.

  “In the docking chambers? Did you forget something?” said the woman. She had a strange way of speaking, indeed of thinking, and it had always frustrated Vivian, especially during classes when she was the instructor.

  Dr. Mizrahi didn’t wait for an answer to her question; she walked to the door and pressed a white keycard against a small scanner. The door slid open, and the dark empty passage leading to the docking chambers was revealed.

  The woman looked at Vivian. “I hope you find what you’re looking for,” she said, and winked (though it might have been an involuntary spasm; Vivian couldn’t tell with her). “I have work to do. Excuse me. Poole. Corporal Miles. Nebula’s colors suit you. You look well. Be well.”

  She returned to the room above the labs.

  “There’s something about that woman,” said Rebecca after a moment of silence. “She’s brilliant, but a few clowns short of a circus.”

  “I am no such thing,” came Dr. Mizrahi’s voice through the speakers. Vivian didn’t even see Rebecca’s reaction; she almost dissolved into the darkness of the hallway, too embarrassed to remain within Mizrahi’s eyeshot.

  Rebecca was still red in the face when they walked past the first few chambers: Docking Chamber 04. It used to be Jena’s.

  Though Jade Arjuna was a thousand miles away, the decal with the Creux’s insignia remained on the door. It was beautiful; though happy with her Creux, Vivian had always secretly envied Jena for being paired with one as graceful and strong as Jade Arjuna.

  “This is the first time I’ve been here since that day. Wow. They didn’t even get to finish reconstructing the wing,” Rebecca said. The far end of the hallway was still cut off by yellow tape, and though the basic aspects of the structure had been rebuilt after the explosion destroyed it, it was by no means fully restored.

  Vivian gave Rebecca a moment to let t
he sight wash over her, and waited when she decided to slip past the yellow tape and into the new segment of the hallway, where there was very little light.

  The grieving woman took careful, quiet steps, and didn’t stop until she was standing in front of the door that had once led to Absolute Omega’s docking chamber. From a distance, Vivian saw her open the door, and shake her head at what she saw inside.

  Vivian walked back to her own Creux’s chamber to stare at its insignia on the door, when a shadow moved in the corner of her eye. Vivian barely saw someone standing at the end of the hallway, near the door back to the labs. “Hello? Dr. Mizrahi?”

  There was no answer, and her heart skipped a beat when she turned again to find Rebecca right back next to her. “Did you see someone?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure. Are you all right?” asked Vivian.

  “I feel like whatever you’re looking for was probably stored in the computers of Omega’s chamber. Nothing’s left in there.”

  “Alice was screaming Akiva’s name,” Vivian said, and immediately regretted the lack of tact, a trait of hers she had recently been trying to get rid of. Rebecca didn’t need to know the details of Alice’s death; being in this hallway was difficult enough already. “I wanted to try the computers in Milos Ravana’s chamber.”

  Rebecca nodded, and walked almost all the way back to the labs, to chamber 08.

  Had they stopped for a moment in chamber 12, they would’ve seen a blinking red light: an incoming message sent by Erin from a remote beacon bearing a crucial warning.

  The docking chamber for Milos Ravana was no different to any of the others. There was a window overlooking the massive docking bay, large panels that would display vital Creux and pilot information, and a space in the corner for the Synchronization Capsule.

  Of course, there was no Capsule, and Milos Ravana’s intimidating gaze would not be met if one looked out the window. The Armor of God was hundreds, maybe thousands, of miles away.