I don’t answer.
“We’re here to take you home, Rafia.”
They still think I’m my sister—Dona didn’t confess. Otherwise, that dart would’ve been poison.
Rafi’s voice comes easy to me. “I’m staying here.”
“We don’t have time for this,” the man says. “Your father’s plans for this city are already in motion. They can’t be stopped.”
My eyes widen in the dark. So the attack is already on its way.
“What plans?”
“Turn that knife off, Rafia. You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“What’s happening to this city? Tell me and I’ll give up.”
All he says is “You need to come with us. We only have a few minutes.”
The attack’s coming that soon? Or is he worried about the wardens in the alley below? Any moment now, they’ll spot the broken windows.
I stay in character. “Tell me what’s happening to Paz, or I won’t come with you. My sister’s here. I’m not going to leave her!”
I squeeze the knife into a burst of full pulse so he knows I mean business.
“Frey will be fine, Rafia. Our sources say she’s back with the rebels.”
Their sources? I starts to ask for more, but I hear it just in time—the barest fluttering coming down the stairs.
A black drone the size of a butterfly rounds the corner at ankle height, mounted with a single dart. It lunges at my calf, but a swipe of my pulse knife turns it into confetti.
I give him Rafi’s most imperious voice. “Try that again and I’ll throw this knife at you!”
“Rafia, it’s important that you listen. Very soon, we will leave—with or without you.”
I start to laugh and laugh, but he keeps talking.
“We can’t be seen in Paz.” Another pause. “Even if that means leaving you behind. You don’t want to be here for what’s coming.”
Of course—my father doesn’t want Paz to know who’s attacked them. Maybe those drones can’t be traced to Shreve, but living, breathing Specials are another matter.
All I have to do is stall them.
“Okay, give me a minute.”
“We don’t have a minute, Rafia.”
“Okay, I’m coming!” I shout, but soon they’ll realize I’m not.
I pull off my stolen coat and curl up in the stairwell corner, huddling behind a curtain of its thick wool. My pulse knife is ready if they rush me, but I don’t think they will.
“You have five seconds, Rafia.”
I huddle tighter, making sure no part of me is sticking out from behind the coat.
A moment later, the whisper of fluttering drones fills the air, followed by the plinks of sleeper darts bouncing down the stairwell. The extraction team is sending down a hail of missiles.
The coat trembles in my hands, tiny metal points poking through. It’s sheer luck that none of them pricks my fingers.
When the barrage ends, all I can hear are voices from below—Paz wardens entering the ground floor of the stairwell.
I peek out from behind the coat. On the stairs above me, a shadow shifts …
Squeezing my knife to full pulse, I slash at the fireproof wall. The ceramics disintegrate into a thick cloud, billowing out to fill the stairwell. I’m already scuttling from my corner and down the stairs toward the wardens.
Half a flight down, I huddle beneath my coat again, expecting another flight of darts.
But nothing comes.
Except a noise—the door at the top of the emergency stairs opening on rusty hinges.
The Specials are running away.
My father would rather lose Rafi than let his soldiers be spotted here before the attack. Which gives me no choice but to go after them.
I cast my coat aside and run up the stairs, full of combat ecstasy at last.
I climb the stairs fast, half-blind in the dust.
There’ll be at least three Specials on the extraction team, all in body armor. I’m wearing nothing but Rafi’s gray sweats, and my knife’s charge light is yellow. My only advantage is that they think I’m her.
If I can knock out one and leave them for the wardens, it’ll embarrass my father. Maybe the Paz will even take notice.
Two floors up, the dust clears enough to see. I keep climbing, scanning for traps in case this retreat is a trick.
It feels wrong—Specials just running away.
The roof door is shut, bent it its frame to slow me down. I kick it.
Once, twice …
A flying blow finally knocks it halfway off its hinges. The metal bends outward, and I stumble into the waning sunlight.
A car hovers a few meters above the roof, steady in the air.
Waiting for me.
I squeeze my knife to full pulse, daring them to attack.
But through the car’s side window, the nearest Special only gives me a curious look. He scans me like my trainer, Naya, used to, noting my fencing stance, my left arm back for balance.
And through the window glass I see his lips move.
Frey?
Right—Rafi might’ve gotten lucky with a pulse knife against a drone. But charging up here and busting down that door? That was pure me.
The hovercar spins in the air. For a moment, I think they’re going to open fire.
But the Special only smirks as the car wheels up and away. As if he doesn’t care what happens to me.
Which makes no sense. My father has wanted me dead since the first minutes of the war.
My knife doesn’t have the charge to stop a hovercar, so I can only stand and watch. The car swings east, back toward Shreve at top speed.
Away from Paz.
What did the Special say to me on the stairs?
You don’t want to be here for what’s coming.
I let my knife go still, slip it into a pocket before the Paz wardens see it.
It’s strange that no one else has made it to the roof yet. I don’t hear any voices on the stairs. Sirens are blaring, but off in the distance.
Then I feel it—the barest trembling in the roof under my feet.
It builds slowly, like the rumble of an oncoming mag-lev. The air around me turns thin and shuddery.
