The Northern Star Trilogy: Omnibus Edition

by Mike Gullickson

Bethany paused for a second, remembering. And then she typed, Huron and Hudson. Northwest corner. Tenth floor, don’t know room #.

  “That’s right in it,” the officer said. “MindCorp controls all of downtown.”

  That meant little to Raimey. “I need hydraulshocks.”

  Chapter 11

  Chao bellowed. “COME OUT, COME OUT, WHEREVER YOU ARE!”

  With feline quickness, Glass moved to the window and caught a glimpse of the giant circling the building. Kove, too, stood out front, looking up at the building.

  “WE KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE, MIKE. THE GOOD DOCTOR MADE SURE OF IT.”

  “What are we going to do?” Vanessa asked.

  Flee, he thought.

  “Come with me,” Glass said. She didn’t understand why he carried what he did up with them, but she followed him to the roof.

  He pointed to a large A/C unit at the center. “Go there. It’s safest.”

  Glass walked the perimeter, following the giants’ movements. They were circling the structure, staying on opposite sides. Residents spilled out the doors, begging for mercy and running away.

  “MIKE, LET’S GET THIS OVER WITH. KOVE’S PISSED,” Chao said. “WE CAN’T KNOCK IT DOWN—YOU KNOW WHY—SO JUST COME DOWN AND BE COOL. EVAN WANTS YOU ALIVE.”

  Glass measured their timing and surveyed the two buildings that bookended his own. One was twice as tall and had a fire escape on the side facing him. The other was the same height as his own.

  He went over to Vanessa and told her what they needed to do.

  Glass was six times stronger than any man and could long jump over seventy feet. Kove watched as he sailed over to the next building with Vanessa swaddled in a blanket.

  He jumped! Kove transmitted. He and Chao tore off in pursuit. Glass continued to sprint, the weight in his arms like that of a baby. He jumped to the next building, across the top, and to the next, moving at a supernatural speed, all while hearing the Twins below, pounding and grinding toward him, jumping over dumpsters, knocking through walls.

  Glass scaled down a wall quickly by pushing back and forth with his powerful legs. When he hit the pavement, he rushed away, rapidly accelerating to his max sprint of fifty miles per hour, a speed which, he knew from testing, he could maintain for five minutes.

  The giants cannonballed through the wall of the building behind him. They were just seconds back.

  “GLASS!” Chao screamed. “I’M GOING TO TEAR YOU APART!”

  Glass veered into alleys, hurdling over debris, intentionally going through tight quarters to make it hard for the Twins. Ahead was a park. He leapt over the eight-foot fence. Seconds later, the Twins did too, Kove knocking over a tree in the process.

  He can’t go for much longer, Kove transmitted to Chao.

  Battery technology had developed exponentially since the oil crisis, but Glass’s max effort couldn’t go on forever. Under normal activity, he could charge as infrequently as once a month; but when taxing his systems like this, his battery was dropping one percent every fifteen seconds. And this new battery hadn’t been fully charged; he was already down to eight percent. Glass felt the Twins’ footsteps behind him, ten thousand pounds moving across the earth like world-class sprinters.

  Through the park and out the other side, Glass saw his escape. The L trains were still moving. Cynthia had kept the outgoing routes running to allow citizens to flee to safety. The train coming toward him was fast approaching.

  Glass slung the swaddle over his left shoulder and jumped as high as he could. His right hand found the edge of the platform. He felt the swaddle slip, and when he grasped for it, the body inside spun out of the sheet like a yo-yo and fell to the ground. Glass jumped onto the platform and looked down at the circling sharks. The L was almost there.

  Fear echoed between Chao and Kove when Glass lost his grip on the girl. If Vanessa died from the fall—hell, if she even got a concussion—the fallout would be catastrophic, even for them.

  They approached the bloody, bent mess, lying face down on the pavement. Chao turned it over with a nudge from his boot.

  Dr. Ewing stared up at them with unseeing eyes. They had been tricked.

  “SONOFABITCH!” Chao screamed.

  “Strong doesn’t fix stupid,” Glass shouted, and then jumped onto the train.

