***
From his place of calm that he had carved for himself, Arthur could see what needed to be done. He had started already, separating the part of himself that was untouched by the invader. Slowly, he slithered out from the infected sections. The process only took an instant, but he felt like he had spent hours crawling through a sewer pipe, his face half buried in vile brackish water as he crammed his consciousness into a safe corner of his mind. Looking outward, he could finally see the virus that had invaded his brain, intertwined, pulsating like a pile of filthy maggots.
His thoughts clear, Arthur allowed himself a small smile, grateful to be in control of himself once again. Time worked strangely here, and he knew he had only bought himself a few moments, a blink or two in the real world. He watched as the infection continued to grow. Before long, its filth would expand even into this tiny oasis he had created. Wasting no more time, Arthur began to probe for weaknesses, like looking for cracks in an old brick wall, a place he could chip away at the mortar and slip through, take back control. In the moment of a single breath, he ran the length of the wall, scaled it up and down, back and forth. To his terror, he found nothing. The more he looked, the more solid it felt, as if thinking about it made it more real, an unassailable fortress beyond human encryption, beyond anything he had ever seen even on government servers. It would be impossible to penetrate. He had lost and everyone around him would die for it.
***
Rowen stood frozen, unable to make her limbs move, her breathing short as Jonah lunged toward her, arms raised to strike. He was just inches from her face when he was pulled back, falling hard face-first into the dirt as Gwen yanked hard on one of his legs, pulling him back toward the crater. Rowen gawked at Gwen’s ragged appearance, her once-white uniform now caked with dirt, blood leaking from her nose, her hands red and sticky from multiple gashes. Crawling out of the crater, Gwen stepped over Jonah, slamming her knee into his armored back to pin him in place. She raised a fist high, her eyes wild, about to pound Rowen’s brother to bits, only in the same moment to be paralyzed by a dry whooping cough that folded her in half and stole her breath. Her brother, recovering quickly, pushed himself up effortlessly with one arm, elbowing Gwen just below her chin with the other as he stood, snapping her neck back and knocking her off her feet.
“Jonah, stop!” screamed Rowen, not understanding how her brother could be here, how he was still alive. Ignoring her, he reached down, lifting Gwen effortlessly by her pale blonde hair, releasing a flurry of short sharp blows to her midsection, leaving bloody gashes seeping from her shredded skin. Silently he swung her around like a rag doll and threw her haphazardly into the assembled mass of Russian soldiers who stood watching, bowling them over, before turning and stalking toward Rowen. She could see him clearly now, his face hidden by a jagged mask of crystal, vicious-looking spikes pushing through his dark skin from below, not a hint of recognition in his green eyes.
Blinking away her shock, she turned to run, moving as quickly as her feet would take her, at the same time drawing out her Mark II, impressed by how natural it felt in her hand after only such a short amount of time. She cursed as she made her way up the hill. Jonah was fast, much faster than her. He was almost on her when she unleashed her first rounds, clumsily firing over her shoulder, the flash of her muzzle still bright against the early morning light. She watched, satisfied, as her brother flinched, each bullet shattering the crystal on his chest like exploding glass, causing him to stagger back. Rowen never stopped moving, running up the hill in leaps and bounds, trying to put as much distance between them as she could, all the while shouting orders at the top of her lungs that anyone with a gun and a working trigger finger to open fire, regardless of what side they were on.
She smiled grimly at the sight of her brother falling back, covering his face as a hail of gunfire rained down on him, forcing him to a knee, giving her a moment to top the hill. Looking back, her smile faded when he stood to his full height, ignoring the rain of bullets sparking against his armor. He took flight, hurtling directly toward her, covering the distance of her frantic run in the blink of an eye. Desperation drove Rowen to change tactics. She dove forward, hoping he would overshoot. She twisted, taking aim while still in midair. Her brother had other plans. Lunging, he grabbed her heel as he landed, bringing her dive to a jarring halt. She landed hard, the back of her head bouncing off the damp grass, causing stars dancing in the corners of her eyes and knocking the wind from her lungs. She tried desperately to roll away and break his grip, only to find he was impossibly strong, his hand like a vice crushing the bones in her foot.
Knowing she only had an instant before she would be crippled, she blinked away the pain and focused on his hand, using the enhanced targeting system in her glasses to guide her. Praying she wouldn’t shoot her foot off, she squeezed the trigger and was rewarded with the sound of exploding crystal, the pressure on her foot vanishing as her brother’s dark skin was made visible for the first time as what was left of the armor on his hand fell away.
He paused for a moment, blinking in confusion and shaking his head. She felt she saw a flicker of recognition as he leaned toward her like a hound with a scent in its nose. Rowen lowered her gun, rolling to her feet and trying to ignore the faint buzzing in her ear. There was someone screaming in the distance, but she couldn’t bring herself to care just then. They stared at one another, Rowen not daring to move. Jonah’s gaze wandered back and forth from his hand to her, his lips silently moving beneath the crystal mask.
