by R F Hurteau
And if the moments that passed in Onyx’s cold, dark house felt like hours to Gavin, they would feel like an eternity to the Weaver.
The idea that the man he considered a father needed him, and that Gavin was just sitting around, made his stomach churn.
How many more times? How many more times would he disappoint the man who raised him?
No... disappoint was too weak of a word. Gavin had betrayed the Weaver. He’d turned his back on him in a time of need, he’d forced the man to do unconscionable things on Gavin’s behalf. To go against the First Order, something he had upheld for a lifetime. And now, this.
It seemed too much.
Onyx entered from the kitchen, her lips forming a tight line and morning sunlight cascading through the window to kiss her tired face as she pushed a plate across the table in front of him.
“Eat,” she ordered.
“I’m not hungry,” Gavin heard himself reply. “How can I eat at a time like this?”
She gave a little huff.
“If you’re going to stay up all night waiting for that boy to give you the answers you’re looking for, you should at least try to keep your strength up. Who knows what will happen when he wakes? If we’re going to be racing out of the house before the flowers unfurl, I at least want you fed.”
Gavin’s fists clenched on the tabletop and he growled.
“He needs me, Onyx, and I’m just sitting here. If our places were reversed, do you think he’d be enjoying a leisurely meal right now?”
Onyx slid into the chair across from him and put her hands over his.
“If what Ollie said is the truth, then Nero has had him for days.” She picked up a fork, spearing a piece of chicken on the end of it and waving it in front of his face, as if this would somehow convince him to eat it. He snatched it away, setting it back on the dish. “A few more hours won’t make that much of a difference.”
“You don’t know that. They might.”
In the bedroom, the mattress creaked as Ollie rolled over. Gavin glanced toward the closed door.
Onyx stepped into his line of sight. “Not yet.”
But Gavin’s fear of Onyx’s wrath was outweighed by his need for answers.
“He’s slept long enough.” His words were firm as he stood and brushed past her. “Now we talk.”
After his initial shock at being jarred awake, Ollie had been energized and eager to share what he knew. The color had returned to his face, and despite Onyx’s worried hovering, he seemed to have recovered remarkably well.
“Nero had us locked up, but the Weaver...he didn’t forget us, did he? He doesn’t like when people are treated unjustly. He looks after his own. He was captured trying to rescue us.”
Ollie was now sitting up in bed and clutching a cup of tea with both hands.
He’d been startled, and somewhat frightened, when Gavin had barged into the room. It had taken him a while to remember where he was, and how he had gotten there. Onyx had blamed the concoction she’d mixed up for him.
Gavin was leaning against the door frame as Onyx bustled back and forth between the bed and the kitchen. She’d made a show of how disappointed she was in his behavior, but he wasn’t concerned with that just now.
He knew that she was worried about the Weaver, too, and she would just have to get over her indignation at being overruled. Gavin submitted to her will on most things, but not on this. She just wasn’t used to him acting in such a brazen, defiant manner.
Get to the part I don’t know, Gavin thought, annoyed at receiving a history on the Weaver from a mere child.
“Why were you locked up?” Onyx asked.
“When he found out what was happening, the Weaver got past the security forces and into CEDAR. Incredible in and of itself, with all the new security protocols. Don’t ask me how he did it, but I guess that’s just how the Weaver works, isn’t it? He’s a legend.”
Ollie’s eyes were full of admiration as he continued. “In a single night he rescued three of us, even though I was the only member of Tapestry there. He didn’t care who the others were. A life is a life.” Here Ollie frowned sadly. “I was the last one he came for. There were more of us, but every time he came back, he must have known he might be caught. It didn’t stop him, though. He would have saved us all, I think. I wish I could have done more for the others.”
“But—” Onyx began.
“Let him speak,” Gavin said gruffly. She shot him an annoyed look.