  Chao didn’t care about the train. He didn’t care about the civilians on it. In a rage, he hydraulshocked the support pillar, and it shattered like ice. The upper platform cantilevered over, immediately twisting the track into an amusement-park ride. Half the train derailed, showering sparks as the third rail connected again and again, and the other half plummeted into the roadway. Civilians—dead and alive—smashed through the windows as each cabin slammed into the ground at fifty miles per hour.

  Chao climbed up the warped rails like a gorilla, using the broken pillar and twisted cars as footholds. Kove stayed underneath and ran ahead, looking for any sign of Glass.

  ===

  Up on the tracks, people crawled out of the derailed cars only to be crushed or punted by Chao. Bloodlust blinded him to reason. He ripped open the cars with his massive hands and stepped on anyone who couldn’t get out of his way.

  “I KNOW YOU’RE HERE!” Chao screamed.

  A man tried to protect a pregnant woman unable to move. Chao picked him up and threw him over the side like a baseball.

  The link between Kove and Chao passed more than just thoughts—it also passed emotion. And below, Kove was pumped full of adrenaline as Chao murdered his way through the cabins.

  He’s still up top, Kove said. He was ahead of the train.

  There are four more cars, Chao responded. Be ready.

  Kove licked his lips in anticipation—or tried to, only for his tongue to flog against the abscess that was now his mouth. The scabs broke open, the pain resurfaced, and he went feral. He hydraulshocked a nearby pillar out of rage, and the front two cars above him fell down like links in a chain. The people screamed, and their panic excited Kove. The power over life and death was his manhood.

  Passengers tumbled to the front of the train, their smashed faces staring down at him, and Kove let out a wet, inarticulate howl when he saw the fear in their eyes. They tried to move, clawing over each other to flee, and he ripped the first car down and crushed it thin like a tube of toothpaste.

  I am the crocodile. I am the lion, Kove thought. He was lightheaded from his and Chao’s mutual rush.

  We are warlords, Chao responded, and Kove understood. They were no longer people. They were gods. Gods of war, of fear, and it fueled him. Kove crushed the people down, crushed them down. Chao projected yes! and still he crushed them down.

  Glass lay underneath the fourth car, charging himself from the third rail. He heard the destruction on both ends, the pleas and screams silenced with thuds, and for the first time, it pained him. And out of this sympathy grew something he had never felt, though his life’s actions could be attributed to its very root: anger. The cold in him, the computer trapped in his cells, thawed; that small flame, the one he had stared into earlier, grew as hot as the sun.

  His first memory had been tainted with violence: his dad beating his mom. Pleasure intermixed with terror. And the imprint could have gone either way. He could have grown up with empathy for the abused. He could have been a tender boy who always tried to please. Or he could avoid the fear he had felt that day, as inarticulate and basic as it was, by removing all emotion. By creating a vacuum where his soul could never be harmed, but never feel the pleasures of life. His infant instincts had chosen absence. And that is what he had become. But now, a conscience grew. And the two emotions he felt now, love and anger, balanced one another, and the three words that escaped Glass’s lips were pithy and quiet, and momentous to his change.

  “This is wrong.”

  His charge was at forty percent when he felt the car he was under get torn open. Blood leaked onto the wood ties like syrup as more innocent were crushed and torn apart for no reason other than hor
rible fate. Glass waited for the heavy footsteps to get closer. This car was askew, but still upright. He slid out from under the side and kept low. He picked up the nine-foot sliver of rail he had retrieved after the derailment and crouched, waiting for Chao to pass.

  Chao was vicious, throwing people out of the way, thumping them against the walls like ripe fruit. At last he made his way to the center of the car, within feet of Glass, who knelt just outside.

  Without warning, Glass shot up and, with all his might, slammed the jagged edge of the rail right through the aluminum car and into Chao’s side. Chao didn’t have time to register the attack, or the silhouette outside the window that dragged the pike down to the third rail. He’d only just registered that he’d been attacked, when fifteen hundred unregulated volts poured into his electrostatic tissue, locking his body in place, the push and pull of each muscle group in perfect balance from the coursing current.

  Chao’s eyes drifted to Glass. Green dots watched him through the window. And instead of the slack expression he expected—the assassin savant—the man’s face staring back was contorted in rage.

