by Ryan Tang
"What? No! We didn't break in! He put us here! He told us to hide until he dealt with the criminals outside! He said it was the safest place in the building!"
Macob's chest heaved up and down.
He was clearly terrified of wasting Steel's time again.
Emile smiled.
"Is it clear outside yet? Could we head out now?"
Alex stumbled to her feet.
Then Macob screamed and leaped into the air.
"It's on! It's on! The computer is on! You saw his secrets! You're spies!"
He yanked out his tablet.
"I need to call security!"
"What? No! It was on when we arrived!"
"No, it wasn't! No, it was not! It's never on! He said he'd kill me if he ever saw me touch it! I'm calling security!"
Emile caught his arm.
"Do you know what the secret is? Do you want to know? If you expose this, you'll win back the Governorship."
Macob paused for just a moment. She turned the monitor around and hissed.
"Look! It's War Paragons! He means to use these Paragons on your people! He means to shoot the Strangegods!"
To Alex's shock, Macob instantly cackled with glee. Before they could do anything else, he pressed a button and screamed into his tablet.
"Spies! Spies! The foreigners are spies! The Governor's office – NOW!"
The former Governor giggled happily.
"Yes. Yes. Something as important as this. This is what I needed. He'll trust me now. Power and influence will finally be mine again!"
He rubbed his hands together.
"And after he shoots the Strangegods, the lot of them will vote for me forever!"
He stretched his arms wide and blocked the door.
"You two are staying here. You're staying here until the police arrive."
He flexed a bicep.
"You'll never get past me!"
Emile promptly kicked him in the balls. He screamed and collapsed onto the floor, and then the two of them sprinted out of the room.
The hangar was only a few doors away, but it was too late. The guards were already there.
Jets landed in the hangar, and troops wearing bright red uniforms streamed out.
"Back! Back!"
Alex and Emile turned back the way they'd gone. The guards followed in hot pursuit.
"Shit! Shit! Shit!"
What could they do?
They were in a floating city! How were they going to escape without the hangar?
Alex's best friend panted beside her.
"Split up. We need to split up. We'll find a way to double back for the machine in the hangar."
There was no chance of that. They'd keep people on guard. But splitting up was still the best they could do. They diverged at the next path.
It wasn't long until she heard Emile get caught. Her friend shouted and fought, but it didn't do any good.
Alex heard Claudia's giggle, and dread trickled out the back of her mind. She'd listened to that giggle countless times over in high school. It never preceded anything good.
There was a loud crunch, and Emile stopped shouting.
Alex had no time to freeze and no time to fear. She scampered through a window and bolted out of the palace.
She whirled around. Protestors surrounded the floating city.
A guard saw her and shouted.
"There! There! There's the other one!"
"Get her! Get her!"
Without any hesitation, a crowd of Strangegods surged up to the edge.
"Over here! Run over here!"
"Come! We'll catch you!"
The guards stormed behind her. Doors banged open as more and more of them streamed out of the palace. Hank was screaming at the top of his lungs.
"Kill her! Kill her! Someone kill her! We'll pretend it was an accident! Kill her!"
Alex ran to the edge and jumped.
Hands caught her mid-air, but the fall was still hard. The platform had been almost twelve feet up. Alex had the wind knocked clean out of her, but she started running as soon as they set her onto the ground.
"Thank you! Thank you!"
A hand grabbed her by the arm, and for a moment, Alex expected the worst. But then strong fingers slipped a piece of paper into her palm.
She ran out past the floating city and into the winding streets of the service district. A few lights were on, but the roads were almost entirely empty. It seemed like the whole colony had gathered around the new Governor's building.
Alex unfurled the paper in her hand and read the address messily scrawled on it. She recognized it at once. It was one of the Strangegods’ churches – the one close to her home.
Alex ran but not before sending a picture of the scrap to her parents.
"URGENT. YOU MUST GO AT ONCE. YOU ARE IN DANGER."
Claudia and Hank knew where she lived.
She saw her parents as soon as she arrived in the shadow of the Strangegods’ church. Her dad was pale as a ghost, and her mom's eyes were wide with fright.
"What's happened?"
"Have you seen the news? They're looking for you! What's happened?"
An austere man with a shaved head met them outside the door. They had to get inside.
"The other Strangegods sent me here! They told me I could hide!"
The man nodded slowly.
"I was only expecting one person."
"These are my parents! They know where I live! Please help them too!"
For one moment, it seemed like her entire world was balancing on a needle.
Alex's mind raced.
If the man wouldn't let her parents inside too...
Alex reached into her dress for the Eternium shards. Jared called it the Eternium Veins. Once the Eternium touched the colony's core, she could bend the whole thing to her will.
