by C. R. Asay
Thurmond shrugged, his face unreadable. I must have still looked the same. The pain from the bullet reverted to a secondary discomfort. Jitters shivered up and down my body, tightening and loosening my muscles with racking tension until I felt I would tear apart in a thousand directions. I slid my back up the wall, ignoring Thurmond’s protestations.
The landscape lost its warm tints, becoming a cool azure that was like seeing through blue-lens glasses. The wind, the lightning, the very air intensified, blistering me with a swath of sensations that my body struggled to process. I braced my hand on the building.
Thurmond touched my arm. I shook it off. The electricity in the heavens. The sheer power enveloped by the clouds. I tilted my head to sense it better. For the first time I saw streaks of light and surges of power, much deeper and more intense than anything I had witnessed before. The temperature dropped several noticeable degrees.
A deep, pressurized ache started at the usual spot above my left ear and spread across my skull. My chest tightened until I could barely breathe. Dark, bloody anger washed through my mind, swirling in a whirlpool of hatred before exploding from my mouth in a liberating cackle.
A whisper of voices. Conspiratorial, exclusive. I whirled toward them. Rannen and Thurmond stood shoulder to shoulder, or shoulder to elbow as it were. They stared at me like silenced gossips.
Thurmond: a nobody. My gaze settled on Rannen in his blue marshal uniform.
“You!” The word hissed from between my teeth. One menacing step and the power of hatred and fury boiled into a scalding inferno of violence. “Is this what you’ve become? A fluxing Rethan drone!”
Thurmond and Rannen retreated, knocking into each other.
“Stop right there, Kris.” Rannen raised his hand. The other went behind his back.
“What the hell’s going on?” Thurmond said.
“You should have cut your own throat rather than become this—become one of them! I should have cut your throat!”
I advanced on him, shoulders hunched. Nothing penetrated the blistering anger, the absolute rage, the murderous intentions. Drone!
CHAPTER 18
Caz
10 days pre-RAGE
Xander sat behind Vin’s desk, forehead resting in his palm. He leaned over the small command screen in front of him. The outer office was empty, no surprise. It was early. So early that the city hadn’t begun to stir. Zell had probably been called in to watch Manny so Xander could come into the DC Council building this morning. Or perhaps he’d come in last night.
Caz vaguely wondered when she ceased having any responsibility for her son. Perhaps because of her outburst that had nearly killed a marshal? It was a wonder she was currently free to finish her work. Having a brother on the council had its perks.
Caz shook her hands out of their fists. It was good that Xander had been offered Vin’s seat. At least the commandant’s aversion extended only to her, not the Fisk family in general. That in itself gave her license to hate the commandant all the more, and it would serve her purpose—their purpose—now that Vin was no longer here.
Sometimes she wondered if Xander had forgotten who he was. He had accused her of the same thing in the past, when Vin kept her out of the lab for too long. Don’t forget who you are, he would remind her, what our purpose is here. But thinking about it now, she realized it had been years since he’d mentioned it.
Caz hadn’t been to the council building since learning of Vin’s death. All she would run into were memories and emotions. Vin had died in large part due to his father and the council. The rage simmering in her veins kept her warm at night but confronting the council, or more specifically her father-in-law, would only cause her to boil over. Calm and control were called for if she was going to accomplish her goal.
Coming here today was a necessity. As much as she loathed the hypocritical extravagance around her and all it entailed, it was time for Xander to use his influence with the council. It was worth him becoming a Rethan drone for this.
Caz slapped her hand against the doorframe to energize the web and enclose them in the office. It crackled to life with a razor zap. Xander jerked his head up.
His eyes were rimmed in dark shadows, his hair tousled. He didn’t say anything but had a resigned look. He’d expected her. He raised his eyebrows in question. Caz nodded. He nodded along with her and then heaved a sigh.
“When did you finish?” he asked.
“I tested the eight millimeter prototype last night.”
“Where?”
“The envirophylum near Vislane Academy.”
