by Ryan Tang
Jared's face appeared in the corner of her panoramic view. Her friend's face was tight with worry as he typed furiously but sporadically at the laptop to his side.
"I'm in my Paragon. Do you need me to catch the pod?"
Jared shook his head.
"I think it'll just bounce off. I'm not sure why anyone would shoot a pod at a colony, no. Even if there are bombs in it, it'll just bounce off..."
Not even a Paragon could destroy a colony. Several pilots had tried during the wars.
The girl urgently tugged at her sleeve.
"What if it's like Lews? What if he has a Familiar? What if he can Travel?"
Alex blinked. The Familiars was just a story, but there had to be some truth to it. Otherwise, it couldn't have cut the goddess.
Alex stared at the light streaking through the sky. She took another look at the empty streets. The guards outside Stock's home would be gone too, wouldn't they?
"Doesn't matter."
Alex looked down at the girl's hands. She thought of all the broken hands on the colony. She thought of Steel and how he'd grinned as he boasted about bringing Southern Robotics's practices to Alex's home colony.
"Wait. Alex. Where are you flying? We don't need you to catch the pod. Just take cover."
Alex paused.
Jared hadn't known about the assassin. She hadn't told him. She remembered how adamantly he'd argued against killing Stock during one of their meetings in the Spire.
"Plenty has seen enough death!"
"We need to be better! We need to be our best selves!"
The librarian paused. Alex and Leanne agreed that killing Stock was the safest thing to do, but she needed to hear from other people. Deciding to kill Stock by herself was even worse than trying to find the traitor by herself.
Alex turned back to the screen, but Jared had already run off. She could hear him shouting in the background.
"What is their plan with this pod? There's been no communication at all. Are they just going to ram it into our Gate? What is Generosity thinking? Have you been able to get in touch with their Governor?"
Before she could call him back, the girl started to scream.
A familiar voice echoed along the empty street. The door to the mansion was already open. The guard had fled back to their homes as soon as they saw the pod.
"A cripple! How outrageous! You sent a bleeding cripple to free me! How dare they! I'm your blood brother! I spent millions at Generosity's casinos!"
He knocked at his skull.
"Hey Evan! Can you hear me? Or can I only hear you? Why did you send me a cripple! I can't believe it! I'm your blood brother!"
He cackled.
"Well, as long as she listens to me, we should be fine. I'm a genius, you know! And with the new strength you've given me, I can do whatever I want!"
Stock looked up and saw her machine.
The girl screamed louder.
Alex expected him to cringe and run, but to her surprise, he charged forward.
"Evan! Evan! She's here! The bitch is here! I'll kill her! I'll kill her now! Give me your strength! Give it to me!"
What was he shouting about? It was all nonsense.
Alex carefully inspected the street. Evan was Steel's birth name, but from the looks of it, nobody else was there.
Stock stood beneath her machine and cackled.
"You! You! Perfect! You! I've been meaning to get my revenge!"
He cackled and pointed in his head.
"Just try to shoot me! Just try! Evan told me you can't! He said I'm invincible now! Invincible!"
He swaggered forward until he was just under the glowing blade of her cutlass.
"Stab me! Just try it! I've been blessed by god! Evan has a god just like me, and he's given me his powers! Two gods to zero! Two gods to zero!"
A god in his head. Did he mean a Familiar? She might have been going back to the story just because she'd read it recently, but there had to be some truth to it.
Alex looked down on him and frowned. Stock's eyes were strangely bloodshot, but otherwise, he seemed very ordinary. His arms were exposed, and there was nothing there. He kept mentioning Evan, but there was no sign of Steel.
Stock's high-pitched wail cut through her musings.
"Cyber Girl! Cyber Girl! I know you have her! Give me back Cyber Girl!"
He spat out the words through a mouthful of drool.
The girl screamed.
"No! No! No! No! No!"
She put her appliance hands over her head. Soon, her words melted away, leaving a droning cry of horror.
"You have her! You have my slave! Give me back Cyber Girl! She is a princess! She can't serve the likes of you! She only can serve god!"
He pointed at her machine.
"Give her up! Give her up for the invincible double god! Just try to kill me! You can't kill me!"
Stock did that strange gesture again, the one where he pointed at his strangely framed forehead.
"God! God! Twice-blessed! Twice-blessed! Two gods! Two gods! Evan's god and the one you stole! Give her to me! Give me Cyber Girl! You didn't expect me, did you? You didn't expect me to break out? That's because I'm smarter than you! You never suspected a thing!"
Alex took another look at him. He kept pounding his head and grabbing his temples.
"Didn't expect to see me, did you? Didn't expect to pay for your attitude, did you? Well, Evan broke me out. And he says he gave me his god! He said it! I can't be injured now! Evan would never lie to me! We're blood brothers!"
The girl's wail grew higher and higher until she couldn't speak at all. She slipped out of Alex's lap and fell to the ground.
"If you don't give her to me, I'll kill you! I'll kill you! Cyber Girl! She's mine! She's mine! Give her to me! I'm an invincible god! Give her to me!"
Alex's hate flared a little higher with every word he spoke.