It would be a catastrophe. Plenty's secret would be exposed. And there were always risks associated with tampering with a colony's core. She'd used the Eternium Veins before on Plenty, but Diligence might be different. After all, Stock's mining led to the quakes. Diligence wasn't her home. If she used the Eternium Veins, the core might react with hostility.
It was a poor way to pay back the Strangegods’ kindness.
It didn't matter, though. She'd do it for her parents. She'd do it for Emile.
Her mind covered all those possibilities in the span of a second.
But there was no need.
The man just nodded and opened the door like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"Yes. Of course, your parents should come in with you."
____
Her parents whirled on her as soon as they crossed the threshold.
"What happened?"
"What's the real reason you came?"
The second question pierced her heart, and her stomach turned dead and cold.
"It was to bring you back to Plenty. That really was the main reason."
She wanted to show them the new home they built. The carts in the sky. The apartments. And the Spire with all its books.
"That's really why. It really is!"
She took another look and realized her parent's eyes were protective, not accusatory. Alex stumbled forward, and they hugged her. They were there to protect her. They always would be.
"Dad, did mom tell you everything that happened?"
Her father paused for a moment before responding.
"Yeah. About Stock. About the Familiars. And about the Paragons."
He shook his head, his voice filled with shock.
"It can be hard to believe."
"I left something out."
She told her parents about Heidi and how she promised the Governor of Diligence wanted to visit the colony if he didn't get the machines he ordered.
"We weren't sure what to do. After what happened with Stock and Waters, we realized we shouldn't just trust the leaders of other colonies. You get that right? We could never have imagined Stock planning something like the s
acrifices. So when another Governor came, we were really worried!"
She paused, worried about what they would say. After all, they'd supported Steel. But they just nodded.
"Yeah. I get why you would be worried. So what did you come here for? Couldn't you have just given him the machines?"
Alex smiled. The weight stopped pressing against her stomach. It meant so much that her parents agreed with her.
"We didn't know how to build the machines. They said it was a special design. So Emile and I came here to steal the schematics."
She trailed off for just a moment.
She still couldn't believe everything they discovered.
She still couldn't believe Steel's plan.
She couldn't believe what was beneath his façade.
Her mom hugged her even tighter.
"Alex, are you okay?"
Her mother's strong arms cleared her head a little.
"Yeah. I'm fine. Look at this."
She pulled her tablet out of her bag and showed it to them.
"We found the Paragon designs."
"Oh, god."
Her mom's reaction was instant.
It took her dad a little longer. Then he swore loudly.
"Fifty of them? He's going to slaughter people."
Alex whispered through her tears.
"They want to use them on the Strangegods. The ones who don't want to work two shifts."
"You have to tell them!"
"We need to stop this!"
The Paragons had the strength of a thousand people, and nothing could ever justify bringing such a force to bear on ordinary people.
"And don't worry about anything. We'll keep you safe."
"Yeah."
Alex breathed normally again for the first time since her meeting with Steel.
The Eternium shards were cold against her thigh, but it was nothing compared to the warm love she felt from her parents. No matter what, they would keep her safe.
The door opened, and Hector stepped into the room.
"What's happening here."
Alex turned and stepped away from her parents. She knew it wasn't really her place, but she had bewildered questions of her own.
"Why did you guys help me? Why were you even there?"
The tall man frowned.
"We heard Steel was planning to order weapons of some sort. We heard he was going to force us to work and claim he was enforcing our contracts. We went because we wanted people to see us and know that we aren't traitors. My fellow believers helped because it was the right thing to do. It took them a while before they found someone who knew you."
He repeated himself.
"Why did you guys come to Diligence? You and the other girl, the one they arrested."
She told Hector about the secret Paragon order and how the Governor said he'd visit Plenty himself if he didn't receive them.
"Why couldn't you just let him visit the colony?"
"It's a long story."
She wasn't sure he'd believe her if she told him.
She showed him her tablet.
"They mean to use the Paragons against the Strangegods! Sooner said he wanted you guys to shut up permanently!"
Hector paused.
There was a queer look on his face Alex couldn't place.
"Are your people going to give him real machines?"
"No."
She answered at once, without even hesitating.
She knew her neighbors. Then, just to be safe, she pulled out her tablet to see if Jared had responded to her picture. An ominous red message glared back at her.
"Foreign spy captured – all off-colony transmissions have been terminated."
Hector saw the note and frowned.
"Have you heard from them?"
"No."
Alex gulped down her fears. She was thousands of miles away from Plenty, but she knew her friends and neighbors.
"I don't need to talk to them. I know."
They knew the destruction these machines could cause. If they had to, they'd fight for what was right instead of passing the problem to someone else. And they were brilliant. She'd seen the strung-up Paragon carts; she'd seen the apartments. She'd seen Jared and Duncan's experiments. She remembered how Leanne solved the mystery of the Eternium ghosts and missing Paragons.