Silence. Xander ran his hand across his mouth and stood only to sit back down. He leaned across the desk toward her.
“And?”
Caz released her excitement in a breath.
“It was amazing. You should have seen it! All twelve kilometers within a matter of seconds. The plants, the grasses, everything in a perfect circle.” She stopped. This wasn’t what Xander wanted to hear. In fact, she knew it was only with the greatest restraint that he hadn’t already interrupted her to have his say. She tapped her nails on Xander’s desk, unable to hold back her excitement. “This is it, Xan! It’s ready!”
“All twelve kilometers?” He didn’t move from his seat but his eyebrows contracted. “Did any of it leak over to the city?”
“Come on, Xan, do you really think I’m that careless?” A snarl rose in her throat. It caught, making a lump she couldn’t swallow.
“Because a report came in a few hours ago of a freak storm that raced through the Vislane Envirophylum and Academy—”
“They’re calling it a storm?”
“—that decimated the entire phylum as well as the academy and the eight adjoining grids.” He flipped around the power screen so Caz could see it. It was an image taken from high above, showing the shimmering lights of a block of standard Rethan grids. At the very center was a blackened hole. No lights. No dark, blocky symmetry implying the location of an envirophylum. Just a perfect circle of darkness.
Caz shoved the screen back at him.
“And that’s not all,” Xander went on. “Ten days ago a similar storm popped up at a phylum twelve-hundred grids to the south, although that one only destroyed about a square kilometer of the phylum—”
“Xan—”
“And another one thirty days ago in a phylum to the east. At least that time the surrounding grids had been empty, or the death toll would have been enormous.”
“I needed to test it.” Caz waved a hand at the power screen. “The Heart of Annihilation can only be condensed so far, as you can tell with that first failed test. I made it as small as possible for the second which was about as effective as a firecracker. The third had the most consistent response, but I’d never have been able to contain it to a single envirophylum.”
“If you’d gotten a permit from the council for the test we could have found you a suitable location.”
“Oh please. The council?” Caz tossed up her hands and paced before the desk. “Sure. As if every single council member weren’t under the imperial thumb of our esteemed commandant.”
“I’m on the council now, Caz.” Xander thumped his fist on the power screen. “I could have pushed it through, like Vin would have.”
“Attikin’s ass!” Caz stopped pacing. “You don’t have the same authority as Vin. Commandant Paliyo desperately wants me to finish the weapon, but he doesn’t understand the complex necessities involved in testing. He would as soon give me permission for a test as he would hug me. It had to be this way.”
“And so the Rethans within the neighboring grids are what, casualties of your own personal war with the commandant?”
“You’re forgetting the higher purpose here, brother,” Caz hissed. She pressed her knuckles to the desk, her eyes hard. “If this weapon isn’t admitted into the arsenal, the Thirteenth Dimension will continue to annihilate dimension after dimension until the dimensional fabric is so thin the slightest infraction will cause an
irrevocable rift. Is that what you want?”
“That’s on their heads, while this,” he picked up the power screen and pushed it back under her nose. “This is on yours.”
Caz shoved it off the desk. It cracked, causing the image to vanish.
“It’s not just mine, Xan.” Caz folded her arms. “Don’t think because you’re not turning the key or applying the charge that the blood won’t stain your hands as black as mine.”
Xander sat back down, his eyes wide.
“What if it’s not enough to introduce the Heart to the Rethan arsenal?” Caz walked around the desk and perched on the edge as close to Xander as she could. “I mean, what’s that really going to do?”
“Caz, don’t—” Xander looked scared for the first time.
She inched closer. “What if the only way to free the planet from the Thirteen Dimension’s oppression is to annihilate them first?”
“That’s not our purpose and you know it!” Xander leapt to his feet. Caz thrust him back into his seat. She leaned over him, her lips pulled against her teeth.