Shrugging, Ollie took another sip of water. “It’s still so surreal. As if it might have been a dream. I still can’t believe I made it out. I think it was only a matter of days ago that he came for me, but it seems so much longer than that.”
I’m sure the Weaver agrees.
“I was too weak to escape on my own two feet, so he carried me. I think...I think maybe that’s why he was caught. If I could have kept up on my own,” Ollie stopped, swallowing hard. “If I hadn’t slowed him down,” he tried, unable to finish once more.
His eyes were overflowing as he looked up at Gavin. They were looking for something.
Forgiveness, maybe?
“We almost made it. He got me into an empty room and shut the door just as two Envicti rounded the corner. I still don’t know why he didn’t try to hide in there with me. But he just shoved me inside and closed the door. Then I heard them start shouting at him. ‘Stay where you are!’ they said. ‘Don’t try anything! You’re coming with us.’”
Gavin’s blood ran cold. There was no doubt, then. Nero had the Weaver. He’d hoped, in listening to Ollie’s story, that he’d find something to cling to. A small hole in the story where the Weaver’s escape should have been.
But he’d seen for himself how distraught the Weaver had been to have broken the First Order at the Evenmire. It had gutted him. And at that time, he’d been trying to save Gavin.
He would not have taken a life to preserve his own.
His next words hung heavy in the air. “Nero has the Weaver.”
Ollie gave a stiff nod. “He didn’t even try to run. Probably trying to get them as far away from my hiding spot as he could before I gave myself away. There was nothing I could do to help him. Even if there had been something, he had made me promise...when we were together, he told me where to find you. He told me what you needed to know, and that it was imperative that I brought you the information. And he made me promise not to go back for him if something went wrong. That reaching you was to important to risk being recaptured trying to save him.”
Tears streamed down his cheeks in unchecked rivulets, dripping down onto Onyx’s quilt.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I wasn’t brave enough.”
Onyx looked like she wanted to comfort the boy, but Gavin had no more time to waste.
“Do you know what happened to him after that?” he pressed, feeling a sudden sense of urgency. “Where they would have taken him?”
Ollie sniffed, rubbing at his nose with his sleeve. “No.”
The idea of the Weaver being in Nero’s crazed hands was more than just unsettling.
Gavin knew that the Weaver would never help Nero. But what would be the cost of that silence? Would Nero uphold the First Order, now that there was no Council standing in his way?
Gavin’s first instinct was that, yes, he would. He was bound by the law, especially now that all eyes were on him.
Yet Gavin and Onyx had both shirked the First Order more than once, and they were on the Weaver’s side. Nero didn’t have anything holding him back anymore. No loyalty to anyone but himself.
“You need to know that Nero is not planning to reform the Elder Council,” Ollie informed them, cutting into Gavin’s thoughts. “Instead, he has it in his head that he’s going to become Emperor.”
Onyx blanched, and Gavin felt his mouth twist into a scowl.
“Emperor?” The word tasted sour in his mouth. “Wouldn’t that be ironic; it would be a dream come true for him. But no.” Gavin shook his head. “There’s no
way anyone would accept that. He may not have the Council to contend with, but he is still only one man. He would need the backing of the people. And no one could possibly be gullible enough to hand absolute power to such a controversial figure. For Thera’s sake, he’s been gone for a hundred and twenty-five years, who would support him?”
Onyx gave Gavin a meaningful look, and he realized the irony of his words.
After all, the Weaver had been gone for a hundred and twenty-five years, too. And people still stood behind him.
But the Weaver was not a madman. It was different.
It had to be different.
Ollie’s heavy sigh spoke louder than his words. “I had the same thoughts. But not only do the people support him—they’re clamoring for his coronation.”
“What?” gasped Onyx.
“The murder of the Elder Council by a Human—” Ollie’s eyes flitted toward Onyx in a way that made Gavin wonder how much he knew, “and that Human’s subsequent escape has caused a great deal of discord in Imradia. They want revenge for what happened. And who better to deliver it for them but Nero, who has openly voiced his hatred of Humans since the very first one came through the Evenmire? People think it’s fitting. Poetic justice, sort of. The only survivor of a tragic attack, avenging his fallen brethren.”
