“Eight, confirm, dragon is off the board. Repeat, dragon is down.”
Georgi stared at the blazing ruins for what felt like a long time. He thought about Natalya, wondering how she could do it. Georgi hadn’t been a metahuman or even an officer in the Great Patriotic War. Just a fighter for the Motherland, captured and twisted by the Nazis into what he was now. He was good at carrying out orders; he had a soldier’s heart. But to command…he should have had the character for it, the skills, but he doubted it all now. He knew that Natalya had privately suffered ever since the Invasion, and the tragedy at Saviour’s Gate. So many of their friends lost then, with her commanding them to fight and die to protect the civilians. Old man Petrograd, Supernaut, Netopyr, Svetoch, and Zhar-ptica. Old Bear had almost died then, too. Georgi hoped the old bastard lived. They were the last of the veterans, after all. And the others that had died since: the mad inventor Zmey, Molotok, Rusalka…even People’s Blade, the calculating and petite Fei Li. So many lost, and Natalya took the weight of it all on herself. How could he, an “Untermensch,” hope to even begin to measure up? Who would do that to themselves willingly? Only someone insane, he decided. He would have to face Jadwiga if any of them lived through this. She had already lost her sestra. And she had been the closest out of any of them to Chug. Could he look her in the eye and tell her that he sent the strange man to his death? They had manipulated the poor creature to fight for them for years, and he may have saved them, or at least postponed their deaths. But did that now excuse Georgi for being a bastard?
Georgi turned back to where the front line had pushed forward. Atlas had already left, to either fight more or to sink back into the depths, Georgi didn’t know. He’d been too consumed with his own thoughts and focused on the fire. He checked his HUD; the young VDV lieutenant was doing well, from what he could see. He had even kept nearly all of his people alive. Something made Georgi look back to the corpse of the dragon one final time. Later, he wouldn’t be able to say what had made him do it. But when he looked back, a craggy and blackened figure came trotting towards him out of the flames.
“Chug do good?” He had pieces of the dragon crumpled in his hands, and what passed for a huge grin with his granite features.
Georgi allowed himself to laugh in what felt like the first time in decades. “Da, Chug. Da. But there is still more work to do. Let’s go.”
* * *
The low melancholy tone chimed in Yankee Pride’s ear, a hollow warning that coincided with the alert that appeared in his HUD. Stationed on one of the cruisers accompanying the aircraft carrier, he stared past the scrolling words to watch the scene unfold in grainy detail on screens in the CIC. Pride had missed much of the battle that raged within the main buildings, focusing instead on the inferno that raged on the perimeter and the strategic half-circle of rail guns and thermite-enhanced munitions that held their initial line. The smoke from the ever-growing fire in the jungle thickened and obscured parts of the ledges of the two half-spheres that composed this Mothership, so he hadn’t seen the movement beyond the platforms that the CCCP had held.
The tone chimed again. Eight spoke over the private channel, the little voice pairing efficiency with something that could be construed as empathy or, at the very least, care in the delivery of a somber message. “Sir, as you are aware, Red Saviour is dead. There is a great deal of confusion as to who is to take over. Saviour left instructions with me that in this eventuality you were to…”
“I’m aware,” he murmured.
“Then perhaps you should hear this.” There was an electronic crackle, and Red Saviour’s voice crackled at him over his implants. “If Comrade Eight is playing this, you are hesitating. While you hesitate, some nekulturny dog is deciding your metahumans and my CCCP are expendable. Davay, davay, davay!”
Pride grimaced at the last words, unable to escape them. Eight must have relayed a message to the ship’s XO, who nodded at Pride and stepped back to let him pass through the hatch. Gauntlets pulsing a soft gold, Pride made his way to the helo deck and shrugged into one of the waiting jetpacks. He glanced out to the Mothership where a bank of ash and flame hid the bloodiest of the battle. Somewhere past the ledge, past the turrets and along the edge of the alien jungle, the remaining members of Red Saviour’s CCCP continued to fight alongside his own ECHO comrades.
