*****
Chapter 55
"So, what?" I said. "I was named after the planet Earth?"
"Not exactly." Laurel's voice was a cracked wheeze. "You were...the planet Earth."
I frowned. What she was telling me didn't make sense.
"The world...made flesh," said Laurel. "The soul of the Earth...in a human body. Like Landkind. Like me." She drew a deep, rattling breath and let it out in a great sigh as if it were her last. "As I am...the Allegheny Mountains...you were...the entire world."
"I was?" My attention was fixed on Laurel. For now, I'd completely forgotten about the power being leeched out of me. "I told you this?"
"Yes," said Laurel. "We were best friends...for ages. You told me...everything."
"When was this?" I said. "When were we friends?"
"A long time ago." Laurel drifted out. Then drifted back in. "Thousands of years..." She slumped on the table.
"Laurel?" I raised my voice, and she stirred. "Are you trying to tell me I'm thousands of years old?"
She shook her head. "More like...billions. Your human form...is as old...as humankind...but you...your mind and soul...are as old...as the world itself."
As incredible as my life was, what she was telling me still seemed too incredible to be true. I tried to process it, but I still couldn't believe it. "So what happened to me?" I said. "How did I become your long- lost friend?"
"You just disappeared," said Laurel. "I don't...know why. You were happy...in love...then nothing. I never saw you again...until Aegle's funeral."
I thought of the visions I'd had of the blond man and the mysterious city by the sea. In my visions, he'd loved me, then turned against me. Were those memories of what had happened thousands of years ago? Memories of what had led to the disappearance of Earth's human form? My human form?
Even so, something about it didn't make sense to me. "How could the manifestation of the Earth itself just disappear? Is that even possible?"
"Landkind...can be abducted...or killed." Laurel wheezed until she caught her breath. Barely. "I don't know...about the Earth. You never...she never told me."
I sighed. "And thousands of years later, you and I met again."
"Yes." Laurel nodded, looking weaker than ever. "I hoped...you had some answers. That you could...tell me what happened. But no."
Pieces fell into place in my mind. A few of them, anyway. "Duke told me I start over every fifty years. My mind becomes a blank slate."
"No...wonder...you don't remember." Laurel closed her eyes and drifted again.
"Laurel? Laurel?" When she didn't answer, I started to panic. I was sure I'd lost her. "Laurel!"
Just when I thought she was gone, I heard a frail cough. Her head lolled in my direction, and her eyes fluttered open. "You can...do it." Her voice was more broken and distant than ever. "You can...stop them."
"Groundswell?" I said. "Stop them from what?"
"They've done nothing...but lie...to us. Whatever they..." She drifted out. Then in. "Whatever they're...about to do...it can't...be good."
"I'm pretty sure they've already won," I said. "I can't even help you, let alone stop them."
I heard her draw in a deep, shuddering breath. "Gaia." Her voice was stronger and steadier than it had been in a long time. "My darling Earth. You can do anything. You are the whole world."
And with that, the breath rushed out of her in one long gust, and her body went limp. The side of her face dropped to the table, eyes open. No one home.
And this time, I had a feeling she wasn't coming back. Don't know if it was the peculiar stillness of her body or the quality of that last exhalation. Don't know if I sensed her spirit crossing over or felt a door opening up to the other side. But I knew.
Laurel was gone for good. The Lady of the Alleghenies, serene embodiment of an entire mountain range, was dead.
*****
Tears were running down my face when Solomon returned, this time with Cassandra at his side. That only made me more furious—that they could see I'd been crying because I was shackled and couldn't wipe away the tears. Just another reason to hate them. Another reason to take them down if I got the chance.
"How're we holding up?" Solomon smiled down at me and rapped his knuckles on the metal table.
"Looking good, girl!" Cassandra looped her arm around Solomon's waist. They were peas in a pod, both dressed in black military garb complete with ammo bandoliers crossed over their body armor chest plates.
Solomon looked over at Laurel and sighed. "I loved her, you know. I miss her already."
