In the end, one choice outweighed all the others. There was a bittersweet anticipation for seeing it again, but it was what she wanted.
Mira shut her eyes. She pictured the place, and it came easily. She touched Ambassador with her mind, inside the shell that was slowly becoming its tomb.
“Okay…”
There was a sound. Like a powerful, punctuated blast of static, and a quick wave of heat washed over her.
She opened her eyes again.
The aurora was gone, replaced with the tops of swaying pine trees, the stars shining down. They were in a forest clearing. Nothing about it looked particularly familiar, but that wasn’t necessarily surprising. She’d only been here one night, and a lot had happened since then.
Mira fought the wave of dizziness that always came with teleportation and hopped onto the ground.
Why here?
“I’ll show you,” she said and moved away from the machine, pine cones crackling under her feet. It was night here too, and very dark. She pulled a flashlight from her pack and flipped it on, searching for something specific. For a moment, she wondered if Ambassador had brought them to the wrong place, but then her light settled on what she was looking for.
A ring of stones, with the remains of a campfire, months old now, what was left of the wood nothing but blackened cinders. It wasn’t much to look at, but Mira felt warmth spread through her nonetheless.
Why here? Ambassador asked again.
Mira closed her eyes … and let herself remember. The imagery wasn’t as vibrant, she thought, as the vision of the Nexus, but even so, the feelings that came with it were as potent as they had been then.
Mira saw the campfire, burning bright. She saw Holt and Zoey dancing around it, while a waltz played on a staticky radio. Then she saw herself with Holt, watched him place a polished, black stone in her hand to help her move. The two of them danced around the fire, pressed close, the distrust that existed between them dissolving away. She heard Zoey giggle while she pet Max and watched them whirl around and around …
When she opened her eyes, they stung with tears.
Being here, feeling it all over, brought home how much had changed. Holt was gone. Zoey was taken. She felt they were all fighting to find one another, but whether or not they ever would was in no way certain.
Instead of pushing the tears away, she let them fall. It was another reason she was grateful for Ambassador, she didn’t have to hide weakness from it, didn’t have to pretend she wasn’t anything other than strong and resolute.
The machine rumbled an odd sound. She felt a stirring of emotion from it: wonder, inquisitiveness, and … envy. It was the last one that stuck out the most.
Why that feeling? Mira projected to the alien.
These emotions. We do not feel them.
Mira turned to the giant machine, its three-optic eye staring at her.
How different would we be if we could? it asked.
Mira shook her head. What a sad race the Assembly really were. All that power, but so little to show for it. Nothing but fear, really. The thing in front of her was so different than what she had always assumed. Maybe Ambassador was the exception, but it seemed to yearn for something greater, to be more than it was. It was a trait all the silvers seemed to share. The sad thing was, Ambassador might not make it to the end. Like the others, it was trapped in its armor, dying. It might fade before Zoey could do whatever it was she was supposed to. After all it had sacrificed, how tragic would it be to never see the reality it was trying to bring about? How heroic as well?
This one, Ambassador projected. From the memories.
Holt, she projected back.
He will return?
Her emotions swelled. Most likely not, she knew. She wondered where he was right now, what he was thinking, what he felt. He’d seen her die, as far as he was concerned. She felt the same surge of guilt she always did, for not finding some way to get word to him, for not going to him, but Dresden had been right. That was a choice she didn’t have the luxury of making. Even if he did return … how different would he be? How different would they both be?
All of these feelings and thoughts Ambassador read.
A shame, it replied. To lose what was made. We wish … we could make such things.
Mira did something strange then. It was driven by instinct more than anything else. She reached out and touched the metal, armored shell of Ambassador. She felt its presence inside, felt the ironic mix of its personality, gentle and ferocious at once.
“I don’t know what future Zoey can make for you,” she told it, “but maybe one day you will make them.”
Ambassador rumbled softly. Mira kept her hand on it a moment more, then moved back to the blackened campfire.
We must return, Ambassador projected.
“Just one thing.” She set her pack on the ground and rummaged through it. She couldn’t find it at first, so she started taking items out, one at a time. A water bottle, canned food, first-aid kit, her wretched artifact, a—
Ambassador rumbled again, this time loud and jarring. It took two thunderous steps backward. Feelings of disgust and apprehension washed over Mira.
She studied the silver machine. “What?”
Abomination, it simply said.
“What is?”
It. Its eye bobbed up and down, staring at the items in front of Mira.
She looked down, and there was only one that wasn’t mundane and ordinary. Her artifact, the horrible one she’d made in Midnight City, the one that forced her to flee her home what felt like ages ago now. She hated it, had meant to destroy it in the Strange Lands, but it was like the thing had a will of its own to survive.
It was a multi-tier combination, made up of over a dozen different objects, all tied together with linked silver chain and purple twine. Its main aspect was an antique gold pocket watch that rested on the exterior, with a silver δ ornately etched into the metallic cover. It was a pretty combination, really, forever marred by the reality of what it did. Mira made it in an attempt to create a combination that would reverse the effects of the Tone. Instead … it did the opposite. It accelerated it, forcing anyone, even Heedless, to Succumb within a matter of seconds.
