Shutdown

by Heather Anastasiu

  Nothing made any sense, but I threw my telek outwards against her. If she let out that stream of electricity in the tiny metal-encased space of the transport, we’d all be dead. I tossed her backwards hard. Her head hit the wall with a sickening thwack.

  I didn’t have time to check if I’d overdone it, if I’d hurt her badly or even killed her on accident, because Rand and Cole had both launched themselves at me. Rand held his hand out toward me. I could already feel the heat pouring off him, and I knew he was only just warming up. If he actually touched me, the burn would almost surely kill me.

  I stopped them both midair and wrenched Rand’s arm upwards instead of at me. The metal over our heads quickly turned red hot.

  Everyone attacking me all at the same time could only mean one thing. The Chancellor. But she was still hundreds of miles away, how was she compelling them—

  Suddenly we were all knocked off our feet as the transport dipped down, aiming straight at the ground. I fell hard into Cole, Juan, and Xona. My head banged into the metal of Cole’s chest, but he’d been slammed into the back of the cockpit seat and for a moment was just as disoriented as I was, so he didn’t renew his attack. Then again, he didn’t really need to. In a few more seconds, we’d all be a pile of fiery wreckage, our bodies indistinguishable from the twisted remains of the transport.

  I pushed myself off of Cole.

  My mind spun as I tried to figure out what was going on. The Chancellor’s power didn’t extend more than a few city blocks, maybe a mile at most. How was this happening? How did she even know where we were?

  I tried to grasp the transport with my telek, but we were dropping so fast, I couldn’t seem to get a clear hold before it all spun out of my mind’s grasp again. It didn’t matter how it was happening. All that mattered was that I stopped us in time. But when I tried to move so I could grab the controls, I tumbled past Henk in the driver’s chair and my backside smashed into the glass windshield at the front of the transport.

  The reinforced windshield didn’t crack, but I was woozy from the pain of hitting right where the knife had gone in.

  The transport was spinning now as it fell, throwing me from one side of the dashboard to the other. I kicked Henk in the face accidently, and he let go of the transport controls all together. At the same time, Cole had reached up and ripped off the guide stick at its base. He lunged for me next, but I pushed him back with my telek.

  I could see the ground now, closer every second. I closed my eyes, trying to ignore the screaming pain in my back, the nauseous sensation of spinning out of control, and the thought that this was my worst nightmare coming true—tumbling through the horrible open sky, empty space on all sides except for the unforgiving ground that was rushing up all too quickly to meet us.

  I ground my teeth together. The projection cube blinked to life in my mind, and I hurled my telek outward until I was not only out of the chaotic cockpit, but was outside the transport too. The cube enlarged and I reached blindly for another surface to hold on to so I could orient myself. And there it spread out beneath us—the ground.

  I braced myself against the earth with my telek and then felt out the spinning contours of the tiny transport falling through the huge unending sky. It was like a child’s toy tossed through the air. I caught it and steadied it out until we stopped spinning.

  It was the strangest sensation, because I could feel the momentum slowing in my outer body while simultaneously slowing the plane’s fall in my mind. I couldn’t think about the mind-twist of it though. I poured more energy into curbing our speed, slower and slower, until when we finally got to the ground, we landed gently on a grassy field.

  Cole’s metal-encrusted hand immediately reached toward me, but several of the others were clogging the entrance to the cockpit between us. He tossed them aside like they were no more than paper dolls.

  I’d been chased by Regulators before. I knew they never stopped. I pressed my telek against the windshield and blew it outward. I tumbled through the hole I’d opened up and landed painfully on my side. I looked down. My tunic was covered in blood from the knife wound. I tried to get to my feet, but stumbled and fell back down again. I may have cast my mind out beyond the spinning plane while it was falling, but my body had felt every turbulent moment. I was so disoriented I could barely tell which way was up and which was down. I tried to get to my feet and again crashed into the ground.