"Then why'd you kill her?" I said.
"She was a sacrifice." Solomon kept looking at Laurel. His Southern drawl lost some of its smoothness. "To consecrate the coming Groundswell. It had to be done."
I clenched my teeth, focusing all my energies on trying to break the shackles so I could kill him. "Sacrifice to who? Or what?"
"You know who." Cassandra said it teasingly, wagging her head.
"I'd love to know, so I'll know who to kill after you two." As hard as I tried, I couldn't free myself...but I didn't give up. Though my power was severely depleted, I kept pouring it on.
Solomon turned his full attention upon me, looking stern as a priest. "Our god-king required blood sacrifice. He hungered for great power to strengthen him for our holy crusade."
"What god-king?" I jabbed my chin toward the shaft of light at the center of the chamber. "You mean that motherfucker?"
Solomon's left eye twitched ever so slightly. "He's the reason you're not dead yet, Gaia. He holds your life in his hands."
I snorted. "Here I thought I was still alive because I wanted to be." I kept working on my bonds as I laughed, hoping Solomon and Cassandra couldn't see through my bravado.
Solomon surprised me by laughing along with me. "Everything you've done has been because he wanted it. Didn't you know?"
"He brought you here," said Cassandra. "He's been leading you by the nose ever since you lost your friend."
I stopped struggling as it sunk in. Was it possible?
Maybe Cassandra caught a whiff of my unease, because she leaned closer. Floated a silly grin just out of reach of a good head-butt. "His hand has been guiding you every step of the way, honey. Why do you think Aegle had to die? To lead you to him."
"You're full of shit." I knew I was out of range, but I tried another head-butt anyway. Swing and a miss.
"Aegle's dead because of you." Cassandra practically purred when she said it. "All because he wanted you here."
I tried another head-butt, and she laughed. If I hadn't been shackled to the table, I would have torn her to pieces without giving it a second thought.
I hated her and Solomon for what they'd done to Laurel and Mahoney...for whatever they were going to do to me...and because I knew in my heart they were right. As soon as Cassandra had said it, I'd known it was true: I'd been manipulated every step of the way.
Since that first day when I'd read the flash-fried cat in Aggie's apartment, I'd felt the Presence looming over me. Reaching for me, calling to me. Stirring up visions that must have been memories. Drawing me onward like iron to a magnet.
Aggie's death had led me to Laurel. Laurel had led me to Cousin Canyon, where I'd fought and escaped the Presence and stolen the map to Parapets. Or had the Presence let me go and given me the map?
Looking back, I realized without a doubt in my mind that I'd been played. Moved around the chess board like a pawn, sliding from block to block in service to a gambit I couldn't understand. The only free will I'd possessed had been in my imagination.
And now Laurel was dead and I was near powerless and the god-king's Groundswell was about to begin.
"All ready then?" Solomon clapped his hands and rubbed them together briskly. "Shall we get this show on the road?"
"Fuck you both." I turned my head so I wouldn't have to see him. Closed my eyes and wished I could close my ears, too. Wished I could shut down everything so I wouldn't even have to th
ink, so I wouldn't have to remember how I'd been used. So I wouldn't have to wonder if, on some level, I'd let it happen...let myself be pulled here because I'd wanted answers and sensed the Presence or god-king could provide them.
"Give me a hand with this, will you?" said Solomon. "Let's get her strapped in."
I heard and felt movement and opened my eyes. Saw Solomon and Cassandra on either side of me, reaching under the table. Cassandra brought up a thick leather strap and handed it over my shoulders. Solomon took the strap and threaded it through a buckle, then tightened it around me.
"What are you doing?" I said.
"Making sure you don't fall off." Solomon took another strap from Cassandra and tightened it over my midsection.
"Wouldn't want you to miss anything," said Cassandra as she handed a third strap across my thighs.
She and Solomon tightened the third strap and added another around my shins. When they had me secured, Solomon threw a lever, and the table turned, head rising, feet falling. It stopped rotating when it was standing straight up, perpendicular to the floor.