“No.” Onyx’s voice came out in a choked whisper. “No, this can’t be...this isn’t what I meant to happen...”
If Ollie understood what Onyx was implying, he didn’t show it.
“On the very day that the Elder Council was lost, the Weaver sought me out to help him free the Human Ambassador. I was complicit in his escape, and it kills me to know that that action has only solidified Nero’s position. But I had no way of knowing what the consequences would be. Things used to be different. I might not have agreed with everything CEDAR stood for, but it always seemed more like a defensive idea, a way to protect against potential threats, to keep Thera safe, to protect our species from extinction. I hadn’t considered it a weapon. Before the Council fell it was easy to get information in and out of CEDAR. The security has grown lax over the years, a long string of victories making them lazy. Tapestry was a ghost of the past, not a clear and present danger.”
He looked down at his hands, clasped around his now-empty cup. “Amazing how much can change in three weeks. Being the last remaining member of the Council, Nero has no one to slow him down, and he isn’t wasting any time. He’s making new decrees, bulking up security on all of his interests; and that, of course, includes CEDAR. Not only that, but he is also requiring all workers to take part in experiments. Those who refused to participate were accused of crimes against the people. I tried to refuse.”
He stared past them, as if seeing something far in the distance. “But they...insisted.”
Gavin and Onyx exchanged looks. Her skin appeared ashen, and he could almost read the thoughts in her wide, unsettled eyes.
Nero was establishing a new order, and Ollie’s story confirmed that it wasn’t the future that either one of them wanted for Thera.
“What kind of experiments is he doing?” Gavin asked, switching his attention back to Ollie.
“All kinds. Sorry, I know that isn’t very helpful. You see, the clones have been ready for some time. They’d met with the approval of the Elder Council months ago. We were all just sort of going about our business, keeping things running smoothly, waiting to see what would happen next. But Nero wasn’t satisfied with an army. He wanted more. And with no one to oppose him, he demanded that we make further improvements to the CEDAR specimens.”
“Improvements?” Onyx’s brow furrowed in suspicion. “Improvements on what? They’re perfect soldiers, what else could he want?”
“His intentions are to find a way to make them virtually invincible.”
Gavin let out a snort of indignation, but the young man did not appear to be joking.
“You’re serious? What makes him think such a thing can be done?”
Ollie shrugged. “All I know is that when he came to CEDAR a few days after the Council fell, to offer us a ‘motivational’ speech, one thing that he said stuck out to me. He said, ‘As it was in the beginning, so shall it be once again.’”
This elicited a puzzled look from Onyx, and quiet contemplation from Gavin.
When no illumination as to Nero’s meaning came to him, he decided to file it away for now. He needed to focus on one problem at a time.
Right now, that one problem was the Weaver.
“How did you get out of CEDAR?”
Ollie shuddered. “I don’t really want to talk about it.”
“I’m sorry,” Onyx said. “But this is very important. If you got out, that means that we can get in. If we’re going to save the Weaver, we need to know.”
Ollie shook his head. “No. The security in Imradia is everywhere now. You aren’t just facing the Envicti and the city guard. There are clone troops as well. And you can’t trust anyone, either. Nero pays handsomely for information leading to the capture of any person he thinks might be aligning themselves against him. You can’t just walk into the city anymore, they search you. You need papers that prove your citizenship, and sometimes even that isn’t enough. All of the tunnels were sealed or are well-guarded, the Weaver’s secret passages are useless. The few that are still open are traps, bottlenecks used to scoop up insurgents. They’ve brought most of the captured to CEDAR to participate in Nero’s experiments.”
“But you got out,” Gavin insisted. “Just explain to me what you did, and where I need to go. Fake papers, guards, let me worry about the details. I just need a place to start.”