A thunderstorm coming on?
The sky is pale blue, no clouds at all.
Everything goes still again. But the distant sirens keep wailing. I walk to the edge of the roof and lean over the parapet. A group of wardens is spilling out from the alley onto the main street.
Something’s happening. Something bigger than a crashed drone and some broken windows.
Out along the horizon, columns of smoke rise up from the outskirts of the city. My mind flashes back to my father’s surprise attack on Victoria.
But there are no missile trails. No incoming jags of light.
Then it starts again—the roof trembling beneath my feet. For a few seconds, I’m not even sure it’s real. But when I place my hands on the parapet, the shivering stone reminds me of my father’s words in his study.
Like a force of nature.
A shock comes then—the roof lurching, sending me staggering back from the parapet. The building seems to tip and buck under me, and I fall to my hands and knees.
When the rumbling subsides, I’m staring down at a finger-width crack in the stone. It runs halfway across the roof, like the whole building is splitting.
I stand up slowly, wary of the world itself.
The sun has turned brown—a cloud of shaken dust rises from the whole city, along with a veil of screams and sirens.
I walk to the parapet again, just to take hold of something solid. But new fissures line the stone.
Around me, the squat buildings in this neighborhood are all knocked askew, leaning against each other like tired soldiers. At the end of the block, a tall building gapes with a hundred shattered windows. A rain of safety glass flows down onto the street, sparkling in the dusty sunlight.
The center of the city looks untouched, the great towers imperv
ious on their hoverstruts. The earthquake hasn’t broken through the dampeners to reach the city’s magnetics, kilometers beneath the earth.
But I see people jumping, specks against the towers of glass. As their bungee jackets take hold, they fall soft as snowflakes.
It looks so orderly—they must practice evacuations all the time. This is the Pacific Rim, after all, full of tremblers and volcanoes. And I guess their feels are keeping the Pazx calm.
There’s no way my father could have caused this.
But then I remember that submarine from Shreve—on the ocean bottom, down with the fault lines.
I turn on my comms. “City interface? Are you there?”
No answer. Maybe the AI’s overloaded with emergency calls.
“City of Paz! I have urgent information. I waive any right to privacy—listen to me!”
“Yes, Frey. Do you need assistance?”
“I’m fine. But I know what caused that earthquake.”
“A sudden release of energy from tectonic pressures?”
“Um, yeah. But it’s not natural. It’s the Rusty weapon my father found!”
“That seems unlikely. There’s no historical record of such a weapon. And Paz has survived earthquakes before.”
“Right, but …” I don’t know how to finish. It’s not like my father told me anything useful. “I just thought you should know.”
“Thank you, Frey. Now may I suggest that you head for ground level? We can continue this conversation once you’re safe.”
I hesitate, watching the skyline. Emergency craft are lifting into the air, their fans roiling the dust. The evacuations continue, people in bungee jackets spilling out of the taller buildings.
Maybe the city has things under control. Maybe my father’s mysterious weapon wasn’t as powerful as he thought.
“Okay, fine,” I say, turning toward the door.
“Wait,” the interface says. “Iron Mountain.”
“What do you mean?”
“Iron Moun—” it starts again, but then the third shock comes.
Pure noise. Titanic fury. Like I’m inside a waterfall, the air itself roaring, churning. The world shivers and blurs in the edges of my vision.
The parapet crumbles in my hands.
I stagger back, the roof tipping, stone turning to gravel beneath my feet.
I’m skidding toward the building’s edge, on my hands and knees again. Sliding down toward a yawning gap, about to join the pile of rocks and rubble falling on the street below.
I grab for any purchase, but everything is loose stones and dust.
Drawing my knife, I send it roaring up the slope of the roof—my fist wrapped around the hilt. The knife’s magnetics drag me slowly upward toward the metal door.
Swinging open, it’s almost within reach …
My fingers close on the door handle as my knife sputters, out of charge. The metal bends a little more, hinges squealing over the roar of the quake.
But it holds.
Finally, all at once, the thunder comes to an end.
The vast silence rings my whole body. My lungs are full of dust, my vision swimming.
The roof tips perilously beneath me, but it’s full of cracks for handholds and footholds. Now that the building isn’t shaking itself apart, I can climb down to the street.
But with my first careful movements, a new sound pushes away the ringing in my ears. A distant roar, like the surf on a beach.
Another earthquake?
I look up at the skyline …
It’s unbelievable.
That last quake must have cracked the bedrock—made it past the dampeners and shock-resistant reservoirs, all the way to the city’s deep magnetics, the massive engines that keep hoverstruts in the air.
The spine of the city is broken.
The towers of Paz are starting to fall.
I can’t watch. The sound is bad enough.
Millions of tons of metal and glass are crashing down, beating the drum of the earth with an endless roar.
Pure instinct fills my body—to get down to the street. All I want is solid ground beneath me.
I descend the slanted, broken roof. The front of the building has collapsed, so it’s like climbing down a rockslide.
I’m almost on the street, when a groan drifts up between the stones.
