The Gauntlet

by Megan Shepherd

  She swallowed hard as she took in the bodies. Despite the Gatherer and Mosca and Kindred uniforms, over half were, in reality, Axion.

  “So many of them,” Mali said, trying to keep the panic from her voice. Suddenly the room lurched violently to the side, and Mali grabbed Leon’s arm to keep him from being thrown to the floor. “The structure isn’t stable anymore!” she called over the din. “It could be ripped apart! We’ve got to get Cora out of there.” She pointed toward the portal door.

  “We can’t.” Cassian came out of the rubble, the flickering lights making his eyes look hollow and grim. “She’s the only hope we still have. The Axion can try to impersonate us, but they can’t impersonate the stock algorithm. They can’t alter a computer program. Cora has to finish. She must win. It’s the only thing that will give us enough power now to stop them.”

  “But they’re exposed!” Leon said. “Their plan’s shot to pieces. They’ll try anything to stop her, even if it means ripping the Gauntlet apart with their own hands.”

  “That is why we have to hold them off,” Cassian said. “We have to give her a chance.”

  Suddenly, the shrill frequency stopped.

  Mali felt a swell of relief to hear herself think again, but it only lasted a moment. A growl sounded as a dusty shadow ran up behind Cassian.

  “Behind you!” she yelled.

  Cassian ducked as an Axion in a Gatherer’s robes tried to slam a piece of debris at his head. Cassian straightened and stepped hard on the Axion’s too-long robe and shoved the creature to the floor, then smashed his other boot in the Axion’s face.

  “Hold them off!” Cassian yelled. “Don’t let them stop the Gauntlet!”

  Mali needed no further encouragement. She exchanged a quick nod with Leon, who spun on an Axion delegate who was running toward one of the broken monitors. Leon grabbed a piece of broken glass and slammed it into the Axion’s face.

  The room lurched again, and more storm water poured through the ceiling. Mali slipped and fell just as an Axion loomed over her. She drew back her foot to kick the Axion off-balance, but a loose piece of debris flew over her head, slamming into him.

  Mali jerked around to find Serassi already picking up another piece of debris to use as a projectile. Willa was next to her, leaping into the high rafters and kicking over an Axion with the momentum.

  “Where’s Ironmage?” Mali called to Serassi.

  “Still unconscious,” Serassi said. Maybe for the better, Mali thought, not to know yet that his brother was dead. Anger swelled in her blood. Bonebreak had saved their lives. He’d redeemed himself, he’d stayed and fought, he’d even sacrificed himself.

  She squeezed her hands into fists.

  He couldn’t have died for nothing.

  She tossed her head up and recognized a flash of white. Anya’s clothes. The Axion who had been impersonating her was fighting with Redrage and another Mosca near the rear wall of monitors. The anger inside her concentrated harder.

  For Bonebreak.

  For Anya.

  For everyone who wanted to be free.

  “Willa!” she cried, catching sight of the chimpanzee swinging in the rafters. “Help me!” She jerked a finger toward the impostor Anya, and Willa gave a quick nod and hurled herself from rafter to rafter toward the Axion. Mali raced along below her, dodging the worst of the fighting. Willa reached the Axion first. She threw herself from the rafters, slamming into the Axion’s back. The impact brought Redrage crashing down too.

  “Go,” Mali said to Redrage. “Help Ironmage in the recess room. Leave this one to me.”

  Redrage, limping hard on her right leg, gave a quick nod.

  Mali turned to the Axion, who had been shoved to the ground by Willa. Mali smashed her fist into his face, as silver blood spurted down the front of Anya’s clothes.

  “Where is she?” Mali demanded. “Where’s Anya?”

  The Axion grinned his silver teeth, tight skin stretching over high cheekbones. “It doesn’t matter,” he hissed. “You won’t leave this planet to find her. We’ll stop the Gauntlet. We’ll soon rule again, as we were born to do.”

  Willa huffed in anger and pinned the Axion’s hand back as Mali slammed another fist into his face. He only laughed again, those silver teeth sparkling. Anger swelled in her until all she could see was red. She grabbed the closest piece of wreckage, one of the chair legs from the judges’ dais. The end was torn and jagged.