  I let out a pitiful gasp as I looked at the downed transport. Cole was crawling through the hole I’d made in the window. He’d be on me in seconds.

  No.

  It couldn’t end like this. Adrien’s vision. I was supposed to at least have a chance to kill the Chancellor.

  I abandoned trying to stand on my own and closed my eyes, pouring my energy into the only one of my senses that seemed to be working at the moment—my telek. I lifted my body up off the ground and into the air right as Cole got to the spot where I’d just been. He reached his arms up after me, almost catching the edge of my tunic. I flew higher right in time.

  The others had opened the door of the transport and spilled out. City was one of them, grabbing her head and walking a few clumsy steps before collapsing to the ground again. A sweep of relief rushed through me. She looked like she’d be okay.

  “Zoe, wait,” Adrien called. “Stop! I’m sorry, I must have been under her control, but it’s gone now. Come back, Zoe!”

  I wanted to believe he was telling the truth. But I knew it was much more likely that these were just the Chancellor’s words coming out his mouth. Trying to lure me back so they could attack me again. I pushed myself farther into the sky before City figured out how to use her electricity again.

  My mind felt thick with cotton. I’d flown away from the wreck as fast as I could, but now I wondered which direction I was heading. I thought about dropping back to the ground, but instead I pushed on. I lifted my left arm in front of my face and clicked through to the compass function on my arm panel, like I’d watched Adrien do so many times when we’d escaped the Foundation.

  Okay, I was headed north. I tried to remember exactly where the Chancellor’s facility had been located. It had been to the east, I knew that much. But I’d never be able to find it without the map. I slowed my momentum and finally stopped, not sure what to do.

  I was weak and hurt, and if I tried to go kill the Chancellor now, there was a high chance I’d fail to even locate her. But if I didn’t, there was no way I’d be able to find a safe place to sleep, and that was only if I didn’t pass out from blood loss.

  I had to try. The others were lost to her compulsion. I couldn’t let it all be for nothing.

  I wasn’t sure if it was an actual decision so much as grim determination. I turned around and went back the way I’d come.

  I didn’t go close enough for anyone from the downed transport to see me. Just close enough so that I could feel the outline of the plane. I could sense the shapes of my friends, walking aimlessly in the field, looking upwards in the direction I’d flown away. The techer had pulled Ginni out of the transport and was checking her vitals. I prayed she was okay. She must have gotten tossed around like crazy during the tailspin.

  I stayed behind the trees where they couldn’t see me and cast my telek outward. I was able to focus enough to push through the broken window and down to the small drive plugged into the dash console. I was surprised it hadn’t been knocked off in the fall. I tugged it out, then paused for a moment and reached through all the tossed contents in the back of the transport. I grabbed the healing gel and a roll of bandage wrap, then pulled all three items out through the window. I kept the objects hovering close to the ground before launching them up into the sky when they reached the tree line. No one even noticed the small bundle flying through the air. It sailed and landed in my hand.

  I flew farther away again, wincing in pain as I lifted off the ground and set myself back down several miles away. I peeled up my bloody tunic and opened the tube of healing gel. I barely kept mysel
f from crying out as I twisted around to apply the gel to the wound on my back. It wouldn’t be able to heal the internal bleeding the knife had caused, but at least it would help the outer cut seal closed and scab up.

  Then I opened the spool of bandage and wrapped it as tight as I could bear in several loops around my torso. When I’d bound the wound as well as I could, I dropped the roll to the ground and took several deep breaths. I felt a little lightheaded from blood loss, but there was no time to waste. The Chancellor had somehow compelled my team from far away, even though I still didn’t know how she’d found us. She’d be sending a transport to pick them all up soon.

  But Adrien had said the building where Ginni’d located the Chancellor was the same one he saw in his vision. She must still be there, or she’d be returning soon.

  I steadied myself, then plugged the tiny drive into my arm port and watched the map appear in the glowing display. Now I knew where to go.