“Uncle Benji, you need to stop thinking so hard.” Jamaican Blaze’s stylized voice came through the private channel. “These are good people, and you need to step up now.”
Pride cocked his head to the side at his niece’s words. “Willa Jean, I’m—”
“Hesitating. Miss Natalya said you would. Her people can’t afford for you to think this over. They…” The voice paused. A loud whoomph of flame billowed up from the half-spheres, the smoke blackening the outside of the taller buildings. “They need someone to lead them now. That’s you, and you know it.”
The last words sounded too much like his own mother, a woman who had never hesitated in her entire life. Pride exhaled and signaled the sailor on the helo pad. The young woman returned the gesture, clearing him for takeoff. Two steps and he was in the air, keeping low along the water to avoid the barrage from the other ships and turrets.
“Eight, I’m going to need a dedicated channel to Saviour’s people, simultaneous translation.” Pride banked right to follow the suggested flight path to get him to their position. “Replicate her last set of coordinates and her strategic overlay to me.”
“Channel is open. Go ahead, Yankee Pride.”
“Comrades, hold position. Your Commissar has transferred command of this assault force to me, and we’d be doing her memory a disservice to not hit these bastards harder than ever.” Pride rose up to fly over the lip of the half-sphere before dropping down just below the ash cloud. Cueing up the drone feeds from his HUD, he could see a trio of the sleek metal Wolves racing through the streets towards the CCCP’s position, obscured by smoke and buildings. “Comrade Untermensch, we’ve got three Wolf targets to your nine o’clock.”
Untermensch didn’t hesitate. “Affirmative, Commander. Adjusting defensive posture to deal with the threat.” A pause. “It is good to hear from you.” The CCCP and Russian troops snapped into action, and were ready when the Wolves rounded the corner of a building, spilling out into the street. Rockets, bullets, and metahuman powers raced to meet them, and made quick work of the robotic monstrosities.
* * *
The alien Klaxon shattered the air; the flashing blue light added to the disorientation. Red and Victoria were still weak, still recovering, but there was no time—no time—and with the control panel gone there was nothing to abort the launch of the bomb on…whatever schedule the Masters had it set for. Enough time for them to escape, presumably. But once it left this ship, it would be too late to do anything.
And there was a…seductive quality to this merger. It felt right. They felt more whole, more complete, than they ever had in their life.
But it also felt wrong. They thought as one, though they were two…and with each passing moment they felt whatever divide remained between them fading. Soon it would be “I,” not “we,” and a part of them screamed in panic…
There was so much power here…so much skill, so many valuable memories. And combined? They could do anything, anything at all.
Except retain their identities. They wouldn’t be themselves anymore. They’d be something…else. Something different. Something they didn’t recognize.
The two voices clamoring in the background rose, and became dominant over the merged voice. I am…Victoria Victrix Nagy, dammit! I am Timothy “Red Djinni” Torres. Yeah, you said that before, to Amethist. Timothy? Really? That’s a horrible name. You think so? I can see why you went with “Red.”
I…you…I…we…
Self started to vanish, to muddle, to merge again. But this time they were ready for it. They rejected the power, the seduction. The only thing that made them one was the drive to become two again.
We have to end this now!
They fell to their knees, body shuddering and heaving. Then between one flash of the warning light and the next, with a cry of mingled loss and triumph, one became two, and the two fell apart, panting with exertion, and stared into each other’s eyes.
“We can’t ever do that again,” they said together.
“Bomb!” Vickie cried urgently, scrambling to her feet. Red was right behind her as she ran for the ugly thing.
The weapon hummed; in the time they had been fighting Barron, it had come to life. Vickie ran her hands over it, only to realize she couldn’t: something in the casing repelled her touch. In the back of her mind she was vaguely aware that she was stark naked, but in light of the fact that this thing in front of them could end the entire world, that fact seemed vanishingly unimportant. There was a field of some kind around this damn thing, something that was very nearly preventing any form of magic from penetrating it. Nearly, because she was getting a vague sense of where things were—payload, boring mechanism, energy source for the whole shebang—but not any details. I thought the Masters didn’t know anything about magic! How can they shield against something they don’t even know about?