She was about to reach out to him, just to see if he was real or a figment of her imagination, when a man-sized pool of darkness rippled into existence behind him, like moonlight shimmering on water. Jonah’s eyes went wide, and he screamed silently as Rodrigo’s monomolecular blade slid between his ribs, piercing his armor like it was made of wool, the translucent weapon emerging from just below his collarbone stained with black blood.
Quicker than she could see, almost like an afterimage, his elbow shot up, pounding Rodrigo’s high-bridged nose flat, a fountain of blood spilling from the tall acolyte’s nostrils as he staggered back and fell over, wailing in pain.
Knowing how much faster he was than her, Rowen didn’t hesitate. Not tempting fate, she fired from the hip, using the targeting systems in her glasses to keep track of the muzzle. She squeezed the trigger, grateful her bullets were faster than him. The moment slowed in her mind, and she could almost see the bullets emerging from the muzzle, brighter than a sun going nova, a cloud of swirling dust in their wake, her nostrils filled with the burning odor of propellant, the hiss and the snap as the hot dense piece of depleted uranium struck dead center in her brother’s forehead, shattering the crystal armor covering his forehead. By the time the third bullet had buried itself deep in his eye, Rowen was able to raise the weapon, always more comfortable with the iron sight. She emptied the remainder of her clip into his face, ejecting and reloading in a flash, ready to fire again if he so much as twitched in her direction.
Jonah staggered back with each shot, finally falling to his knees. His silence was broken by the sound of him dry heaving, dark bile spilling from his mouth.
Rowen, not sure what to do, held her gun at the ready, the thought of what she had done racing through her mind like a tornado. That she might have to do it again made her stomach turn. “Jonah?”
As she watched him heave one last time, his breathing growing steady at last, he wiped his mouth using his exposed hand. “Rowen,” he whispered, not bothering to look up. Rowen cringed at how alien his voice sounded, raw and reverberating. Inhuman.
From the ground, he craned his neck to look at her, his handsome face covered in blood and bits of glass, the crystal mask shattered to a thousand pieces, the jagged pieces of glass that had punctured his features cracked and broken. She took a nervous step toward him, only to have him raise his exposed hand in warning. Struggling to his feet like a newborn foal, he looked down at his hand, gingerly rubbing the exposed flesh agai
nst his face, eyes going wide with wonder as he looked down at himself. She again was about to take a step toward him, to hug him, look in his eye, and tell him everything that had happened and how sorry she was for failing him, but he stopped her with a look. With his armored hand he grasped the weapon buried in his ribs, pulling it out in a single smooth motion and tossing it aside, all the while his face blank as though he had casually plucked some lint from his clothing. When he spoke, his voice was flat, void of any warmth. “Go home.” Without another word he was airborne, the earth beneath his feet looking like it had been pounded by an earthmover, the air hissing in his wake as he vanished into the early morning sky.
Watching him vanish, Rowen felt her stomach turn, dreading what she would have to do next, not sure she had the courage to tell her father about Jonah. Not wanting to think, she buried her hands in her mop of hair, scratching her scalp. She looked down the hill to see Blake, Timur, and a few others heading in her direction; she would have to explain. Shaking her head, she walked over to Rodrigo, going to one knee to see if he was alright. He looked at her with eyes full of tears.
“Really!” she said, raising an eyebrow. “You're a grown man crying over a little broken nose.”
“Mios dio, the demon has ruined me,” he said in all seriousness, motioning to his swollen and bruised face, forcing her to stifle a laugh.
Putting an arm around the crying Italian, Rowen helped him to his feet, doing her best not to giggle at him, but his words made her mind spin. As far as anyone was concerned, they were being attacked by some Russian experiment, Rytsar. The name Timur had used. She was the only one who knew what Jonah looked like. No one here had ever met him. She didn’t have to say anything to her father, knowing it was wrong but deciding it was better than making him sick with worry. Rowen would carry this burden alone.
***
Arthur pounded his fists bloody against the wall, desperate to break through. Deep in his mind he knew the wall wasn’t real, it was artificial, existing only in his mind, but that didn’t stop the rough-hewn brick from cutting his knuckles with each blow, solid and unyielding. Despite feeling like he was in a vast open space, he could feel everything closing in. It would crush him soon, grind him to dust in the tiny little space he had carved out in his mind.
In the real world, he could see they were swarmed by thousands of drones, a circle of death held back only by Gibbs’ fading strength, on his knees and growing weaker with each heartbeat, blood flowing freely now from his nose and ears with a web of black veins spread out over his face and neck.
Arthur returned to his inward struggle, back to the wall, wailing in pain with each futile blow against the imaginary construction, his mangled fists leaving trailing bits of blood and bone that stubbornly clung to the brick, in his heart knowing it was pointless, an impossible task. He turned suddenly and slumped against the wall, bowing his head in defeat when he felt a faint shudder, fine traces of dust sprinkling like snow from the nonexistent sky, and then nothing, making him wonder if he had imagined it, some hapless part of his mind clinging to hope. It happened again and then again, a steady rhythm of blows like Hephaestus striking his anvil. Leaping to his feet and taking a step back, he craned his neck, desperate to find the source, which echoed from somewhere high above. When the final blow came, it sounded like the earth had been torn asunder, mountain-sized chunks of wall exploding outward, forcing Arthur to bend forward and raise his hands defensively to protect his head from the falling chaos, dodging fragments of stone shrapnel that rained down with enough force to crush him like an insect, the smaller pieces easily able to pierce his dense skin. The few that struck him drew fine lines of blood on his forearms and cuts on his forehead. Covering his mouth to stifle a cough, he peered through the fine particles to see a man striding through a jagged hole in the once-impenetrable wall, chest heaving as though he had run a marathon. He was tall with wide shoulders and a narrow waist, handsomely built like an Olympian, and his eyes glittered a brilliant green. Arthur could see his dark skin glistening with sweat and high cheekbones that had a smattering of boyish freckles.