  “You aren’t stopping the Gauntlet,” she said. “Cora will win.” She pressed the chair leg against his neck.

  “She still has one break left,” he said, coughing. “The moment she steps outside that door, she’ll never step back in to finish round three. We’ll stop her.”

  Worry made Mali hesitate—she glanced over at the Gauntlet door. He was right. Any moment Cora would finish round two. She’d be spit out straight into this chaos.

  “Willa,” she said, “find Cassian. Tell him he has to watch that portal door. Tell him when Cora comes out, he has to protect her.”

  Willa gave a nod and leaped onto the nearest bench. Mali searched the room for Cassian, and her stomach curled when she saw him. He and the Axion impostor who’d posed as Fian were facing off against each other, a chasm in the floor between them. Water filled the pit, crackling now with life, electrified by rogue wires.

  The Axion who’d been disguised as Anya snickered beneath Mali’s hands. “You see? You can’t stop us.”

  “Like hell we can’t.” It was Leon. Mali’s heart lifted. He crouched beside them. “And when we do, we’re going to rescue Anya and everyone else you’ve kidnapped and replaced. And we’re going to enjoy torturing their locations out of you.”

  He smiled at Mali and nodded toward the broken piece of metal in her hand. “Would you like to do the honor of torturing him, or should I?”

  35

  Cora

  THE THRILL OF HAVING defeated puzzle eight still hummed through Cora like the lingering notes of a song. The paragon burst had made her feel light-headed at first, but now, as she made her way across the stage toward the doorway that would take her back to her friends, she felt focused. Strong. Complete—or as complete as she could be without her memories. Humanity pulsed beneath her skin, making her realize that being human wasn’t just about memories, but about feeling what all people felt—fear and desire, hope and anguish. About finding one’s own way to belong.

  But as she approached the open doorway, the acrid smell of smoke reached her. An electrical fire? A piercing, high-pitched squeal made her clamp her hands over her ears. Her footsteps sped. Something had happened. That jolt she’d felt in the cornfield—had it been an explosion after all?

  She raced across the stage toward the door. How long had she taken to complete round two? An hour? A lot could happen in an hour. And the stock algorithm had a way of making time move strangely. It could have been ten minutes or ten hours.

  She reached the doorway and gasped. Beyond, the central vestibule was in pieces. Broken beams hung from the ceiling, wires sparking dangerously as water poured off them. The judges’ dais was shattered in two, as if a fireball had swept through the room. And the bodies. Dozens of them, prostrate and unmoving. The delegates and aides who had survived were fighting among themselves. She pressed a hand to her mouth. Gatherer fighting against Mosca. Human against Axion. Kindred against Kindred.

  It made no sense.

  She cried out as she recognized the two figures fighting where the dais had once been. It was Cassian, his uniform ripped across one arm, and Fian. Or rather, someone in Fian’s clothes. A woman. She was more than two feet shorter than Fian. Wiry and thin, with pronounced bones. Fian’s clothes sagged off her small frame. Her stature didn’t make her any less dangerous, though. She slammed her elbow into Cassian’s ribs. He doubled over.

  “Cassian!”

  But he didn’t hear her in the commotion. She stumbled forward, a hand still pressed against her mouth. Dozens of Axion impostors were now unmasked. Tw
o Gatherers. A Mosca in a rust-red jumpsuit and shielding. Even, in the corner struggling with Mali, Anya. Cora stopped in shock.

  Anya had been an impostor the whole time?

  The false Fian grabbed one of the live wires while Cassian was still doubled over. She pulled down the wire, then crouched down, ready to spring toward Cassian. The woman was going to knock him into the water, then electrify it with the wire. . . .

  “Cassian, look out!”

  He still didn’t hear her. Panic pulsing in her veins, Cora threw her hands out, aimed at the impostor.

  Drop the wire, she commanded with her mind.

  But her fingers didn’t crackle with the sparking sense of telekinesis. There was nothing. She threw her thoughts out harder, panicking. Still nothing. She tried once more.