"Okay, great." Solomon grinned and rubbed his hands together. "Set her down, sweetheart."
"My pleasure." Cassandra gave me a wink, then turned to the bank of equipment. She placed her palm against a plate in the shape of a hand, and the plate glowed blue. Keeping her hand on the glowing plate, she closed her eyes and bowed her head, focusing in.
The cube we were in began to slow and descend. I felt the change in speed and momentum as we angled through the swarm of flying cubes in the chamber, shifting between gaps in the pack. Gliding smoothly through complex maneuvers without a jolt or jostle. We touched down so softly, I could barely feel it.
"We're on the ground." Cassandra removed her hand from the plate.
"Then let's do it." Solomon walked around the upright table, shooting me a grin on his way past. "You're going to like this, Gaia. Best seat in the house."
He and Cassandra banged around behind the table, tinkering with some kind of gear. Suddenly, I heard buzzing and clicking and felt the table rise and shift.
Parts swung out, unfolded, and expanded all around me. The table grew into something new, with me trapped in the middle.
Looking down, I saw silver wings open up on both sides of me. Tires flipped down at my feet and puffed up fast, inflating like balloons on a helium tank. A metal capsule chattered into place, segments telescoping like an armadillo's armor around the table. A clear visor snapped into the open space left over my face, closing off the capsule and leaving me an unobstructed view with full peripheral vision.
"What do you think?" Solomon walked around in front of me and knocked on the faceplate. "Nice and cozy, huh?"
I glared back at him, seething as the apparatus continued to whir and rumble into place.
"Think of it as your own personal chariot," said Solomon. "Best of all, you don't have to lift a finger. Just sit back and leave the driving to us."
"You are one lucky girl." Cassandra hopped up and planted a quick kiss on the faceplate. "You're going to get to see it all. The full glory of the Groundswell."
"When we stop the poison that's killing the world, you'll be among the first to see it," said Solomon. "You'll be one of the first witnesses to the dawn of the new age."
"Lucky." Cassandra sighed. "I wish Atlantis loved me half as much as he must love you."
"Atlantis?" My voice sounded muffled inside the capsule.
"Our god-king," said Cassandra. "The inspiration and driving force behind the Groundswell."
"He's the soul at the heart of the world," said Solomon. "He wants us to cure him of the poison."
"The infestation," said Cassandra.
"The thing that's killing him. Killing us all." Solomon's face tightened. "Humanity."
*****
Chapter 56
"Humanity?" The sick feeling in my stomach got worse. "The poison you want to stop is humanity?"
"Of course," said Cassandra. "They're the ones polluting the air, water, and land, aren't they? They're the ones killing Landkind."
"Pouring millions of gallons of poison into my Mississippi," said Solomon. "Into all the rivers and lakes and streams and oceans."
"Even reaching into my Badlands with their toxins." Cassandra's voice was a hateful hiss. "Murdering all the desolate, beautiful places."
"It's kill or be killed." Solomon nodded grimly. "We have to cleanse the Earth now, while we still can. Start over or die trying."
My heart hammered in my chest at the thought of it. The enormity of it. They were talking about wiping humankind from the face of the Earth.
It was so far beyond the limits of a manageable crisis, I felt like I'd fallen into another universe. I was in fucking apocalypse territory, end-of-the-world land. In a flash, I'd gone from high stakes to all the stakes. And I was utterly alone. On my own on the doorstep of Armageddon, gazing down into the swirling vortex.
Even if I'd been free and fully recharged, I wouldn't have known what to do. Wouldn't have had a clue where to begin. I knew how to round up a serial killer in a quarry; saving the world was beyond my experience. Even if, according to Laurel, I somehow was the world.
Solomon and Cassandra wheeled my capsule out of the cube and parked it on the hard-packed clay of the cave floor. Looking up, I saw the other cubes still in orbit, hundreds of them, each rippling with rainbow color and packed with equipment or personnel or both. Was it enough to kill off the human race? I guessed it depended on their secret weapon, the god-king Atlantis.