"Give her to me! She's my slave! I invented her! Me! Me! The first cyborg! I'm a god, and I invented her! She's mine!"
Her anger peaked.
It was just for the briefest moment, but the Paragons had the strength of a thousand people, and their pilot's actions were amplified by a thousandfold.
If Stock were really invincible, she'd find out.
A giant mosaic blue hand reached down. To her shock, he suddenly lunged forward, his arms and legs jerking wildly as he sprinted to meet her hand.
He let out a sudden cry of surprise as she smeared him into the ground.
The screaming stopped.
He was just a speck of red on her fingers.
Alex blinked. She'd thought there might have been something there, but it was only another delusion.
She thought she would feel sad, but she didn't. She glanced down at the screaming girl. Death had been too kind for Stock.
There was a tremendous explosion, and the whole colony rocked. Alex jerked up at the sky. The pod had slammed into the Gate and exploded. Red fire streaked through the sky.
Jared flickered back onto the side of her screen.
"They just...they just crashed the pod into the Gate. What were they trying to -"
And then his message was cut off.
Harsh hands slammed her machine violently to the floor. She hit the ground so hard that she could see the Eternium core glistening through the concrete cracks.
She turned around.
A white Paragon loomed over her.
Leanne flickered onto her screen. Her movements were jagged and uneven. She fiddled with the controls like she was a mannequin and she moaned between every word.
"Get out of my way Alex. There's nothing you can do."
____
The hunchbacked and asymmetrical machine resembled a bulkier Broken Hands model rather than Leanne's earlier knight. A three-tubed missile launcher poked over the shoulder.
Leanne coughed.
"My blood. My blood."
There was a lot of blood. Leanne was crying bloody tears. Red dripped out of her mouth and
trickled through her ears. It was gushing from her nose, spraying all over the dashboard.
What had happened to her?
Alex raised her composite rifle. Her fingers trembled.
"What are you doing?"
Leanne jerked upright. The sudden movement made her blood spray haphazardly, and Alex winced. It looked like when someone stepped on a garden hose. Her friend pushed at her temple.
"It's coming. The machine I owe. And the colors. The colors. I almost got the colors."
Her friend moaned again and threw her head back. By now, both her eyes had turned completely red. It looked like all the blood vessels in them had popped at once.
Alex couldn't fire. Not at Leanne. She didn't understand what was happening.
"The color. I'm working on the color."
Red stains blossomed across the pristine paint, bursting out just like blood was dripping out of her friend.
The girl moaned. Her appliance hands shook and shook.
"What are we going to do? Are you going to shoot her? What's happening?"
She tried again to raise her machine's weapons, but something inside her had grown dead and numb. The triggers slipped and fell out of her hands. What had they done to her friend?
The bloody tears covered Leanne's face like a mask. She sniffed, and there was a nasty sucking nose. Her nose was stuffed with blood.
Leanne blinked when she saw the girl on Alex's lap. Her eyes didn't look so fierce anymore, not while they were so red she couldn't see. She looked like a dying demon.
"I thought Stock was delusional. I'm surprised the girl even exists."
She coughed again, and blood sprayed all over her camera.
"Well, Alex. Like I said. I need you to get out of my way. We stopped them from getting Paragons, so now I must give them my own."
"Who's they?"
But Alex already knew.
Leanne spat out the words like a curse.
"Generosity."
Her voice was filled with despair and defeat. She sounded nothing like the proud woman who'd stood on Alex's Paragon's hand and promised to teach her family a lesson.
"How did they do this to you?"
Leanne jerked and then moaned.
"Familiars. My blood. The blood oath. It's just like a Contract."
She spat out more massive globules of red onto her dashboard.
Alex's mind raced far ahead of her, connecting the dots between The Familiars and the reality staring her in the face.
The Palace of Luck.
The place where every wealthy person gathered to gamble. The place where all bets were taken, even gambles on the affairs of other colonies. It was a hatchery, just like the underground pool. It had to be. The hatchery under the City of Lights had been powered by the pride of the citizens above it. The greed and gambling in the Palace must have been very similar.
"I need you to get out of my way. I owe them a Paragon. You should run after you let me go. You should all run. They mean to raze Plenty to the ground and mine the core for Eternium. They'll leave the colony a dead husk, a symbol for everyone who tries to defy a Family. They'll make me teach them how to create Paragons."
Alex clenched her teeth.
"They won't raze Plenty to the ground. We beat them at Diligence, and we'll beat them again. And we'll find a way to free you too."
Alex's retort was immediate.
"Look at what happened when we were on Diligence. Emile got captured, and I was in hiding. The colony built a hundred machines in a single night. We can produce miracles together. We'll save you!"
An ancient god overthrown.
A hundred machines in a single night.
A happy home for everybody.
Leanne spoke very quickly. She'd spoken like that once before, back when they were first getting to know each other. Alex remembered that day very well. They'd been outside Stock's home, just like tonight. Leanne had talked about Nico and her late wife. She'd proclaimed she'd do anything to make her son happy...
"You don't understand. You don't understand his power. You don't..."
Her hand jerked up and smacked herself in the face. Her head snapped back, and specks of blood flew from her eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.