  Drop the wire!

  The impostor didn’t flinch. Cora’s abilities hadn’t affected her at all. She tried again, more desperately, but whereas her abilities had hummed to life before, she felt nothing now.

  Because my abilities really are gone, she realized. Not even the paragon burst can boost abilities that are permanently broken.

  “Cassian!” she screamed instead, as loudly as she could.

  He tossed his head up just as the impostor tried to shove him into the water. He dodged at the last second and the woman lost her balance and fell into the shallow puddle instead, the wire dangling and sparking out of reach. Cassian clutched his bleeding arm and climbed out of the water. Cora ran to meet him.

  “What happened?” Beside her, monitors sparked and crackled.

  “A bomb,” Cassian explained, his breath heaving. “It set off a frequency that exposed all the impostor Axion. Now it’s war. All the intelligent species against them. Their only chance is to stop you from finishing the Gauntlet, so that humanity, and the Kindred, will not become stronger than them.”

  “How are they going to stop me?”

  “By any means necessary. They can’t let you go back through those doors and start round three. Once that final round begins, there is no stopping the tests until the end. Everything will hinge on your ability to win.”

  The room suddenly bucked, throwing them to the left. Cassian grabbed her to keep her from tumbling toward the puddle that the Axion woman was trying to climb out of. Ironmage and Redrage, with their poor balance, tumbled in, though, knocking the impostor back into it. For a second they were a tangle of limbs and angry cries until the room righted itself again.

  “The storm’s getting stronger,” Cassian said. “You’re going to have to hurry through the last four puzzles before it tears these modules apart.”

  He started to help her back toward the doorway, but the impostor Fian yelled to Crusader and another Axion to block the portal door. Cassian twisted Cora away just as Crusader hurled a chunk of metal wreckage at her head.

  “Redrage!” Cassian yelled. “Help us get to the door! And Ironmage—”

  But it was too late. Cora pressed a hand to her mouth as she watched the Axion who’d been disguised as Fian grab hold of Ironmage’s head in the puddle and, with a single jerk, break his neck. Ironmage slumped lifelessly into the water.

  “No!” Cora cried.

  Redrage let out a bellow of fury. She charged headfirst into the Axion, and Cora winced at the sound of a bone snapping.

  Cassian pulled Cora into the safety of a corner. “As soon as the portal door is clear, we’ve got to run for it.”

  She grabbed his shoulder, kneading her fingers against his bone and muscle. “Wait. I can’t. I can’t go back in there.”

  His head lowered, confused.

  “The last perceptive puzzle,” she said in a rush, wiping the blood from her nose. “I won’t be able to solve it. During the last round, I tore my brain so badly even the paragon burst can’t help me. I don’t know what happened. I was following Anya’s instructions . . .”

  His face went hard as stone. “Anya. You mean the impostor.”

  Cora tossed her head up and searched the fight for the Axion who’d been disguised as Anya, locking eyes on the creature with the white streak of hair. She pressed a hand against her forehead. “Oh, god, that was their plan, wasn’t it? One of them posed as Anya so they could sabotage me. Everything she trained me in was only meant to hurt me, and it worked. I can’t levitate anything now.” She motioned to a small piece of rubble on the ground. Before, she would have been able to move it effortlessly, but now it didn’t budge. “If I go back into the Gauntlet, I’ll fail. I can’t do it.”

  The wall of flickering monitors threw a harsh light against their faces. Behind them, the battle was turning. The Axion were getting the upper hand—there were simply too many of them. Cora thought about what must be happening on the aggregate station and all the other planets where the Axion were battling at the same time. When your enemy could be anyone, how did you stand a chance?

  Cassian looked away. “You’re the only hope we have. The Axion are spreading, attacking more planets and stations. The only thing that can stop them is the evolutionary jump. Kindred and human both taken to a level that can defeat them permanently.”

  Cora felt tears on her cheeks. “I know how hard you’ve all fought, but I can’t.”