"Ever thought about trying a different approach?" I raised my voice to make sure Solomon and Cassandra would hear me outside the capsule. "Like, I don't know...talking to humanity? Working together to fix the problem?"
"Why do you think we've walked among them for so long?" said Solomon. "We've tried guiding them to a better world, and you can see what good it's done."
"Humanity's a blight on the face of the world," said Cassandra. "A cancer."
"What about the humans working for Groundswell?" I said. "Aren't they worth saving?"
Cassandra stepped up and glared into my faceplate, eyes cold. "They know the sacrifice they're making for the good of the world." She turned to Solomon. "It's time, isn't it?"
"Yes, my love." Solomon grabbed and hugged her, then planted a long kiss on her lips. "It's time to go public."
I made a feeble effort to break my bonds, but it did no good. The table and capsule were still draining my power, preventing me from building up a charge I could use.
Solomon let go of Cassandra and stepped away from us both. He dropped into a crouch, planting one hand firmly on the ground, making a fist with the other and raising it high overhead.
"In the name of Atlantis!" He roared the words dramatically, with little trace of his drawl. "We now begin our holy crusade!" He closed his eyes and bowed his head, and a shower of sparks flew from his fingertips.
I watched as the sparks fattened and doubled in number. I knew Solomon was tapping underground ley lines and channeling the energy; even inside the capsule, I could feel the unique signature.
"Will we falter in our mission to save Landkind?" said Solomon. "Will we shirk our duty to stop the poison and save the world?" Grimacing and grunting with effort, he jammed both hands on the ground. Brought both of them back up at once with a howl. "No!" This time, instead of sparks, a blazing white beam of light lanced up from his fingers, twisting and crackling as it leaped toward the ceiling. "The Groundswell shall not fail!"
"The signal is given!" said Cassandra. "There can be no turning back now!" She marched over and touched controls on my capsule, typing on a keypad on the armor over my chest. "Enjoy the ride, Gaia. When this is over, we'll build a new world together, side by side. You'll see."
The capsule hummed and shuddered and rose into the air. Soon, I was high above Solomon and Cassandra, skirting the swarm of orbiting cubes. Skimming the walls of the hollowed-out mountain.
Just then, the mountain bega
n to shake. Dust and debris showered down around the capsule...and then the shaking got worse, and bigger pieces fell. Rocks as big as the capsule plunged from above; I reached out with the power I had left, hoping to guide them to a crash landing atop Solomon and Cassandra...but I wasn't strong enough to make it happen.
The mountain shook even harder. Suddenly, it lurched upward; I sensed it was breaking free of the Earth. Just as Solomon had promised, it was going to fly.
What had he called it? "A juggernaut to clear the poison and plant new life." In other words, the mountain was becoming a war machine to exterminate humanity.
And I was helpless to stop it.
*****
Chapter 57
As dust and debris continued to rain down, my capsule circled the heart of the shuddering mountain. In the swarm of cubes below, humans, Landkind, and Crossbreeds stood armed and ready for their crusade. Nymphs and goddesses flew among the cubes like sparrows, clad in black body armor, shedding plumes of earth or smoke or rain or flame. The shaft of light at the center of the cavern, the beacon of the god-king, flared and spun with fresh power and purpose. All of us stood together on the brink of catastrophe, poised to dive headlong into a dark new world.
Inside the capsule, I was at the lowest point of my life. I'd failed in every way imaginable, and now humanity would pay the price. I was starting to understand how it felt to want to die.
The mountain lurched again, coming closer to breaking free. It would be an incredible sight, soaring through the sky. Everyone who saw it would gape and snap photos with camera phones...at least until the mountain started killing them.
I closed my eyes, wishing it would all go away. Wishing that by some miracle it would all turn out to be a bad dream, wisping away like morning dew from blades of grass when I opened my eyes again.
And that was when I heard the knock on my capsule.
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