“I don’t know, I didn’t check,” Lily replied as she stood up slightly, allowing Damos to search for his glove. Finding it inside, he slid it on before turning his attention to the energy balls. They were almost at the tower now, and the energy balls were barely missing them. As the next one flew past, Damos thrust his hand out and grabbed it, hurling it back at the tower. It stuck the tower and exploded. Part of the roof collapsed.
With the way temporarily clear, Lily pulled the bike into a climb, heading for the top where the Gifteds had been attacking from. No sooner had they passed the opening than Damos leapt free of the bike, sailing through the air to land beside the rubble from his recent attack.
“And for a moment I thought I was going to have to chase you down,” Damos heard before he’d even had a chance to get to his feet. He looked up to see a man standing several meters away, staring back down at him with a piercing blue gaze. Pristine golden hair flowed down to his neck, combed back to leave his face clear.
“Nicholas,” Damos growled.
“In the flesh,” Nicholas replied, bowing slightly.
“You’re gonna pay,” Damos cried, forming a sword with his glove and lunging forwards. He felt a pair of hands grab him before he’d covered half the distance.
“My friends here might disagree with that,” Nicholas said. Damos looked around to see a man grasping his waist. He was tall and muscular, with a tattoo adorning his bicep.
“You might recognise some of them,” Nicholas said. Damos suddenly realised he’d met the man before. It was Salamander, the Freeloader who’d helped them break into the Nexus Headquarters. Before Damos could think further, he felt a burning sensation around his waist. He cried out and smashed Salamander across the face. Salamander flinched slightly but kept hold, and it was at that point Damos realised Salamander was also being controlled.
Damos brought his arms in and threw Salamander back, forcing himself free. But the heat remained. Damos looked down to realise his coat was on fire. He tore it off and threw it to the floor. He held his blade out towards Nicholas, but several more Gifteds appeared to block the gap.
“You’re clearly outnumbered. And don’t think I’ve forgotten about your friend on the bike, presumably the lovely Lily. I haven’t met her yet, but I’m sure we’ll be acquainted soon enough.”
Damos looked back to see a pair of Gifteds leap out the broken window into the morning air. They dropped for a second before soaring into the sky.
Lily can handle herself, he thought, returning his attention to Nicholas. The momentary pause had given him a chance to calm down and return to his usual calculating self. He glanced around the room, noting the locations of all the Gifteds.
Six in total, including Nicholas. Two I know the powers of, the others not, he thought, before lunging forward once again.
* * * *
Lily swung the bike around to face the building, hovering high above the lake. Below her she could see ManaCorp employees huddled on the far side of the bridge.
God knows what they think is going on, she thought before returning her attention to the room at the top of the tower. Inside she could see Damos talking to a blonde man.
Is that Nicholas? she thought. She saw Damos lunge forwards, another man appearing and catching him in the middle of the motion. A second later his hands lit up.
Nicholas is controlling them, she realised. She heard Damos yell out in pain.
Should I go in and help? But what can I do? I’m just going to be an extra concern. Or not, knowing him.
She was suddenly reminded of the time in the forest, when Damos had saved her from a mercenary.
Clearly he does have a conscience sometimes.
Lily was distracted by movement on the top floor. Damos had broken free, but was now surrounded by Gifteds. It wasn’t that which caught her eye though, but the pair who had just leapt out of the building and were heading straight towards her.
Lily twisted the handle of the jet bike and the engine roared behind her. She swung it around and shot away, the Gifteds close on her tail.
I can’t leave Damos alone in there, so I’ll have keep them off until he needs me, she thought as she leant forwards and dipped the bike into a steep dive. The Gifteds easily followed, swooping down after her. They clearly had no fears when it came to flying.
Why would they? It’s Nicholas controlling them, and he’s not going to feel it if they get hurt.