He walked by him as if Arthur weren’t there, vanishing suddenly like he’d never existed. Shrugging, Arthur wasted no time searching for the opening the strange man had made, and as if by simply thinking of it he found himself floating high above in front of the hole, watching the bricks reforming before his eyes. Panicking, Arthur dove forward, sliding clumsily through the narrow opening, kicking off his shoe as the heel became trapped in the newly formed wall. He found himself high above the park, at the tip of the towering spear that dominated the skyline of Central Park. In the distance, he could see his physical body along with the small unit of soldiers standing in a semicircle, waiting for the end as the swarm encompassed them.
From his perch, he could see clearly the signal controlling the swarm, strangely dormant now as though the force controlling them had simply vanished, wandered away and left the lights on. He gathered them up like holding strings on a kite, first the thousands of signals, the strings of data between the tower, and the killing machines circling them. He bent them all to his will, amazed at how easy it all felt now. He then went farther, grasping the lines flowing between the tower and the machines beyond New York, those fighting, killing, destroying. With a simple gesture, he made it all stop. He was in control now…of everything.
Looking at what he held in his hands, Arthur began to tremble. He knew he was here in Central Park, but his mind was everywhere. He understood now that every piece of Russian hardware had trace amounts of this wondrous crystal in it, and he could connect with every sliver, the machines becoming extensions of his mind. Concentrating, he could see through the drones attacking up and down the coast, wave after wave striking at fortified bunkers of survivalists too stubborn to leave their homes. He could smell the cook fires of the refugee camps all across Pennsylvania and Long Island where America’s unwanted waited like fools for the government to save them, not understanding the system had long since abandoned them.
He was submerged in the frigid waters of the Potomac, machines hidden away from sight in its cold depths, waiting, watching.
It took him long moments to realize the tower amplified his abilities to monstrous proportions, more than he could have ever imagined. He could do anything with this, and no one could stand in his way. He could tear the old world down, destroy defilers like Cardinal Washington. He could give everyone hope, balance.
The longer he was connected, the more he could sense what was possible. It wasn’t just his senses; he felt as though he was each machine. He knew every round in every weapon, every gram of fuel in each drone. With the slightest twitch he could fire a tank shell, an entire arsenal just waiting for his whims. He felt himself pull back for a moment, his heart beating like a jackhammer, fear in his belly at the reality of what he could do, wondering if he had the strength to really do it. It was fine when it was just a fantasy without consequence, but now…
With a sudden surge of anxiety, he pushed it all aside, not breaking the connection but locking it all away in a small portion of his mind. His vision lurched suddenly as he found himself fully back to reality, dark and dismal, sadly blinking away the afterimage of the wonder he had just seen, distant places and immense brightness. It took him a moment to realize that Gibbs and Uriel were screaming wildly, shaking him for all it was worth, the swarm still surrounding them, circling, the hum of their propellers deafening. Looking at Gibbs, he could see black veins spiraling out from the crystal at his neck, streaks of blood trickling down the side of his face. Uriel beside him was glowing like the sun.
He gave them both a wan smile, and with a wave he dismissed the swarm, returning them to the printing factories that he knew were deep under the park, a wave of relief spreading through the militia surrounding them. Arthur smiled wryly at the young men and women patting one another on the back in celebration as though they had done anything but stand and watch.
“What happened?” a
sked Uriel as his glow faded to a dull spark, leaving them in the dim morning light.
Arthur was about to try and explain when Gibbs piped up. “He's in control now, of it all. I can feel him,” he said through chapped lips.
Uriel raised an eyebrow, looking at Arthur. “What does that mean? Is the war over? Did we win?”
Arthur locked his hands behind his back, bowing his head and choosing his words carefully. “It could be. I think we need to get everyone together to make a decision about what we want to do and how we want to do it.”
Gibbs and Uriel cast nervous glances at one another, their eyes darting between one another and Arthur before finally nodding wearily.
He gave them a tight-lipped smile before tapping on the comm device in his ear. “This is Arthur. We’ve been successful.”
There was a brief pause followed by a short burst of static before Captain Macdonald’s baritone voice broke through the interference. “Roger. Good to hear your voice, son. We thought we’d lost you for a minute, but despite everything, the other teams were successful. I’m ordering everyone to the Russian staging area. Why don’t you join the others? We can review then.”
“Yes, sir,” said Arthur, looking at the tower in the distance, still amazed that he was in control of it, knowing what it could do.
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