  Kove felt Chao’s distress before their communication blacked out. He pulled himself onto the track, and spotted Glass on the other side of the broken train. Hundreds of blue electric snakes danced around him, riding the metal tie he was holding against the train. Then Kove spotted Chao inside the cabin, piked by the bar, his arms wide like a crucified Jesus, cooking from the inside out.

  Kove charged. Glass saw him and jumped onto the cab to escape. Kove reared back.

  BA-BAM!

  The impact crashed the car into the others, spinning them down and off the tracks, and Glass got sucked underneath one, bludgeoned and rolled and taken off the side. Kove looked down: Glass’s right leg was pinned beneath the knee. Glass twisted in a crocodile roll, tearing it off. He bounded away.

  You’re kidding me, Kove thought. He felt Chao come back online, weak and distant.

  Help me, Chao said.

  Not yet, Kove replied.

  Kove jumped down. Chao was crumpled over, shaking like an epileptic.

  Help me, Chao pleaded.

  NOT UNTIL HE’S DEAD! Kove screamed into Chao’s head.

  Kove sprinted after Glass, quickly gaining ground on his one-legged prey. Glass was halfway up a building using nothing but his arms to scale the fire escape. Kove grabbed the base of the fire escape and popped the stairs right off the wall. He shook it like a sheet, tearing it down. Glass leapt through a window. Kove let the ladder fall and hydraulshocked the corner of the building. Three stories instantly vanished into dust. Cries of fear overshadowed the groan of the building as it leaned over Kove.

  Glass will go out the other side.

  Kove ignored the ten-story topple and ran around it. The building collapsed behind him, crushing through the elevated train tracks, covering the cars and Chao in bricks and warm bodies.

  Around back, Glass had already reached the roof of the next building.

  Motherfucker. Kove reared back and hydraulshocked that building twice, then watched as Glass surfed the destruction down. Kove jumped onto the pile. Glass was pushing rubble off his body, trying to get loose. He pulled his pistol and fired it empty, hitting Kove between the eyes every time. But this time, Kove’s helmet was latched. Glass threw a brick and continued to struggle, trying to get free, but even his good leg had been nearly amputated by the latest fall.

  Kove stood over him.

  “You didn’t get her,” Glass said, defiantly. “You WON’T get her!”

  Kove pinned Glass underneath his foot and leaned over. The blood pooling in his visor stretched upward, painting his face in red.

  “Weh weahh.” We Will. Kove’s verbal burp was clear enough. They would. They were alive, and Glass would soon be dead.

  An ancient presence filled Kove’s head. It’s so long and wide, he thought. His vision blurred and he felt his gorge rise even though he had no stomach. As long and wide as the universe. The presence felt trapped in his skull, pushing at every point to get out, to not be contained. It’s not human. It can’t be human. Somewhere he heard Chao scream in pain.

  NEUTRALIZE HIM, BUT DON’T KILL HIM. Evan’s voice emanated from the Long and Wide. It was a million-watt speaker pressed to his ear.

  NO! Look what he did to me! Kove screamed back. He could tell that his eyes were being used for two.

  THAT WAS YOUR NEGLIGENCE, Evan responded. HE IS STILL OF USE TO ME. I CAN CHANGE HIM. EVEN WITHOUT THE GIRL, I CAN CHANGE HIM.

  Do you still need Vanessa?

  The voice was suddenly small, as if Evan had somehow pulled himself out from a crowd. YES! I can’t focus, I cannot rest, there are too many thoughts, too many paths, too many questions to answer, they are never full, but Glass is special and he cannot die.

  Kove didn’t understand what was going on with the voice, but he followed orders. Fine, he projected back.

  YOU’VE PROVEN THE STRONGER, ALAN. NEVER LET CHAO FORGET.

  The praise was faint, yet it filled Kove’s head and heart. Its warmth washed over a memory of his grandmother looking into his eyes, ruffling the hair on his young head and saying, “You’re going to be somebody.” It was a fond memory.