  He pulled her into his arms, holding her tight. She felt the warmth of his blood soaked into his uniform. The pulse of his beating heart. Was this what he’d imagined would happen when he’d first seen her on Earth? When he’d abducted her and trained her in the cage, had he ever thought they’d be standing here, all hope lost? Had he thought they would come to mean as much to each other as they did?

  He ran a hand down her short, tangled hair. His heart was beating faster, and it spurred her own. More tears pushed at her eyes. He’d once been her enemy, but all that was far behind them. He had told her once that they could have changed the world together, and he’d been right. He’d seen potential in her that she’d never thought was there.

  “You’ve gone further than any human ever has,” he murmured. “I’m proud of you. Nothing will change that. Nor the fact that I love you.”

  The tenderness in his voice made her sob harder. Was this really the end?

  She couldn’t imagine what would happen now, or how they could possibly be together, after such a heartbreaking defeat. Would he always look at her with disappointment behind his eyes? Would she always feel as though she’d let him down?

  Behind him, she watched Ironmage’s lifeless body floating in the water. And beside the puddle were the remnants of Bonebreak’s shielding. Oh, God, was he gone too? Littering the room were dozens of dead Mosca and Kindred and Gatherers. Leon, Mali, and Willa were holding their own, but they couldn’t last long.

  Movement caught her eye by the doorway. Serassi, limping, was using a broken panel to fight off the Axion guarding the portal door. She threw a look toward Cassian and Cora. “Come on!” she yelled. “I’ll hold them off!”

  Cora stifled a gasp.

  Serassi still believed in her. She was risking her life to help. All the Kindred were, and the Mosca, and the humans, and Gatherers, and Willa. Could she really just give up? As if to answer, the whispers surged inside her, thousands of voices of humanity urging her not to stop.

  She pushed the tears out of her eyes. “I want to do this.”

  Cassian looked at her in surprise. “But without your perceptive abilities . . .”

  “I have to try,” she said.

  He looked as though he might protest again, but then he glanced at Serassi, struggling to hold off the Axion. The battle was nearly finished now. Only a few rebels remained to fight the Axion. His hand tightened over hers.

  “All right. Go.”

  Fear and exhilaration filled her as they raced across the room. The hum of the paragon burst swelled inside her, all of humanity united in helping her win. Cassian shoved his elbow into the face of an Axion and then pulled her toward the portal door.

  “When we go in,” he said in a rush, “don’t look back. Don’t think about the battl
e—it doesn’t matter who wins or loses out here, only what happens in there. If you defeat the final puzzle, the evolutionary jump will be triggered. It will spread throughout this room, throughout the galaxy. The Axion won’t stand a chance.”

  They neared the portal door that Serassi was fiercely defending. More water poured in from the ceiling, and Cora remembered the storm outside. They didn’t have long. Through the doorway, the ninth puzzle chamber was black. No telling what it would bring.

  “Wait. You said we,” she said. “You said when we go in . . .”

  His eyes met hers, and she knew that he wasn’t telling her something. She knew that this secret—whatever it was—was what he’d been keeping from her all along.

  “That’s the trick to the third round,” he said quietly. “I knew you wouldn’t agree to it if I’d told you before. The third round involves a much more personal challenge. The sponsor becomes part of the puzzles. The risk becomes greater.”

  She stared at him in disbelief. “I won’t let you risk yourself.”

  But even now, Willa’s words were flooding back into her mind. Think hard about who you care about. The Gauntlet will test you on it—it tested me. It defeated me. Now I have nothing.

  But she hadn’t thought this would be who the stock algorithm would pit her against. She thought Willa had meant it would be a hologram of someone from her past. Not someone real. Not someone who could die.

  “That’s why the sponsor is so important,” Cassian continued in a rush. “A member of an intelligent species must be willing to sacrifice himself for the good of the lesser species. And that is how much I believe in you, Cora. In your race. I always have.”

  “But . . . but Bonebreak was going to be my sponsor.”

  “Yes, and if I hadn’t returned, he would be here now. He knew the risks. And, apparently, he felt that the potential rewards were great enough that he was willing to risk his life.” Regret flickered in his dark eyes. “He already did, just not the way he envisioned.”