“You and your little, impotent council are welcome to debate amongst yourselves. But know this, Xander,” Caz bent forward until their noses touched. His breath was cool and fast on her face, “this Rethan serenity—this passivity—will not stop me from destroying the Thirteenth Dimension myself if I have to. And you won’t be able to stop me.”
Her fingers circled Xander’s collar while her other hand trailed a thin curl of electricity down his cheek. He slapped her hand away. Caz laughed and released him. She got off the desk and moved toward the door. Xander’s voice stopped her before she could leave.
“This isn’t about revenge, Caz. Don’t let Vin’s death blind you. You have a mission. Create a weapon that can take down the Thirteenth Dimension. You’ve accomplished that. Now it’s time to turn it over to the council, and let them decide how best to use it. If you try to set it off on the Thirteenth Dimension and fail . . .” He left it hanging, but it was no secret the consequences that would rain down on the remaining dimensions for such an infraction.
Caz turned her head toward Xander. “You’re not going to tell the council, right? About the tests?”
“Of course not.” Xander looked frightened at the thought.
“Okay then. Set up a meet with the council.” She chewed her lip and then nodded, agreeing with herself. Laughter bubbled up from deep inside and spilled out with her next words. “Yeah, let’s do that. Set up a meet. I’ll meet with the council. Yeah. We’ll do that.”
She was still laughing to herself as she walked through the web. Electricity trailed from her clothes. Out the door, past the council chambers, down the stairs to the empty vestibule. She ran her fingers along one of the pillars and made her way out of the dark, quiet building. A meeting with the council was just the thing.
CHAPTER 19
Rose
I blinked against the blackness encroaching on my vision, the rage bursting from me in a homicidal wave. I staggered forward, murder on my mind.
Rannen’s leg bumped against the crate as he backed away. He put out a hand to keep his balance. Fear shimmered in his eyes. His hand came up, and I was staring into the muzzle of his weapon. I narrowed my eyes.
“Put that away.” Thurmond attempted to push the weapon away. “Knock it off, Rose!”
The hatred leaked away, taking with it the pressurized ache in my head. I sagged against the wall, drained and sick. I recognized that voice, the one that had come from my mouth. And it wasn’t mine.
Rannen dropped the weapon to his side, unaware that Thurmond’s hand was still on it. Both of them stared at me open-mouthed.
Too ashamed of myself to speak, I turned away. I stood at the edge of a steep embankment looking in the direction we’d arrived.
Miles of empty desert stretched before me. Trapped on an island in the middle of a sandy ocean. Trapped and dying. Trapped and losing my mind. I didn’t know which was worse.
My eyes followed the line of electrical towers and the thin track of road running alongside it. A dirt cloud rose not more than twenty miles away. The sun retreated behind the glowering clouds and the whole valley was cast into a dark, stormy shadow. The dust cloud was only barely visible now, but I knew what I’d seen.
“Hey,” I called over my shoulder, “someone’s coming!”
Thurmond stepped to one side of me. Rannen’s hip brushed my other shoulder. They followed my gaze. No one spoke. Not about the convoy of vehicles, and not about me going off about drones and cutting throats and such, although I caught a wary flick of the eyes from Rannen.
“What do you think the chances are that’s the commander coming to do us in?” Thurmond said.
That was my first guess too, but I couldn’t seem to put the timeline together. Get shot, fall from a plane, blah, blah, blah, stumble across miles of desert, find aliens, be accused of mass murder, blah, blah, get some weird injection, threaten to kill someone, blah-diddy-blah. Yeah, I guess they might have had time to land, unload the plane, gear up, and drive all the way out here.
“How far out would you say they are?” I asked.
“I’d say they’re driving between twenty-five and thirty miles per hour.” Thurmond looked at his watch. “A generous guess would put them here around twenty hundred hours. That’s less than thirty minutes from now.”
“Are they coming for us or these other guys?”
“Probably both.”
A shard of lightning cut the sky, followed instantly by a boom of thunder. My insides bounced.
