The Light Thief

by David Webb

  “Aniya, I can’t hit you with any more adrenaline. Your body wouldn’t be able to handle it. You need to wake up.”

  She slowly opened her eyes. Aren’t we done? Can’t you just leave me here?

  “Take a moment if you need to, but don’t wait too long. We’re running out of time. The reactor is temporarily disabled, but after the last incident, they routed the reactor to backup generators so it wouldn’t take as long to get started again. Besides, the Citadel is now under full alert. They’ll all know by now that the reactor is down, so even with the battle outside, it’s only a matter of time before reinforcements show up. So please, Aniya. Wake up.”

  With all her strength, Aniya slowly pulled the tube off her head, letting herself breathe natural air again. That helped greatly, and her vision began to clear.

  “That’s it. You’re getting there. We could have proceeded with the next step, but you’ll need your strength for that one. Besides, I can’t bring myself to do it without asking you first.”

  Aniya finally spoke, but in a raspy voice barely above a whisper. “What more could you possibly do to me?”

  Silence.

  “Aniya, you have to die.”

  47

  “Well, at least it can’t get any worse than this,” Roland groaned as he hung from his feet.

  Tamisra laughed, blood pouring from her open wounds. “You’re right. I think we’ve hit an all-time low.”

  Shaking his own blood from his head as it trickled down his suspended body, Roland grinned. The details of Tamisra’s face were beginning to get a bit fuzzy, probably a side effect of the massive blood loss, but she looked just as beautiful, even upside down and blood-soaked. Knowing the pain he felt paled in comparison to hers, he kept trying to distract her.

  “You know, if I look at you at just the right angle, you kind of look like Curry. Just as fierce, loyal, and don’t get me started on your nose.”

  “Are you calling me a mole?” Tamisra laughed again.

  “If it looks like a mole, talks like a mole . . .” He trailed off, giving into laughter himself.

  The room echoed their forced mirth. When the laughter subsided, complete silence fell on the room again.

  “Do you think Aniya ever escaped?” Tamisra finally spoke.

  “I don’t doubt that she can, but since we’re still hanging here, I’d say she hasn’t gotten around to it yet.”

  “That’s if she even finds us. I can’t hear anything out there. I wonder if we’re even in the Hub. If we are, it’d be nice of her to hurry up.”

  At least they weren’t dangling from the ceiling with cords around their toes anymore. That had been incredibly painful. But hanging by their feet wasn’t much better.

  Tamisra piped up again. “Can’t you die if you hang like this for too long?”

  Roland sighed. “Probably. But I’m really trying not to think about it.”

  “Sorry.”

  Trying unsuccessfully. Every breath was a battle thanks to the increased weight on his lungs. Every gasp for air just made Roland more and more sure that if they stayed hanging like this for another few short hours, they would indeed die.

  “Are you hungry?”

  Roland groaned. As much as he cared for her, Tamisra hadn’t stopped talking for more than a minute since their captors last left them. He was grateful for the company, but it was trying his patience after the three hours they had been alone.

  “What I wouldn’t give for some mole right now,” she said, audibly licking her lips.

  He smirked, trying to at least enjoy the talk. “Yeah, some Curry sounds real good right now . . . or maybe some Brisket!”

  “Stop it!” She shrieked and laughed at the same time. “That’s insensitive.”

  “It’s not my fault that you give them names like Curry and Brisket.”

  Tamisra smiled. “It’s a habit we got into. For the longest time, we captured them and kept them for food, but our parents knew we would get attached to them. So instead of letting us name them, they would give them names of food so it wouldn’t hurt so much when they would eventually be slaughtered and eaten. I don’t know why they thought that would work, but they did it anyway. We didn’t figure out how to ride them until a few years ago, but I guess the habit had already stuck.”

  It went silent again.

  Seconds later, he heard Tamisra sigh in frustration.

  “I almost forgot about the whole torture thing for a second there.”

  Roland smiled. “Thinking about food?”

  “Yeah . . .”

  The door opened, and light flooded inside, along with the sound of a blaring alarm. When the door closed again, the light and sound vanished.

  Roland blinked away the spots of light furiously as Tamisra began to scream.

  “Let me go!” Her shrieks echoed throughout the room. “I’m going to get down from here, and I’m going to rip you limb from limb!”

  Roland began to thrash, letting his body swing violently from the rope as he fought to get free.

  Tamisra’s voice moved across the room as she continued to protest.

  “Where are you taking her?” Roland turned to follow the noise, but still couldn’t make out any details.

  The door opened again, and he closed his eyes tight.

  A man spoke. “Get her out of here safely. Take her to the cliffs.”

  Then silence.

  Roland opened his eyes again and looked around. “Hello?”

  A few seconds later, a voice spoke next to his ear.

  “Hello, Roland.”

  He turned his face toward the voice, making out faint details of a face in the darkness.

  “I need your help.”

  Roland gritted his teeth as he recognized the voice from the sky ceiling transmissions they occasionally received in Holendast. “Our glorious Chancellor. What makes you think I would help you?”