  I took one moment to look over toward the trees that separated me from the jet. I was so close to Adrien. I couldn’t leave him here, knowing he was under the Chancellor’s control. Who knew what she might do to him? The last time she’d had him, she’d cut out part of his brain. But there was nowhere I could take him to be safe from her, I saw that now. The only way to truly ensure his safety was to kill the Chancellor. I swallowed hard and lingered one moment longer. I imagined Adrien’s comforting hand in mine and then launched myself up into the sky.

  Chapter 25

  I RACED TOWARD BATTLE WITH no army and already wounded. The odds were not on my side.

  But there was my anger. That I still had, that I could cling to. Rage, fury, the hottest and brightest-burning of emotions. I fed them until wrath pulsed through my veins. It was different than the last few months when I’d been trying to swallow all my emotions down and make myself steel. I embraced the anger now and pulled it over myself like a mantle. It made me stronger.

  My speed increased as I ticked off each wrong the Chancellor had done to me and to the ones I loved. She’d lobotomized Adrien, imprisoned Markan, killed who knew how many Rez fighters, and now was planning to implant adult V-chips in children. When I couldn’t feed the anger anymore myself, I imagined the rage of centuries of people whose lives had been stolen from them by people just like the Chancellor. I carried millions of ghosts in my wake like a cape billowing out behind me.

  The wind ripped at my hair, pulling it out of its braid and whipping it back in a mad rush of black curls. I pressed on, letting no more thoughts enter my head. I emptied myself out. I had never been so single-minded in my entire life.

  And then I saw the ocean. It stretched out even vaster than the sky. I couldn’t fathom all the crashing water that battered the coastline. I turned my thoughts from it and focused only on the building perched on a high hill that matched the blinking dot lighting up on my arm panel map.

  The Chancellor’s compound stood out like an ugly metallic sore against the beauty of the horizon. It was a long burnished steel rectangle, only two stories high but covering at least a quarter mile. I must not have been paying attention to the scale of the schematics the techer had shown us, because the building in front of me was far bigger than I’d expected. I flew toward it and let my rage expand even further.

  As I neared, I sensed gun barrels click to life on the top ledges of the building. Both laser fire and projectile missiles streaked toward me. I banked and launched myself straight up into the sky, dodging the lasers and catching the other missiles midair with my telek. I forced them out to the sea and then rammed them into each other. The explosion created a huge fireball over the water. Next I ripped all the guns I could see off the building.

  People began pouring out of the front doors. They were too small to be Regulators, which meant they had to be glitchers. I needed to disable them before they attacked me, but at the same time, any one of them could be my brother, Markan.

  I remembered training with Tyryn. He’d always said the key to knocking someone out with one punch was the speed of the blow. I’d practiced tossing dummies against a pressure panel and had been confident at the time that it was a skill I could use whenever I needed it. But now, with adrenaline pumping through my veins and knowing that any one of the figures rushing out the door could be Markan, I was less sure.

  I reached forward with my telek. As soon as I could feel the shape of their bodies, I threw them all headfirst into the metallic slabs that made up the outside of the building. Some stayed on the ground, out cold, but others got to their feet again.

  More poured out the door. Even as ten bodies slumped to the ground, ten others replaced them. I felt the tingling that signaled an assault on my mind and threw the new wave of glitchers against the walls.

  Still more came.

  The next moment, laser fire blasted toward me from a second round of guns that had previously been hidden. I barely dodged the disorienting flashes of red, dropping low to the ground to escape the blasts.

  I ripped the guns from the wall before they could get off another shot. I landed on my feet and ran a few steps so I could direct all my telek toward the building.

  But before I could do a sweep to check for more weapons, a familiar figure held her arm out toward me, a blue orb in her hand.

  It was Saminsa. She released the orb and I tried to jump up to fly out of the way. But the orb expanded as it went and I was blasted straight in the chest by the wave of blue energy. It knocked me sharply backward, disorienting my telek. I put out an arm to brace my fall but hit the ground so hard that I heard the crack of bones in my right forearm even before I felt the searing pain. I let out a deep howl of rage and looked back up.

