The enemy ship listed crazily as a series of explosions came from inside.
All you have to know is where the weak point is, she sang as she loosed a spread of missiles to take out the enemy mechs. Dumbasses must have never seen Star Wars since they left their vents unprotected.
Alexis supposed it was only right an alien species would have missed out on the Earth classic. Still, it felt a little bit too easy. Her suspicions were confirmed when the ship quit listing altogether and started a slow plummet toward the ground—right where the unit’s mechs were standing.
Chapter Eleven
“Get out of here!” Alexis yelled over the comm as she sprinted toward the ship without any idea what she was going to do to regain control of the situation. “We messed up!”
Gabriel was by her side, no clearer than his sister about how they were going to avoid getting smooshed by the ship whose diameter covered most of the park. “Don’t they care that they’re going to kill what troops they have left down here?”
“They’re programs,” Alexis panted. “They don’t care about anything.”
Trey felt sudden calmness descend at the realization they wouldn’t clear the park in time. “This is just like in the movies, except there’s usually nobody beneath the damned ship when it crashes.”
Alexis tuned out K’aia’s bitching, her mind whirling with options she rapidly discarded for saving them from repeating the battle. “I do not want to go through all this again,” she declared, drawing on the Etheric harder than she’d ever dared to do before.
“I’m not arguing,” Gabriel told her. “Just don’t burn yourself out, okay?”
Alexis didn’t have time to think about the possibility. She grabbed Gabriel’s hand and continued to pull energy as they ran, vaulting the downed Ookens without a thought.
The ship continued to drop, falling so slowly Alexis figured at least something inside it was still working to keep it afloat. Still, she thought it was picking up speed, or it could have been a trick of perception played by her mind as they neared the ruined gardens at the front of the park.
Time slowed further as they entered the shadow of the ship and Alexis realized that they had to act now or lose the scenario and remain in the game for another six months.
Spurred by her refusal to repeat her actions of earlier in the day, she let go of Gabriel’s hand and raised her arms as if she were going to hold up the ship by sheer force of will.
She released the Etheric energy she’d hoarded while running. It blazed out from her hands and the crown of her head and shot upward in a thick stream so bright it hurt Gabriel’s eyes.
Gabriel recovered just in time to see a surviving Ooken lunge for Alexis. He skipped through the Etheric and came out in between Alexis and her attacker.
The Ooken didn’t appear to care that its target had changed. It ground to a halt and whipped its back tentacles at Gabriel, readying the rifle in its clawed hands.
Gabriel kept his cool and released a barrage of Etheric energy shaped like needles. He darted in as the needles tore into the Ooken’s naked body.
The Ooken toppled but caught itself with its tentacles. It screeched at Gabriel and lunged again, murder in its cold, black eyes.
Gabriel was ready. He manifested a sword and shield out of Etheric energy and blocked the attack, taking off the tips of two tentacles with a sweep of the crackling blade. He wheeled around and blasted another Ooken with a stream of cold fire.
The pale blue energy left ashes where the Ooken had been winding up to attack. It also drew the attention of yet more Ookens.
Gabriel moved faster than the unenhanced eye could see, his only thought to keep Alexis safe while she worked to save them all. His sword flashed bright loops in the darkness as he ducked and darted through the soon-to-be-dead enemy soldiers.
Alexis was only vaguely aware of Gabriel’s fight. Her entire concentration was on the sinking behemoth above and how in seven hells she was going to keep it from crushing everyone in the park.
She saw the civilians trapped in the building and her teammates who were going to die along with them if she allowed the ship to crash. The responsibility lay with her and Gabriel to ensure their survival. Alexis understood her parents implicitly at that moment. Why they were the first to act whenever injustice reared its ugly head.
She gritted her teeth and poured energy into the beam. The ship rained molten metal where the energy ripped into it. Fire fell all around, setting the park alight.
It wasn’t enough.
The ship was still on its deadly course despite Alexis pushing it. She gathered herself, realizing that brute force was only going to get her so far.
She had to fight smarter.
There’s no freaking way we’re letting this go down, she told Gabriel. I'm going to try something different.
I’ve got you, Gabriel promised. Just don’t fight fair, you got me?
Alexis flashed a grin. Never intended to.
Devon, Vid-doc Vault
Eve dialed time in the game down to a standstill and opened an audio link. “Bethany Anne, Michael, it is time.”
“Already?” Michael asked with skepticism.
Eve pressed her lips together. “They’re about to unlock their peak abilities, so I paused the program and called. You did ask to be informed when they looked to be reaching this point.”
“We’re on our way,” Bethany Anne told Eve. “Disable the nanocurtain.”
A few moments later, Bethany Anne and Michael walked out of the Etheric.
“Put the curtain back up,” Bethany Anne instructed as she crossed to the viewing area.
Michael took his seat in the viewing area, his attention fixed on the screen and the carnage that was paused there. “I thought it would be a bit longer before they were ready to face Ookens.”
“What can I say?” Eve asked. “Trey was done by the end of the second stint in ‘stasis,’ and K’aia only had a few tweaks. The rest was always going to depend on when Alexis and Gabriel reached emotional maturity and found it within themselves to unlock their full potential.”