  “Because I just let your girlfriend go. This entire building is about to be bathed in radiation, and she will be safe on the edge of the Hub. You have my word.”

  “Why should I believe you?”

  The Chancellor’s voice turned sickeningly sweet. “Because now I’m offering you a chance to save another girl you care for.”

  “Aniya.”

  “She stands to destroy everything we’ve worked for. This entire sector, maybe more. Even I can’t guess the full ramifications of her actions. But they will be catastrophic.”

  “You’re asking me to help you win?”

  The Chancellor laughed. “There are no winners here, Roland. Damage has been done. Irreversible damage. But it’s not too late. We can still salvage the Web. We can still have peace.”

  Roland shook his head. “Forget it. Peace through slavery isn’t much of a peace.”

  “I don’t believe you understand. She’s not posing any risk to me, or even the Lightbringers. Rather, she threatens our very way of life. Admittedly, it’s not ideal for everyone, but it’s worked for centuries. She also threatens the safety of everyone in the Hub, including herself. She plans to take her own life in order to bring about the destruction of thousands more, all for the perceived safety of the Web, which would be forever without power, a governing body. The world will be plunged into darkness, both literally and figuratively.”

  Roland shrugged, ignoring the amusing mental image of an upside-down shrug.

  “I’ll forgive you for your short-sightedness. I know you, Salvador, and your merry band of misfits are bent on revolution, but I don’t think you’ve bothered to consider the consequences.” The voice moved away, and Roland realized that the man was pacing. “I blame myself, really. I saw the signs. Despite the efforts of certain conspirators, I knew what was going on. I’ve had a good idea of their plans for the better part of twenty years. Thankfully, I have prepared, more than they can imagine. I will humbly say that it took me longer than it should have to realize that my trusted Adviser was at the root of it all. That discovery was only today, far too late. But let me
assure you, Roland, that whatever happens here today, I will live. However, the Web will never be the same again. So, trust me when I say that I need your help not to save me, but to save this world.”

  Roland spat. “You’re wasting your breath. If it means our death to bring about the end of your tyranny, so be it.”

  The Chancellor laughed again. “You really don’t get it. The people who sent me, who sent Kendall—they don’t change. It’s the same wheel, only a different spoke. The Web will be just like you left it, only without power. Worst case scenario, this colony will be destroyed, and they will move on to the next.” He leaned in close again. “If nothing else, dear boy, don’t do it for me. Don’t do it for this world, this Web that you claim to love so much. Do it for Aniya. Even if everything else I said is a lie, Aniya below the Citadel right now, about to give her life away for nothing. If you don’t believe anything else I said, believe that. She will die for no reason, and you can stop it.”

  “That’s just the problem. I have no reason to believe you.”

  “And I have no reason to lie to you. If you get down there and are unsatisfied with the information I’ve given you, feel free to come back up and kill me yourself. But you’re wasting time. For your sake, mine, and everyone’s in the entire Web, it is of the utmost importance that she lives.”

  Roland glared at the Chancellor, his grim face barely visible in the shadows.

  “Cut me down.”

  48

  Aniya couldn’t decide if she was shocked or hearing what she knew all along. All the secrets, all the half-truths she had been told, everything added up to this. She had to die.

  Kendall continued after a moment.

  “Your brother and I failed the first time because I was not aware of the reactor’s final failsafe. You see, when the reactor receives too much power, it defaults to a restricted reserve as a way of further limiting any incoming power. I knew this. What I didn’t know was that if the reactor somehow manages to overload, like it just did, it shuts itself down completely and redirects all power back to its source to avoid overloading the core and destroying the entire reactor. I discovered this final failsafe with your brother, but by the time I realized, he was too weak for a fourth blast, and the Silvers had already interrupted us.”

  Regretting the words the instant she said them, she cleared her throat and spoke a little louder. “But if we wait a little bit, you can just use me for a fourth blast, right? The last three were awful, but I don’t think another would kill me.”

  “I’m afraid not. Like I said, the reactor has shut itself down and is prepared to reverse any incoming power. Any energy we fire at the reactor would just be redirected right back to you and do nothing but hurt you. A lot. The only solution is to jumpstart the reactor. This will stop the energy redirection because it needs to accept reserve power to start back up. It won’t even have time to activate the failsafe that shut down the reactor to begin with. We are then free to bombard the core. The only way to do so is by diverting all power into a single source and then blasting the core all at once. It will also confuse the reactor because it expects a small amount of power from thousands of different pods and won’t expect so much from one source.”

  “And I’m that one source?”

  “That’s right. Unfortunately, even though I’ve prepared your body for this while you were in the tank for a week, containing the combined energy of several thousand hosts all at the same time for even just a second will kill you. It might make you stronger for a few seconds, but your body simply can’t handle it, let alone your mind.”

  Aniya shook her head. “I don’t know if I can do that.”

  “I understand. It’s a lot to ask. We can try it with any of the other pods, but it requires a conscious host. We would have to wake them up and ask them to sacrifice their life instead. Besides, it has a very low chance of success that way. Your body has been conditioned to temporarily handle that much energy due to changes I made to your pod before you were first placed inside, and again by keeping you awake during the surges just now.”