  You’re going to be somebody, something whispered. Something attached to Evan, attached to the Long and Wide. The warmth turned into claws and suddenly Kove felt the memory get drained from his mind by an immeasurable hunger, and his grandmother’s face darkened, and her words broke into indecipherable syllables and then—NO!—as Evan struggled to keep the Pieces at bay. Kove tried to recall the memory, but all that was left was a vague picture of the room.

  What happened?

  The small voice again: They crave memories, theirs and all. I will put it back when I have time. Bring me Glass. I will make him whole. I have uploaded possibilities for Vanessa’s next location. Follow them.

  A list of locations, coordinates, and probabilities swam into Kove’s head, and then between his ears, he was again alone. He turned back to Glass.

  “Traaaah-errrrr.” Traitor.

  Kove grabbed Glass’s right arm and pulled, popping it out of its socket, stretching it long until it tore free. He grabbed the left and did the same. He snapped Glass’s footless leg forward at the knee and worked it back and forth until it broke away with a crunch. He held all three in his hands like kindling and presented them to Glass.

  Glass may have been present, but he wasn’t there. He stared past the giant to the speckled night sky, as if he had never before seen its beauty. A thousand salvos from the stars, some still burning, others long and dead, shouting through the chasm of space, announcing to the universe that once they were there. Maybe once they had mattered. Maybe they had provided warmth, maybe they had provided fuel for life, or maybe they had always been alone and isolated in the frigid black. Glass related to those lone stars. Not to their vibrance, but to their isolation. The only thing that shined in his life had found safety, he hoped.

  As Kove picked him up and tossed him over his shoulder like a backpack, Glass wished to every star above him that he would never see her again. Because if he did, he had failed, and her light would be no more.

  = = =

  “They know where Vanessa is. You must find her,” Cynthia said in a monotone drone. Her body was slack, and her mouth didn’t move. Her voice came from a speaker above.

  On the monitor, a hover-rover trailed the Twins. They motored through the streets, clearly with a destination in mind. Around them, just of sight, were blue dots: Minors that Cynthia constantly shifted to surround them.

  “Do you know where she is?”

  “No, but they do. You must get there first.”

  “The Minors can handle it.”

  “I can’t communicate with her through the Minors—they’re now biologically dead.”

  Sabot shook his head. “I won’t leave you.”

  The view on the screen changed from the Twins to cyberspace. Beneath the entire orbital
structure of the billions of portals that led to programs—each a mirror the size of a nation, and ordered like a solar array surrounding the sun—was a vortex, a grey that rippled and yearned. Sabot couldn’t believe what he was seeing: he knew that the black in cyberspace held no data except coordinates, yet underneath Cynthia’s universe was a violent pool. A head made of what looked like flies silently jawed and cried—and it looked like Evan.

  “Nothing can hurt me except the Northern Star. It bucks and mewls under Evan’s weight, and without Vanessa, it will suck him in.”

  Glowing tentacles thrashed from the face, latching to the mirror-glass portals.

  “My God,” Sabot said.

  “It has existed for only weeks and it’s already ancient . . . as is Evan. It will destroy both worlds, Sabot. I’ve never felt such hunger.”

  “It’s my job to keep you safe.”

  “Then go,” Cynthia replied. “Because we will never be safe while this thing is alive. It is evolution of the worst kind, one that nullifies all life that precedes it. It will consume all of us. I hold all the pieces firmly in place, but if he gets Vanessa, none of it will matter. It’s too powerful. It’s figuring out what it is, trying to make sense of its birth. She will be its mother. She, against her will—her will no longer matters, because it will be at Evan’s whim—she will guide it to the light.”

  “What light?”

  Cynthia’s jaw was without movement, her eyes dilated like the dead. Her voice came from the speaker. “The gravity core, the sun, a star. That is its moor. That’s what it’s meant to be. The center of the universe.”

  A chill went up Sabot’s spine. She was sounding like a prophet.

  “Go, Sabot. Save her or kill her, but she cannot be his.”

  On the monitor, Evan’s digitized face, a light year across, wrenched into a silent scream and collapsed like sand, only to reform. Tentacles shot from it into the sun, then dissolved.

  Sabot loaded his shotgun. “We promised to take care of her.”

  “Then do so. Either path, life or death, is better than what she’ll become.”

  He kissed Cynthia on the forehead. “I love you.”