  Just in time to see a stream of fire burning toward me.

  I tried to jump out of the way, but I wasn’t fast enough. The fire caught the outer side of my left thigh. My pants and part of my tunic went up in flames.

  I dropped to the ground and rolled several times to put the fire out. But not before it burned through my tunic and pants down to my skin. I screamed in pain, both from rolling over my broken arm and from the burns. I didn’t look down to see how bad it was but the smell of charred skin filled my nose.

  Somehow I had to ignore the excruciating wounds because I could see Saminsa gathering another orb. I lifted myself up into the air again to avoid another wave of fire while I focused in on her. Saminsa was a friend so I tried to be delicate; I reached into her body to look for the blood vessel to close off so she’d pass out easily. But she released the second orb before I could. It sent me spinning through the air end over end.

  As soon as I’d righted myself, I saw the fire boy gearing up to send yet another stream at me. I was already half-delirious from pain. I couldn’t handle getting burned again, so I did the first thing I could think of; I grabbed hold of his body and Saminsa’s and slammed their heads together. They crumpled to the ground and I could only pray I hadn’t hit them too hard.

  A loud jarring noise exploded in my ears, disorienting me so that when I tried to stand, I only stumbled a few steps before falling to my knees again. I tried to look around for the explosion, but there was none, and I realized a second before another screeching sound hit that I felt the telltale tugging at my brain. Mind-workers.

  I looked back up. I’d taken out everyone I could see, and no more were rushing out. But their power wouldn’t be halted by walls any more than mine was. I reached forward with my telek, pushing past the flimsy barrier of the outer wall.

  Just as I sensed a group of bodies huddled in a main corridor, I froze and toppled forward into the packed dirt. I hit the ground face-first. Blood gushed out of my nose and the burned side of my body was ground into the rocky dirt. My vision blurred from the pain. I tried to jump to my feet, but I couldn’t get up, couldn’t move at all. I was completely vulnerable, lying paralyzed in the middle of the open field in front of the building.

  And then I started drowning. I gasped in panic but only swallowed more water. I coughed it out,
only to have my throat fill back up again.

  I tried to stay calm. This was part of their strategy. Assault me from enough angles and I’d be so distracted, I wouldn’t catch the one attack that killed me. But every rational thought I managed was punctuated by another flicker of terror. I was drowning, I couldn’t breathe! I squeezed my eyes shut and forced myself to ignore my panic.

  I held my breath and searched the wall with my telek. My instincts had been right. More guns dropped from where they’d been hidden encased in the wall, taking aim at me. I ripped them off only seconds before they could fire at my prone body.

  Still, when I tried to move again, I was as immobile as if I’d been wrapped head to toe in steel bands. I choked out the water in my mouth and managed another quick breath before my throat filled back up again. I didn’t know if the water was real or just a hallucination, but if I didn’t get more than half a breath soon, I’d pass out.

  Worse, in addition to the jarring noises still blasting in my ears, I suddenly felt the prickle of a thousand crawling insects all over my body. I shuddered internally and counted to ten to calm down, in spite of my desperate need for air. I could hold my breath for a minute more, and my mind at least was still unbound.

  I reached back into the building with teeth-grinding determination. I was done letting the Chancellor use these innocent people as weapons against me. Not to mention I was so battered, I didn’t know how much longer I could keep this up. I let out a growl of anger as I sent the energy outward from my body. It passed easily through the wall and then into the thirty waiting bodies, knocking them backward.

  It must have been enough to startle the mind-workers from their focus, because suddenly I could both move and breathe again. I took in a gulp of air and then jumped back off the ground, biting back a scream from the pain that lit up my body. I flew as fast as I could toward the main entrance. I could sense some of the bodies starting to move, so I reached in again, more surgically this time, pinching the blood vessels leading to their brains until they all passed out.