Warily, Mira picked it up. “This?”
Ambassador took another step back. Abomination.
The alien wasn’t wrong, as far as Mira was concerned. She only kept hold of it because it was too dangerous to just discard, but that didn’t explain why Assembly would feel the same way.
Ambassador sensed her confusion. What you call the Tone. It is the Whole.
The Whole was what Ambassador and the Assembly named the joint awareness that their entire species shared. While independent entities, each still maintained a connection to the Whole, where they could feel the emotions and thoughts of every other entity at any one time.
The Tone, by contrast, was the telepathic signal the aliens had blanketed the planet with. Anyone older than twenty years old quickly Succumbed to its call, their minds controlled. It had made the conquering of Earth a fairly routine affair. Mira didn’t see the connection between the two. “How is the Whole also the Tone?”
They are the same.
Mira tried to understand. “You’re saying the signal itself, the Tone … is the same signal that carries the Whole, your joint consciousness?”
Correct.
In some way, it made sense both would be overlapped, but it didn’t explain Ambassador’s reaction. She held the artifact up to it. The machine rumbled unpleasantly.
“So what’s the deal with this?”
It perverts the Whole.
Yeah, Mira thought grimly. If her artifact changed and altered the Tone, then that meant it did the same to the Whole.
A thought occurred to her. Mira held the thing safely away, and opened the brass lid of the old pocket watch. A stream of blackness flared out from it in a cone of shadows that seemed to squirm like a nest of worms, darker than the night around them.
&nb
sp; Ambassador rumbled angrily. She sensed pure fear as it stepped back and slammed into a tree, almost toppling the thing.
Cease, it projected, and the sensations almost knocked her over, they were so strong. She had never felt anything like that from Ambassador before.
Instantly, she snapped shut the watch. The contorting black light vanished.
I’m sorry, Mira projected to the alien, and she meant it. I just wanted to see.
Never again, it projected back.
I promise. At the words, Ambassador’s fear began to subside, though it made no move to come closer.
Mira shoved the dark thing far back into her pack. As she did, she felt what she was looking for.
It was the black, polished stone Holt had given her here. It felt smooth and cool, comforting. Normally she carried it in her pocket, but she’d been scared of losing it. She studied it a moment, the feelings and memories returning … then she reached toward the campfire, dug through the ashes, and set the stone there. She pushed the dirt back over it.
If Holt came back, perhaps together they would reclaim it someday. If not, if he was gone, then it was where it belonged, buried amid the ashes of a past memory.
She stared at the campfire one last time, then turned back to Ambassador.
“Let’s go.” The machine studied her warily, made no move toward her. Mira rolled her eyes. “Come on, you big baby, we got things to do.”
29. REVERSALS
HOLT AND RAVAN stood on a residence balcony on the flare tower of the Refinery, staring down over the city at night. Masyn, Castor, Olive, and her crew had all returned to the Wind Rift, docked at the rear of the Pinnacle. Rogan West and some of his men were in the center of the room, discussing strategy, and their voices gave away just how emboldened their victory had made them.
“We should hit something else soon, while we have the momentum,” one rebel said, but Rogan shook his head.
“What momentum?” he asked. “We have Refinery, that means we have Faust. Just have to hold it long enough for the rest of the city to rebel.”
“Taking this Pinnacle’s a big deal,” another rebel replied, “but you underestimate Tiberius’s influence. It’s not going to happen overnight, even with the Refinery gone.”
“I don’t need it to happen overnight,” Rogan continued. “I can wait weeks or months. We don’t even need the other two Pinnacles now, we can bring every rebel we have from those and fortify this one.”
The debate continued, but Holt couldn’t feel the same enthusiasm. Ravan seemed of a similar mind.
“Never seen it this quiet,” she observed, staring out at the lights from lanterns in windows up and down the towers. She was right, it was odd, even for how late it was. Faust seemed unusually silent, peaceful almost, and that was all wrong. It only added to Holt’s unease.
“Rogan would say it’s because the city’s stunned at the defeat,” Holt said.
“But you’re worried,” Ravan replied.
Holt nodded. “It’s been fourteen hours, and he hasn’t made a move. It’s not like him: ‘power lost must be retaken.’”
“And here I was hoping he would just surrender.”
Holt looked away from Faust and studied Ravan. The night had always suited her. The shadows and their ambiance accentuated her features. The line of her neck, the way her black hair hung down her back, even her eyes, somehow, seemed to glow more prominently. He’d always been the most attracted to her at night. Such thoughts, he knew, would have been alien to him a few days ago, but things were changing.
“I’ve been thinking,” Holt told her softly. “I’m not going to take the tattoo. You’re right, it was supposed to mean something, and I understand that.”
She didn’t look at him, but something about the way her features tightened suggested she may have been just as torn about him not finishing it as doing so.
“I can’t explain it,” he continued, “it’s like … some part of me thinks she’s still here. I know it’s not fair, that it’s the way it is now, but it doesn’t diminish what I feel for you underneath. I want you to know that. I don’t know where I’m going to come out on the other side of this, but … I hope you’re there when I do.”