Energy surged throughout my body, increasing exponentially with every moment. It refused to hold still, racing throughout every cell like a child on a newly discovered playground. I rested one hand on my knee. I couldn’t stop shivering.
Thurmond’s voice continued to intone somewhere to my left; Rannen joined in a moment later with a quiet rumble. I lost track of the conversation. In fact I lost track of everything.
Lightning, thunder, electricity, ice. Icy cold.
“It’s all right, Rose.” Thurmond rested his hand on my back. “We’ll be fine.”
I opened my mind and eyes back to the outside world. Thurmond stood by my side. Deputy Hoth, a.k.a. Ponytail Guy, had joined Rannen at some point. The Rethans chattered and worked in the background. A drop of water landed on my cheek, then another.
Something sparked on my skin. A flash of light. Then another. I blinked. Water plus electricity equaled . . .
“Rannen?” I called. Fear clutched my throat.
I turned my face to the sky as the clouds released their heavy load. A sopping deluge saturated my hair, skin, and clothing. Water filled my eyes. I brushed it away only to have it obscure my vision again.
Rannen and Hoth stood together, their shoulders lifted in an instinctual defense against the sudden watery assault. Water dripped from Hoth’s ponytail onto his shoulder.
“The officiate is ready for the inmate over at the portal,” Hoth hollered over the rapid-fire of thunder and accompanying rain.
“How long is this going to take?” Thurmond left my side to join them. “Marshal Rannen, those people are coming to kill you.”
“Rannen?” I tried again.
No one looked at me. The three of them grouped together in a tight, arguing fist. Blood trickled in watery rivulets down my arm. Electricity sparked through the crimson streams, like power pouring from the injury.
“I realize that,” Rannen said. “But the safest thing for us is to get through the portal.”
“The safest thing for you guys maybe, but what about Rose and me?” Thurmond swiped water from his face.
“What are you talking about?” Rain flecked from Deputy Hoth’s lips.
“It appears that the government soldiers Specialist Rose referenced are on their way.” Marshal Rannen gestured behind him. Hoth stepped to the edge of the hill.
Headlights were now visible, tiny twin penlights repeated over ten times, fading in and out as the rain
overwhelmed the vehicles. Hoth was suddenly at my side, wrapping his cold fingers around my wrist.
If he’d been holding my left arm, I would have yanked it away. As it was he took my electricity-riddled right arm that was attached to a leaking hole in my shoulder and pulled me in the direction of the portal. He didn’t seem to notice or care about the snakes of electricity crawling down my arm.
“G-get off me!”
Thurmond blurred through the rain. His fist met Deputy Hoth’s jaw in a squelching thud. Hoth went down, dragging me with him. I hurt enough when I was holding still. Moving, falling, and landing was a friggin’ mother.
I was vaguely aware of Thurmond going in for a follow up. Rannen snagged his arm and yanked him back. Snarling voices. My hip and a rock doing the tango. Hoth’s hand jerking on my arm.
I blinked over at Hoth’s angry face, then at my arm, where electricity danced over his hand. A sharp ache clamped my head in a vice.
“Get off me!” I shouted, sending every amp of power collected within my body out of the hole in my shoulder, through the streams of water and into Hoth’s fingers.
A spasmodic pop exploded in a crackle of blue light. Hoth yipped in pain, releasing me. I scrambled away, my hands splashing in the mud. Electricity crawled across my soaked skin, clothing, and through the rainwater collected on the ground. My back hit building twelve. I slid down the wall and my body sprawled across the ground, head propped up. The electricity jerked my muscles in uncontrolled spasms.
Marshal Rannen crouched before me.
“Stay calm, Kris.” His voice was intense but calming. “You have the control. The power does not. Sense the power. Draw it in. Contain it to the water in your cells. Master it. Control it.”
“Gah!” I breathed out. I couldn’t concentrate on anything but the fact that I had long since lost any control.
“Kris, listen. If you can’t draw the power, at least contain it. Think of it like shutting off a valve.”