  “There has to be another way.”

  “I’m afraid not, Aniya. If there were anything else we could do, I’d be open to suggestions, but we’re running out of time.”

  Her body wasn’t even strong enough to cry. “I just wanted my brother back. That’s all I wanted.”

  “I know, Aniya.” Kendall’s voice grew quiet. “And you can still have him back. I’m not going to make you do it. I can’t force you to do something like this. If nothing else, we’ve temporarily disabled their reactor again, and by the looks of the battle in the city outside, we’ve struck a huge blow to the Lightbringers. They won’t forget this, and we might be able to come back and finish what we started with someone else. But maybe not. The Operative is catching on to my game, especially after the incident on the train, so it’s only a matter of time before I’m discovered. This is the single best time we have to end the Lightbringers for good. Their entire authority is based on the fact that they can provide free power. Once that’s gone, once we blow their precious Hub to pieces, they’ll have nothing. I know you only came here to get your brother back, but he is committed to finishing the work your parents started years ago. He can’t do that, but you can. Right here and right now.”

  Aniya turned her head to face the empty pod. Going back inside . . . the thought filled her with dread. Even if the pain would eventually stop and release her to death, the thought of going through the torturous process again horrified her.

  But this was the only way to truly save her brother. If the Lightbringers remained in power, they would hunt her, Nicholas, William, and Roland for the rest of their lives.

  This way, she might not ever see them again, but they would at least be alive.

  Even if she chose to run and save her own life, what kind of life would it be, knowing her friends and remaining family would never live in peace again? Knowing that she could have done something to put a stop to it?

  It was the only option.

  “I’ll do it.” Even as she said the words, a peace flooded Aniya’s mind. She came here to save her brother, and she would finally succeed.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. I’ve been fighting to stay alive this entire time, and I guess it’s worked. But only because other people get hurt, even die because of me. The only way to keep them safe now is to die for them.”

  “Very well. The Web will be eternally thankful for what you’re about to do, Aniya. I’ll make sure they all know of your sacrifice.”

  “Just make sure Nicholas and my brother get out before the Hub is destroyed.”

  Kendall nodded. “You have my word. Just one moment.” With that, he disappeared from the screen on the ceiling.

  Aniya took a deep breath and pulled herself to her feet carefully, gripping the computer monitor attached to her pod with shaking white knuckles.

  The monitor still bore two words: “Aniya Lyons.”

  She had chosen the name years ago, giving up the name Annelise for a moniker that seemed more suitable to her personality. Annelise sounded like a girl who would always be wearing a dress, refusing to go outside in the artificial rain for fear of getting her feet muddy.

  It had crushed her father. He loved the name Annelise. He said it was a special name for a special girl, the light of his life. Aniya, on the other hand, always preferred the dark and was frequently chastised for extinguishing the candles in the house during Black Days.

  But Aniya was the girl who brought nothing but trouble. She asked for it, always breaking curfew, skipping classes. And now, she was the girl who got people killed.

  No more.

  With some effort, she carefully pecked on the keyboard with one finger, finally changing the display to read “Annelise Lyons.”

  She released the monitor slowly and let her legs bear her full weight. Her knees knocked together, and she fell back toward the ground.

  But she didn’t hit the rock below. I
nstead, a set of arms caught her and lowered her gently to the ground.

  Aniya opened her eyes again and saw a fuzzy Roland kneeling above her, taking off his cloak and covering her naked body. He had snuck up on her, an easy task in her disoriented state.

  “Gotta say, Aniya,” he said, a mischievous grin on his face. “You’re not looking too great.”

  Aniya laughed, but it came out as a long wheeze.

  “Don’t hurt yourself.” Roland’s grin disappeared as he looked around. “What’s going on?” He looked around at the columns of green light. “What is this place?”

  Rather than answering his question, Aniya clutched his hand weakly. “How did you find me?” She traced the dried blood on his face with her other hand. “And what happened to you?”

  Roland ignored both questions. “What happened to me? Aniya, what happened to you?”

  Before she could answer, Kendall reappeared on the screen.

  “All right. William and Nich—” He froze. “What are you doing here?”

  Roland narrowed his eyes in suspicion, but he said carefully, “Kendall?”

  “I assume Salvador told you about me?”

  Roland nodded. “What’s wrong with Aniya? She looks like a ghost. And what is this place?”

  “You’re not too far off. The cavern you’re sitting in, put simply, is a giant machine the Lightbringers constructed to extract natural energy from humans to power the worlds we live in. Aniya has agreed to sabotage the machine, but the process requires her body to be used as a catalyst to overload the reactor. Unfortunately, while it will permanently disable the machine and destroy a large part of the Hub, it will also kill her.”

  “What?” Roland glared at Kendall, then looked down at Aniya in disbelief. “You agreed to this?”

  Aniya nodded.

  The silence that followed stretched on as Roland seemed to process this information, and time slowed to an exaggerated crawl due to Aniya’s half-conscious state.

  “No.”

  Roland shook his head repeatedly, either in denial or disbelief. Aniya couldn’t tell.