Her hand had moved entirely of his own accord. She hadn't even noticed it coming to strike her.
Leanne gasped.
"Total control. He has total control. If I don't leave with him, he'll make me kill Nico."
Alex's heart turned to ice.
"It's helpless. They got me. I tried my best to outsmart them. They contacted me after the announcement. A voice in my head. That's all he can do when he's far away. I tried my best to sabotage their plans. Stock's first escape. I knew he wouldn't succeed. I knew he wouldn't hurt you. I thought I could just say I tried. But no. No. No. Now he's outside. He's outside!"
"Outside?"
Leanne shrieked and pointed at the Gate.
"There! There! He's just outside! He's drifting outside!"
The girl murmured on Alex's lap, reciting the words that the librarian had read so many times before.
"We live in places your kind cannot go. We were meant to walk where you never could."
A Familiar. Someone from Generosity had a Familiar.
It took Leanne three deep breaths before she could speak again. Alex sobbed. It hurt so much to see her friend like this. Leanne had believed. Leanne had hoped.
"I filmed you killing Stock. They want to show all the colonies that we're just barbarians. That our video was just a lie. We killed a good man - a genius - out of cynicism and greed. That's what they'll tell everyone. That we murdered Stock and took what was rightfully his. They'll unite all the colonies against us. The Families have hungered for Eternium. We got in the way of that, and now we need to pay the price."
Alex wiped the warm tears from her eyes. Her friend was still saying "we." Deep in her heart, she was still a citizen of Plenty. Alex held onto that "we." She put it deep in her heart so she'd always remember it.
"I must pay for betraying them. You must pay for foiling them. Emile must pay too, but she and everyone who built the hundred false machines will die when Plenty is razed."
Leanne suddenly screamed at the top of her lungs.
She jerked forward and slammed into the dashboard. She grabbed her head with both hands, flailing over and over again as blood splattered all over the cockpit.
Her voice had lost every hint of strength. It was high and shrill and filled top to bottom with despair.
"He's tired of waiting. Evan's tired of waiting. He says I need to go."
Leanne's body jerked up and stared at Alex, but her friend wasn't there anymore. It was the same voice, but the cadence and tone sounded nothing like her dear friend. The mouth moved slowly and deliberately, enunciating every word.
"Get out of my way. Do you know how much you disgraced me on Diligence? Do you know what I had to go through to get this power?"
The bloodstained Paragon leaped into the sky. Alex instinctively raised her composite rifle. The bulky Paragon's launcher hand sparked as a ball of red lightning formed on the barrel. The two Paragons fired at the same time. The red blast eclipsed her bullet at once. Alex barely jerked out of the way as the enemy machine's gunfire instantly incinerated Stock's former home.
Alex screamed into her tablet, broadcasting her verbal message to everyone on the Forums. The librarian tried her best to sound confident. She tried her best to sound like an ace.
"Everyone stay inside! Jared! Seal the Gate from the inside! Don't go near the Gate under any circumstances! I'll deal with this myself!"
The Hands Paragons wouldn't stand a chance. She'd only needed a single look at that crimson launcher. A stray shot would instantly destroy the lightly armored machines.
Alex streaked toward the Gate, thinking of Lews's final battle against the Lightning King. The golden machine had released blast after blast onto Lews's stolen Paragon, but the boy had stood firm even when he failed to Trave
l and electricity seared his veins. Lews had been tired of losing and tired of running.
She could not run either. She had to be brave. Brave like Lews. And brave like the girl, who'd come with her to confront Stock.
She angled her rifle toward the enemy Paragon and immediately tallied all its weapons. Just like the Broken Hands model, every weapon was built directly into the frame. The right arm ended in a savage pincer, and a three-tube missile launcher protruded from the back. The left arm was the enormous lightning launcher that had utterly overwhelmed her last attack. Alex shifted her composite rifle into sniping mode, maximizing her power at the expense of shooting speed.
Steel had somehow taken over Leanne's body, but if she could cripple the machine, it wouldn't make a difference. They could figure everything out later so long as she kept her friend on the colony.
The rifle thudded in her hand.
The enemy Paragon smoothly whirled around and retorted. Once again, red lightning effortlessly splintered her bullet. Her switch to the sniper configuration hadn't made a difference. This time the crimson energy blast came so close to her cockpit that she felt the heat. The girl cried out in fear and winced.
"Alex."
Leanne sighed. It was Leanne speaking, not Joseph Steel. Alex could tell by the cadence of her voice. Her friend sounded utterly resigned.
"You can't win. This machine was designed to defeat you."
Alex switched her composite rifle to rapid-fire mode and launched a hail of bullets at the stolen Paragon. This time, the white machine didn't even return fire. The shots simply plinked off of the thick armor.
"I knew you'd try that. There's no use. Just let me go. Just let me go and run. Forget about Plenty."
Her mosaic blue machine flew faster and faster. The other Paragon's thick armor meant she had a distinct advantage when it came to speed. If she couldn't defeat the white Paragon from a distance, she had no choice but to enter melee range.
She had to keep Leanne from the Gate.