She looked over, and saw that Red was having the same problem. He was running his hands over the casing, but couldn’t touch it.
“It doesn’t just repel magic then,” she said. “You able to pick up anything?”
“It’s virtually frictionless,” Red muttered, dumbfounded. “It’s more than that actually. It’s the weirdest thing. I’m running everything I can pick up from it, and what I’m getting back is…myself.”
“Come again?”
“Here,” he said, and pressed a hand as close to the bomb’s surface as he could. “I’m not touching it. I can’t. So I’m trying to pick up anything I can from it, from surface temperature, texture, even light readings. And what I seem to be detecting…is the palm of my own hand.”
Vickie stared at him.
“It’s reflecting…everything then.” How could it reflect magic if they don’t know what magic is? But it’s…it’s reflecting everything…
“Of course,” she breathed. “Magic is energy, it follows the rules. This barrier blocks the full spectrum of energy, from kinetic to light to UV to even psychic, but it can’t possibly block everything, not completely. I just need to focus past it, generate at the right frequency, with the right…resonance…”
She found just thinking about the equations involved was exhausting.
“This is impossible,” she scowled, heart racing. “I’d need days to get this prepped. Weeks, to be sure. We’ve got minutes…”
“Surely you’ve got some idea!” Red shouted.
Vickie gave him a doubtful look.
“There…might be a way.”
“Talk to me, Scotty.”
“Red, this is alchemy here, weird science and magic combined. This stuff has barely been theorized, much less experimented with. We’re talking some extreme computations that I will have to do on the fly, beyond anything I’ve ever tried.” Stupid, stupid, if I don’t try, we all go boom. “Right, never mind, I need a…conduit to make a lens. Pure silica, diamond—fiber optics even—something that’s a conduit for magic.” She looked frantically around the room. “I need enough to make a ring around the bomb.” She turned to the panels around the walls. “Can you pry one of these open? There might be something in there. Do these guys use fiber-optic cables? Or silica lenses? Or…” She turned to stare at him. “Or…you.”
“Me?”
“You’re not just a medium, you’re a freakin’ magic conductor!” She lunged, grabbing him by the wrist, and pointed his arm up the bomb. “I need you to make a ring of yourself as tight around that thing as you can get!”
He stared back at her, startled.
She hopped up and smacked him on the head. “Now! You tall, sexy lunkhead! Do your rubber-man deal and stretch!”
He opened his mouth to reply, thought better of it, and with a shrug reared back and let his arm go limp. With a sharp overhand cast, he threw it forward, willing the arm to grow and stretch, winding around the body of the bomb. Vickie watched, enthralled, as his hand snapped around to catch its own forearm. With a grunt, the Djinni drew his arm taut, his grip sliding up until he formed a perfect thin ring around the base of the bomb’s shaft.
Vickie put one hand on his shoulder and sent a tentative pulse through the ring he had created. The lensing effect was definitely there, but that thin ring of flesh wasn’t robust enough to carry all the power she needed to send through it.
“Can you increase the mass? Slowly?” She swallowed and added, “Please?” Because if they died here she didn’t want the last thing she said to him to have been “lunkhead.”
“You’re lucky yer cute,” Red grunted and obliged her.
Vickie sent another pulse of energy through him, then another, then another. It was working, or at least it seemed to be. With each tentative push she felt the lensing effect strengthen, and what had been “blurred” before came into sharper focus…until…
She drew in a sharp breath as she felt it. Her probing pulse of energy came to resonance and amplified in a perpetual ring of power held in place by the Djinni’s arm.
“Hold it!” Vickie crowed. “That’s perfect. Keep it right there. Eight!”
“Yes, Vickie.”
“Call everybody. I’m going to need everything they’ve got. All of it. Now.”