Bethany Anne narrowed her eyes, unable to fully repress her reaction to the sight of her children neck-deep in what could easily be mistaken for the climactic scene from one of those movies that made back its exorbitant production budget so many times over that they flogged the story to death with sequels that never matched the passion of the original.
She indicated the screen with a finger. “Catch us up. What led to this, and what else does the program intend to put my children through?”
Eve's eyes flickered while she ran through the milestones the children had passed. “The final step is the one that mattered, the one that unlocked the endgame.”
Bethany Anne fixed Eve with the look only a mother can give. “You’re prevaricating.”
Eve had the grace to blush, no mean feat for an android. “I don’t want to proceed with what the program is suggesting,” she admitted.
That drew Michael’s attention. “What exactly is it suggesting that is making you so reticent?” he inquired.
Eve hesitated before answering. “Breaking their connection to each other. The program has identified that as a potential weakness if one of them dies in battle.”
“No.” Bethany Anne stated, her eyes flaring red as the unthinkable thought wormed its way into her head. “There’s no need for that because they’re not ever going to be put in that situation.”
“Bethany Anne, it’s a simulation.” Michael ignored the shaking of the vault, just like he ignored the energy pouring from his wife. He took her hand, keeping his voice low and calm. “Get control of yourself before you cause an earthquake.”
The energy receded as she clamped down on it, but Bethany Anne felt no peace. She glared at Michael, her eyes still bright with red light. “I don’t care if it’s a simulation. I won’t have my babies suffer.”
Michael pointed at the screen. “Look at them,” he demanded. “They are not babies
. They are adults. No matter what our perception of their lives, theirs is different. They’ve lived those years with and without us, and earned the right to put themselves in whatever situations they wish to.”
He brought his hand back to clasp hers. “Did you think they would stay with us?” he asked gently. “They are our children, made from us. They have the entire universe at their feet. Would you stay?”
Bethany Anne bowed her head, knowing Michael was right. Why did he have to be? The vision she’d had of the four of them remaining together slipped away and was replaced by the reality that Alexis and Gabriel were highly-trained fighters. “No, I guess I knew they would want to spread their wings,” she admitted.
“We need them in this war,” Michael reminded her. “They’re every bit as powerful as we are.”
Bethany Anne pulled her hand free and turned away, regretting it when she faced the screen and saw the proof of what Michael was saying. “I can’t look at our children as assets, Michael.”
“That’s why you had the Gemini built,” Michael soothed. “And that’s why we’re going to allow the program to run.”
Bethany Anne still hesitated.
“If they don’t get the inoculation,” he continued, “what would be the chances of survival of anyone around them if it comes to the worst?”
Bethany Anne hated it on the rare occasions she had to concede that Michael was right. However, she knew her children as well as she knew herself and had to accept that the best way to protect Alexis and Gabriel—as well as the others—in the long term was to allow them to be hurt right now while they were contained within the Vid-doc system.
“Fine. Run the program,” she told Eve.
“As you wish,” Eve replied.
“I don’t fucking wish,” Bethany Anne ground out. “But better here where I can pull them out if it goes too far.”
The innards of the ship were twisting under the twin pressures of gravity and Alexis' pushback. Alexis continued to push with the beam and opened her awareness to take in the structure of the ship as the energy passed through the grinding metal.
Alexis strained to contain the whirlwind in her mind. Knowledge met instinct, and the collision tore her into infinite pieces. She was on the ground and in the air. She was human and ship, air and energy and lightning all at once, with no beginning and no end. She had no body, yet she was embodied in every atom in existence.
She was no longer in a game. She was part of the ship, and the ship was part of her.
She could taste the elements that made up the hull, metallic like blood. Perhaps she was bleeding from somewhere, but she couldn’t tell when she was made only from Etheric energy and the determination not to lose.
Everything was connected, and Alexis became certain her will was the ultimate state of being. On the heels of that revelation came the knowledge that she no longer needed a body to contain her mind. She shed the awkward encumbrance as the thought came to her, and she suddenly realized something. She’d known all along that matter was something her brain perceived as real. If she had been transfigured this way, she could also change the ship.
Gabriel gasped when Alexis vanished in a blaze of light that streaked upward and enveloped the ship. The distraction allowed his opponent to get its tentacles around his body. He Mysted out of the Ooken’s grip, crying out across the mindspace for his sister.
He felt she was there, but he was unable to connect with her.
Then, even that was gone.
The disconnect broke him. Whatever Alexis had done had separated him from her for the first time in his life. Gabriel dropped to his knees as though someone had cut his strings. His mind screamed that he’d been cut off from some vital part of himself, and he was flooded with grief for the loss.
The Ookens swarmed him, tearing at his armor ineffectively. Their weight bore down, crushing his body.
Gabriel didn’t care. Alexis was gone, and he didn’t want to live in a world where she wasn’t there.