Ollie refused to meet his gaze. His eyes were downcast and full of shame. He didn’t speak for several long moments.
Then he sighed, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “Well, I knew that they were beginning to transport clones to Levandire. Before they took me away, they had already begun the selection process. There are a lot, you see. They weren’t planning to move them all, at least not all at once. And they were designed for different purposes, so we were in charge of deciding which ones to send where.”
He swallowed hard, struggling to continue. “I stayed hidden for a while, but I knew I couldn’t hold out forever. I didn’t want to do it, you know. I just couldn’t think of any other way. I tried to figure out how the Weaver had gotten the others out before me, but I couldn’t. So when I was strong enough to move again, I made my way back into CEDAR.
“I waited until nighttime. There are always guards around but the workers, at least, are asleep then. You can’t get out of the facility unseen, but with some luck you can at least move around inside without attracting attention. Anyway, once I was back in CEDAR, I double-checked the manifests, found a clone that was intended for transport, and... replaced him.”
He ended his tale with a pitiful shrug.
Gavin thought he understood now what had made Ollie so reticent to share that particular detail. He did not bother to ask what had happened to the clone. It didn’t matter. Ollie was right, this was not going to be Gavin’s ticket into the city.
“I was able to escape the transport while on route.” Ollie sounded tired again. “But I was still weak, and I can’t say how long I walked before ending up here. Honestly, I’m surprised I made it at all. It’s a blur.”
“And yet here you are,” Onyx finished, her voice consoling. “You made it, just as you promised the Weaver you would. But I’m sure you didn’t make the journey just to tell us about Nero’s aspirations to rule. We would have found that out on our own, sooner or later.”
Ollie cringed, and a foreboding feeling washed over Gavin. It felt like that late summer breeze, hinting at autumn, only much more ominous.
“Nero has something the Council had been after for a long time. Something that’s going to help him become virtually unstoppable when combined with the clone army.”
“What is it? What has he got?”
Ollie locked eyes with her before dropping
his gaze. His face was grimmer than it had been since his arrival.
“He has the Pluto.”
Onyx looked confused for a moment. “The Pluto...” she repeated, then, “Pluto!”
Her hands flew up to cover her mouth. “Sweet Evenmire, we should have destroyed it when we had the chance. I didn’t give it a second thought!”
Ollie nodded. “The Weaver discovered it was missing from where it had crashed. He told me that that ship is capable of flying in the extreme Antarctic climate, which is precisely the problem the Elder Council has long been trying to overcome. It’s capable of long-range travel, and it’s an even better prototype than the drill Culei failed to provide. Nero is using it to build his own ships.”
“And then he’s going to take the clones through the Evenmire,” Gavin finished for him. “And he’s going to attack Earth.”
“Gavin.”
He looked at Onyx, saw the horrible comprehension in her eyes.
“Sanctuary will be the first to fall.”
Five
Sore Loser
IT wasn’t like Mabel to sleep in. She’d seemed unable to shake the uneasy feelings that the Mackelroy incident had caused. Though Eli had known how much it had upset her, he was surprised that four days later she was still moping.
Mabel had always been the more cheerful of the two, always ready to greet each day with a smile. To see her so down not only made him worry, but also had kept Eli himself in something of a funk.
He waited downstairs for an hour that morning before making the decision to go up and talk things out. Eli knew, at least as far as Mabel could be used as an example, that it was the sort of thing that girls needed to do sometimes.
He fixed a nice breakfast, even breaking out the canned peaches, and did his best to arrange it nicely on a tray. Reaching Mabel’s room with full hands, he knocked with his foot.
“Just a sec,” came Mabel’s voice from inside. A moment later, he heard the beep beep boop of her entering the unlock code before the door slid away.
“You lock that now?” he asked, surprised.
“I always have. I don’t like people just barging in. I value my privacy.”