I cover my eyes and squint, peering into the darkness. A hand curled in pain, the glisten of eyes staring back at me.
Someone’s buried in there.
“Hang on,” I say.
With a heave, the largest piece of rubble rolls away. It tumbles down the slope, smacking more dust into the air. The pieces are smaller after that, easy to pull up and out.
The woman should be crushed, but she’s protected by what’s left of a permacrete archway. She must’ve sheltered in the building’s entrance before the last quake hit.
When I pull her out, she’s covered with dust and blood. But her grip in my hand is strong, her face calm.
“Do you speak English?” I ask. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” she says. “No broken bones.”
My first-aid training kicks in, and I start checking her for injuries.
“Are you sure? You could be in shock.”
“Not shock.” She raises her wrist—two rows of faces smile at me through a layer of dust. “Calm mixed with Quietly Effective. People need our help. Let’s go.”
I stare at her a moment. I’m streaked with sweat, and my heart is pounding. The horror of those falling buildings—those thousands of people trying to get out of them—lurks just beyond the edges of my self-control.
But the woman’s expression is eager and ready.
“Are you okay?” she asks. “You know what they say—check your own feels before helping someone else. You seem a little … intense.”
“Intense is all I have,” I say. “Come on.”
We move down the street, looking for more people trapped in the broken buildings.
An unearthly calm fills the city. A few med drones fly past, but they’re all headed toward the fallen towers. Around us, the citizens are taking care of one another with quiet determination—sharing water, tearing up clothing to bind wounds, making sure the seriously injured have their feels set to Painless.
None of them stares at the colossal clouds rising from the city’s center. A steady rain of debris is falling. Not just dust, but fluttering paper, bits of plastic and wood—everything light enough to be carried up by the thermal plume of burning buildings.
The sunset turns it all red.
Battle adrenaline rages inside me, but the quiet purpose of the Pazx around me is somehow contagious. I can’t fight an earthquake or turn back time. But I can clean this wound, stop this bleeding, pull this dislocated shoulder into place.
Still, every sound makes me flinch, like an aftershock is hitting. Everything feels uncertain and treacherous. I can’t even trust the ground beneath my feet.
I work in a fever, staying in constant motion to keep the horror from descending on me. That earthquake was a thousand times deadlier than my father’s attack on Victoria. But everyone around me thinks it was just an act of nature.
The young woman I rescued stays close to me, looking concerned about my lack of Calm.
“I’m Essa,” she says when we take a break, drinking water from a broken main.
I hesitate, but there’s not much point in anonymity now.
“Frey.”
She looks thoughtful as we shake hands, like the name is familiar. Not everyone pays attention to the newsfeeds, I guess. And my famous face is a mess of dazzle makeup, sweat, and dust.
“Your accent,” Essa says. “Are you from Diego?”
“Shreve.”
“A refugee? Welcome.” She looks around at the chaos of the city. “But maybe you wish you’d stayed at home.”
“Never,” I say.
Essa frowns. “Is it really that bad there?”
I hesitate, not ready to tell
her who I am, or that my father did this to her city.
“Freedom is better,” I say, “even when it’s a wreck.”
A cry comes from above us, and we both look up.
From the top of a half-crumbled building, a small figure waves down. It’s a young boy, his clothes torn and bloody. He’s standing on a single shard of metal jutting up from the exposed, twisted skeleton of the structure.
“Don’t move!” I shout. My head spins for a second for the Spanish. “¡No te muevas!”
Essa is speaking to herself. “Interfaz, necesitamos un aéreocar de emergencia … ¿Interfaz? ¿Estás ahí?”
I check my own comms.
The city interface is gone. The lines must be overloaded, or maybe—
My processing cores are buried under three kilometers of solid stone.
“¿Interfaz de la ciudad?” Essa tries again.
This is why my father was so sure that Paz would never figure out what hit them. Because there would be no Paz AI.
“The city’s offline,” I say.
“Offline?” Essa shakes her head, her calm breaking for the first time. “Then we have to get him ourselves. He’s too young to have feels. He’s scared!”
“There’s a hoverboard back at my place. Military-grade lifting fans.”
“Okay.” Essa takes a slow breath, fingers on her wrist. “That’s an … intense thing to have.”
“Told you.” I turn back to the stranded boy, wishing I wasn’t so Spanish-missing. “¡Volveremos!”
He understand and waves, the motion small and timid against the vast dust clouds in the sky.
That’s when I realize there’s no city interface to guide me.
“Can you get me home, Essa? I don’t know where anything is.”
“Of course.”
I give her Rafi’s address, and we set off through the broken streets. The silence in my comms doesn’t lift as we move. The mind of Paz is gone.
My father has killed a city.
There are more injured along the way, but when I try to stop and help, Essa keeps us moving.
“There could be aftershocks,” she says. “Or he could try to get down by himself. He’s just a kid.”
She’s fierce now, even with Calm and Collected in her veins. I don’t argue.
When we reach Rafi’s building, the front side has collapsed. Her apartment faces the street, its outer wall torn off. I can see her makeup table up there, precariously balanced on the ragged edge of the fifth floor.
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