She didn’t have to wait for Eight’s assent. She felt it; the full power of three circles of some of the strongest magicians on the planet. Her mother’s circle currently based in Sedona, (which was the closest place Hosteen Stormdance could get to all the Native Americans he could muster for it). The school circle in Maine. And the entire monastery up in the Himalayas. And then, coming in like grace notes, individual mages all over the world, all focusing their power on her.
And yet…she paused. “Vix? What are you waiting for?” Red asked.
“Remember when you yelled at me about doing something that could destroy the universe? This could, theoretically, destroy the universe. It’s the thing earth mages can do, and never dare to. Transmutation. Lead to gold—not possible. Breaking down radioactive elements to lower number elements? Oh yeah. But…lotsa radiation. And potential critical mass anyway if I mismanage and get too much of an unstable isotope. Or worst case, black hole, to the nth degree, end of universe type stuff. The equations are nuts, and they change all the time as what I’m transmuting changes. I don’t know what exactly does what inside that thing. I can see it and I can change it, but I can’t tell exactly what’s payload, what’s power source, and what’s the special thingummy for getting it to bore its way into the magma. I get one shot at this and I don’t know the odds.”
Red gave her a blank look. Vickie sighed.
“I’m about to cross the streams,” she said.
“Oh,” Red shrugged. “Why didn’t you just say that?” He gave her a reassuring look. “For what it’s worth, I believe in you. And if that isn’t enough, I’m pretty sure everyone else does too. You got this. Trust me.”
He couldn’t possibly know that, and there were a million things she could have said at this point. She settled for the most important. “I love you. I’ve got this.”
Then she gathered the various energies into herself until she was ready to burst, braided them together into a coherent stream, and unleashed them. The equations streamed through her mind, and she mirrored them, muttering them under her breath so Eight had time to double-check her on the results before she committed. Eight couldn’t see magic and couldn’t perform magic but there was nothing on this planet better at number-crunching.
But the strain…her own personal energies were pouring out of her like water out of a burst dam. For once there was no little second self inside her observing and taking notes. It was all the math, and directing the power, and a hundred, a thousand tiny corrections. She transmuted everything. Transuranic el
ements. Whatever she encountered inside a stasis field, or she found in the casing. Incomprehensible things. She didn’t understand any of them, but she knew if she transmuted enough of them, once this nightmare was deployed, it wouldn’t matter; power sources would fizzle, real machinery would break, and—most important of all—the payload would not achieve critical mass. Her eyes were closed but the HUD was still on and glowing numbers streamed across her field of vision until her eyes watered.
And this was hurting Red. She risked a glance at him. His teeth clenched as he struggled to maintain his grip on the ring. She felt his pain. As good a conductor as he was, he was channeling the combined power of every white-hat mage Vickie had access to in her Rolodex, possibly more arcane current than anything had every channeled before. The energy, it was literally cooking him from the inside out.
“This is killing you!” she moaned, eyes streaming with real tears now, not just watering.
“Keep…at…it!” Red hissed, forcing each syllable out.
She closed her eyes and went back to work. There was no other choice.
The last element broke down as far as she could take it. Earth elementals did this all the time; it was as natural as breathing to them. That was how Herb had kept the team alive inside of himself back in Nevada escaping from the Goldman Catacombs, literally manufacturing oxygen from his own body…but humans could only break things down so far before they became too small to manage. Just as she felt everything slip out of her metaphorical hands, she felt something inside the bomb change. Things came alive. “Red, let go!” she shouted hoarsely, as she herself let go of him and the energies, and dropped heavily to the floor.
But he had released the ring as soon as she released him, and he dropped down unconscious beside her, the ring of extended and now-sizzling flesh flopping down next to him as the drill on the front of the bomb came to life and it vanished into the pit, carrying its now-worthless payload.
She rolled over and threw her arms around him. She was no healer…she’d told him that before…but what little she knew how to do, she did, with the last of her strength. “We did it, Red,” she whispered. “We did it.”
Avalanche: Book Five in the Secret World Chronicle Page 75