The weight on him grew unbearable, but he didn’t notice. The darkness fitted the landscape of his heart. Alarms in his armor were nothing but background noise compared to the overwhelming pain of loss his mind could only process as a wordless scream. Even the pain became unimportant. Without Alexis, he had no purpose.
No reason to fight.
No reason to live.
The weight suddenly lifted, and the light returned to rake his eyes. He looked up dazedly into K’aia’s stern face and blinked away tears.
“You don’t get to check out that easy,” K’aia admonished as she pulled him to his feet.
Gabriel blinked again, raising a hand to shield his eyes from the lancing torchlight coming from K’aia’s helmet. Something wasn’t right about the situation. His mind cleared when he realized what it was. “You can’t be down here,” he whispered. “Get back in your mech.”
K’aia still had him by the arm. She shook him roughly, thinking the action might rattle his brain and restore sense. “What, and let you give up? Not a damn chance. We’ve lost Alexis, and there’s no way I’m losing you, too. Now get up and fight!”
Gabriel realized he was surrounded by the unit. They had abandoned their mechs, and all were fighting to keep the Ookens from him while he was vulnerable.
Trey… Trey was covered in wounds and taking more as fast as his nanocytes could heal them. Boden had lost his wings. They hung tattered down his back. Sibil bled freely from the stump of her tail, while Gorrak could only kneel and keep fighting.
He uttered a cry of despair when he saw Pootie lying still with charred dead Ookens scattered around her like the petals of a macabre flower, arranged by the force of the blast that she took them out with.
It was enough to break his heart all over again.
Gabriel was filled with an emotion he couldn’t name. It was so clean and cold it washed away his grief and brought with it a righteous fury. What he’d lost was more than he was willing to give, and he was done with being taken from. He felt for the Etheric and opened it. His feet left the ground as he drew hard and fast, becoming a conduit for the energy.
K’aia took a step back, suddenly afraid as the sweet boy she knew was transformed into a red-eyed monster lacking a single shred of pity or remorse.
Gabriel lifted a hand and pointed at the Ookens attacking Trey. “DIE,” he told them in a voice that shook the earth.
The Ookens obeyed.
Chapter Twelve
Alexis.
Who was Alexis?
She was pure thought, a ghost, a myth. She was…free.
No, she told herself. I am Alexis. I am human, and I have a job to do.
With her acceptance of self came an awareness of having been torn asunder. A vital part of her had been taken. All this passed in a fraction of a second, and in the next second, she remembered what was missing.
Where was Gabriel?
She searched the mindspace and came up empty. More than empty. She’d been gutted, despite having no guts to rip out. Half of her whole was gone. Had she made this happen? Had she shucked her connection to Gabriel when she’d abandoned her corporeal attachment?
Guilt wracked her, adding to the cyclone of emotional disorientation she was in danger of being sucked into. The frightening thought that Gabriel had been killed ate at her, superseding her guilt. Blind panic was replaced by anger. Alexis felt her being pulse with the urge to destroy whatever had taken her brother.
The Seven. They would die burning from the inside out.
Before she could disengage from the ship, something pulled at the edge of her awareness. There was someone—no, someones—drawing on the energy she was suspended in.
Living beings below. Without eyes, she saw them fighting, knots of vibrant energy. Gabriel was the brightest. Trey and K’aia were somewhat muted since they weren’t actively drawing on the Etheric, but they were unmistakable.
Her inspection showed her that Gabriel was unharmed, unlike the Ookens whose twisted energy he was snuffi
ng out. Even the civilians cowering in safety carried a ghost flame, the touch of energy that signified life.
Alexis was flooded with relief and a renewed sense of purpose. She had a ship to take care of.
She flowed around the hull and raised the ship, halting its downward progress. Next, she insinuated herself in the spaces between atoms, breaking the bonds that formed the compounds.
The ship ceased to be as she scattered it to the winds. Alexis felt her consciousness expand as her exploration of matter manipulation blossomed into true understanding. The physics of the universe meant nothing to her. Everything she’d learned before this moment was only supposition made by people who had never been connected to the fabric of reality like she was right now. Her knowledge grew as she experimented, and the rapidity with which it happened intoxicated her.
Time itself—
Alexis. Enough.
Whose voice was that? Someone who must be obeyed; that she knew. Alexis thought briefly about ignoring the command, but something deep in her psyche told her disobedience was not an option.
Then she would fight.
But wait, why would she fight? What was she fighting for?
Your brother, her mother reminded her.
The sense of being cut off from something vital returned to Alexis, dragging her down from the high she’d almost given in to.
Gabriel. I almost forgot myself completely.
Bethany Anne spoke quietly in a tone Alexis had never heard from her mother before. It’s tempting to give yourself up to peace. It would be a relief some days. But you don’t have that option, my love. None of us do. We have to be the barrier, the line the assholes don’t dare cross. Duty doesn’t care how tired you are. Evil never sleeps.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered from lips she’d reformed.
Alexis looked around and saw the carnage the invasion had wreaked on the city. She looked down and saw Gabriel, and their bond was restored.
I thought I’d lost you for a minute, Gabriel told her in their mindspace.
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