They'd figure this out too.
After a long time, Hector nodded.
"Good then. I'm sure Steel will host an event to celebrate your friend's capture and the arrival of the machines. God's people will march then. I hope you will join us."
"Me?"
"You've seen evidence of his crimes."
"But I'm a foreigner! I'm a foreign spy! I'm exactly what he warned you guys about."
"Yeah. And as the War Paragons will show, you're not the real problem. Until we started explaining ourselves, everyone had fallen for Steel's lies about us too. There are still a lot of people who believed them."
Alex nodded. Her parents hadn't known why the Strangegods were upset either. They'd just heard Steel's bad faith explanation.
"And while we're showing ourselves to people, I'd ask you to stop calling us the Strangegods."
Alex thought about it for just a moment. Then she flushed bright red.
Come to think of it, that was a weird thing to call someone.
It'd probably been a remnant of the Mad Nobles.
Hector just laughed.
"It's not your fault. You didn't know."
Then his face turned serious.
"You're certain the people on your colony will protect us."
"Yes."
She had no way of contacting them. She had no way of checking.
But she would gladly stake her life on it. She'd be marching with them too.
"Well. This is our chance then, isn't it? We will show everyone who Steel and Sooner really are. I will contact the others. God's people will rally in two days' time."
____
The next two days were torturous.
Her parents helped her stay calm and steady, but it was a very narrow thing. Alex knew she was risking everything. She hit her tablet a few more times, but it couldn't connect back to Plenty.
There was nothing she could do until her friends' Paragons arrived.
Until then, it was just bad news after bad news.
Soldiers searched for her from door to door. They destroyed her parent's home. Three times they entered the Hector's church, and three times Alex and her parents hid in the cellar. Her heart tightened with guilt a little more each time. They were risking so much for her.
Steel announced Emile's capture and boasted of the fantastic deal he'd secured with Plenty and Southern Robotics. After capturing a spy from a foreign colony, Diligence would be rewarded with a hundred Paragons instead of fifty. It was the price Plenty agreed to pay in exchange for Emile's life.
Jared and the others must have agreed to double the order to keep Emile safe. Her stomach coiled anxiously. What were her friends going to do?
Steel and his men paraded Emile through the colony in chains. Twice, Alex could see her through the church window. Through it all, her friend cursed and yelled until they finally gagged her.
Macob was tied up next to her. He squealed out his innocence, but people jeered and paid him no mind.
After what seemed like a year, it was finally the day the Paragons were scheduled to arrive. Steel and Sooner trumpeted their triumph throughout the colony. And as Hector promised, every single one of his friends and allies took to the streets, their gleaming forever black relics held high above their heads.
____
The thrum of bodies hooted and shouted as they swept through the streets. There were even more people than before. More and more of Diligence's citizens joined them after realizing the truth of Steel's false accusations. Alex and her parents were soon swept up by the roaring tide.
Alex remembered Jared telling her about marching to the Library courtyard. All the remaining people of Plenty,
everyone who wasn't brainwashed, joined together to protest Southern Robotics's event. Halfway there, the lost citizens of Block 12 joined them.
The librarian had been hiding inside the book-corridors that night, preparing to summon her Paragon to battle against Stock, but she wished she'd seen it.
Her friend described it as a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
She'd read about it in the testimonials.
The feeling of fighting together as one.
The sound of their voices, so loud they drowned out the lies of Stock's false sky.
Their swelling determination as their numbers grew and multiplied.
It was the same here.
But as their numbers grew, so did their detractors.
Some repeated the same lines her parents once believed.
They called Hector and his fellow worshippers traitors.
They called them entitled and spoiled.
They ordered them to return to work.
Some even repeated Sooner's ugly criticism, screeching that religious believers were idiots.
Fights occasionally broke out.
Alex peered anxiously at Hector, but the big man did not turn back. He urged his people to march forward, but he never intervened in a fight.
When he noticed Alex looking curiously at him, he smiled tightly and explained.
"I'd prefer if they didn't fight. But people are angry. They know the truth about Steel now. He's planning on gunning us down. He's been smearing us this whole time."
He sighed.
"It's not my right to stop them. They are angry, and these insults cut deep. These people are supporting someone who wants to kill us."
Alex shuddered.
She could hear the anger lurking underneath Hector's own restraint.
"Yeah."
Stock and Waters were undoubtedly evil, but Alex had never personally experienced something quite like this before. People jeering at her family and friends. People openly lying about them. She'd be infuriated too.
But more people joined them that not and some of the fights even ended peacefully.
It was just like what had happened on Plenty.
People were good at heart. Now that they knew what had happened, the people of Diligence didn't like what'd been done to Hector’s people.
The whispers carried through the crowd.