She stood silent a moment, her eyes on the city, her thoughts elsewhere. “Don’t do that, Holt. Don’t give me false hope. We are what we are, we don’t have to be anything else.”
The door to the room opened. Three kids entered, all about fifteen, sweaty and grimy.
“Well?” Rogan asked, as if expecting them.
“Trying to get the Isomerization Tanks back online, but so far it’s a no-go,” one of the new arrivals stated.
The statement grabbed Holt’s attention, and he looked to the kids. “The isomerics aren’t working?”
They nodded. “Most of the valves were closed, two of them are stuck. I’d say they were rusted in place, they’re so tight, but … that doesn’t make sense, right?”
“They’ve been off since we got here?” Rogan asked.
“It would explain the lack of heat we noticed down there,” Ravan said.
“Those tanks are huge,” Holt continued, musing out loud. “They’re the heart of the Refinery, shutting them down means weeks of work to get them back online. Why would they…”
Holt figured it out before he finished. The way Ravan stared back at him indicated she had too.
“Oh, Jesus…” West breathed, and then yells from below cut him off. So did the violent, percussive sounds of gunfire. A lot of it.
Holt watched the color drain from Ravan’s face, understood why the city had seemed so quiet, why there was no counterattack coming from some other Pinnacle. The counterattack had been planned from the beginning. They’d never taken the Refinery. They’d simply walked into the exact place Tiberius wanted them.
“Move!” Ravan yelled, grabbing her rifle and heading for the door.
The floor under their feet shook from an explosion. No one spoke, just grabbed their gear and ran.
* * *
AVRIL WAS A POINT of stillness in the chaos around her. Pirate fought pirate, guns blazed, knives flashed, people fell and didn’t move. They had been locked in those tanks underneath the Refinery for more than a day before the top hatch had finally opened. It had been an uncomfortable experience, a strange, cramped environment, where the sounds of their breathing echoed off the metal walls.
The three tanks were huge, big enough to hold fifty pirates each. Tiberius had ordered them drained and cleaned days ago. He seemed to firmly believe, now that Holt and Ravan were helping West, that the Refinery would be their next target. So they climbed inside and waited and it hadn’t taken long for her father to be proven right. They’d worked their way up to the top, dispatching West’s men as they went, until they got here, the main platform.
Avril saw Quade snap the neck of one rebel, knock another out with the barrel of his sidearm, and he held her look as he did. She was the only person who knew where his loyalties truly lay, and she wondered what he was feeling, ordered to participate in the slaughter of the rebels he’d secretly supported. She still hadn’t told her father, and she wasn’t sure why. She wasn’t even sure why she was here now, except that Tiberius had asked her to come, and she’d agreed, probably because of how it felt to hurt those kids a few days ago. Avril had felt more herself in that moment than she had in weeks … and it was frightening.
She was teetering on the edge of a line she never would have believed she could walk.
Avril was unarmed; no one had offered her a rifle or knife, because none of them trusted her yet. A pirate charged her from out of nowhere. Her instincts took over, she sidestepped his blow.
She saw another aiming a gun at her, and she dropped and rolled out of the way as he fired. One of her father’s men took the slug instead.
Avril moved toward cover behind a—
Something hard and metallic sent her reeling. A rebel hovered over her with a tire iron, about to strike again. A bullet dropp
ed him, and Avril saw Quade a few yards away. They shared a look before he was swept up in the fighting again.
A boot slammed into Avril’s side. Another kick found her stomach. She felt the anger rising again … and the excitement.
She spun, the rebel who’d struck her was raising a knife …
… and she kicked it out of his hands, sprung up, and one roundhouse kick put him down. There were knives on the ground, guns too, but she leapt into the fray bare-handed. It felt better that way.
For the moment, she had chosen her side.
Avril was a blur, the Spearflow was dangerous and adaptable, even without a Lancet. West’s rebels raised guns, slashed with knives, came at her with clubs, and they all fell, one after the other. Two. Five. Ten. Her training made her more powerful than any of these fools, and she embraced the feelings that flowed through her.
Then she froze.
Ahead of her, through the dwindling crowd of rebels, were two other blurs, moving almost identically to her.
One had a Lancet, streaks of color ripping the air. The other had no weapons, but he was almost as quick, even though he fought with only one arm.
When Masyn and Castor saw her, they froze too. They stared at one another as the battle raged, confused, uncertain … and then Masyn saw the bodies of the rebels at Avril’s feet. Her stare changed.
Masyn advanced toward Avril. Castor, more reluctantly, followed, watching Masyn sling her Lancet onto her back. It wouldn’t be a fair fight otherwise.
Avril felt her first real sense of anxiety as the two took positions on either side of her. She had been Doyen to both of them once, even helped Masyn forge her Lancet after she completed her Spearquest, and now they were, somehow … enemies. What did that say about her?
Then again, what did it matter? Nothing was as it used to be. Those days were gone.
Valley of Fires: A Conquered Earth Novel (The Conquered Earth Series) Page 28