The surface of the lake quickly approached. Lily held the dive for as long as she could before her nerve gave way and she heaved up on the handlebars. She made it just in time, almost skimming the surface of the lake. As before the Gifteds followed, gaining on Lily significantly.
I’m just not as manoeuvrable as them, but maybe I can outmatch them on speed.
She twisted the handle further. The jets cried out, propelling her forwards as fast as they could. She felt the air tear at her exposed arms and face, threatening to peel the skin from her body. She ducked behind the bike’s small windshield but it made little difference.
Lily looked up and saw the lake’s edge rapidly approaching. She panicked and swerved around and up, but at her speed it was too much for the bike to handle. The whole body of the bike spun, throwing Lily off towards the trees beyond the lake. She tumbled through the air, her mind in too much shock to think. She watched the trees approaching, and eventually managed to form a coherent thought.
I really hope they’re enough to break my fall.
Fortunately her question remained unanswered. A pair of arms appeared around her waist, pulling her out of her arc and into the air. She looked behind to see one of the Gifteds her carrying her up towards the top floor. Fear consumed her, both that of the Gifteds and her own.
What’s to stop him controlling me?
As they reached the top floor, Damos came into view. He was struggling against a pair of Gifteds, with a third stood close.
“Ah, here she is,” Lily heard Nicholas say as the Gifted set her down. The Gifteds attacking Damos grabbed him and force him still.
“Now tell me, young lady, what is your name?” Nicholas said.
Lily remained silent.
“You wouldn’t perhaps be the woman Yakshi mentioned the night Ethan died? You match her description pretty well.”
Lily didn’t need to reply to tell him the answer, her face gave it away at once.
“So I am right, which means you are Lily. Tell me Lily, have you ever killed someone? You’ve spent so much time with these contract killers, now seems as good a time as any to complete your initiation.”
No, I don’t want to kill anybody. Lily looked all around in panic, trying to find any way to escape, but Gifteds surrounded her, and the only way out behind her was a long drop into the lake.
Damos struggled as the Gifteds forced him in front of Lily. Another appeared and laid a dagger down beside her.
“Kill him,” Nicholas commanded.
Lily stood powerless, waiting to act without willing it. She looked at the dagger, then up at Damos. Several seconds passed. She didn’t move.
“I said, kill him.”
Still nothing happened.
“How are you resisting me?” Nicholas screamed in frustration. His face flushed red and his hands balled into fists.
Suddenly he began to laugh.
“However you’re doing this, it’s sealed your own fate.”
A clanging sound rang out behind Lily. She looked back to see a holographic hand gripping the edge of the building. Lily wanted to move away, but she was paralysed by fear. Victoria slowly drew herself up to her full height, water dripping from her clothes and hair. Her eyes were ringed with red, but her face was expressionless.
Damos’s struggling increased. With a cry, he tore himself free. He grabbed Lily’s arm and pulled her away, snapping her out of her paralysis, but they were still surrounded.
“Looks like this is the end for you,” Nicholas said. “I’m sorry you’re not going to get to see my new world, it
would have suited you very well.”
The Gifteds began to advance along with Victoria. Lily and Damos instinctively turned back-to-back, trying to keep them all in sight. Damos created another sword.
Lily suddenly noticed the roar of engines, similar to the jet bike’s. It rapidly grew in volume. She looked out the hole in the wall to see a black plane approaching.
“Duck!” came Owen’s voice though a speaker. Lily felt Damos throw her to the floor. A moment later the plane arrived and opened fire, pelting Victoria’s back with bullets. Her shields automatically activated, blocking them, but the sheer force was enough to temporarily destabilise her.
Damos grabbed Lily’s arm and pulled her towards the opening. Victoria leapt past, blocking the path to her new master. At the same time, the Gifteds lunged for Damos and Lily. Damos swung his elbow out, knocking the first aside. Lily ducked and ran, avoiding their attempts to grab her.
Owen ceased firing and spun the plane around. The back opened with a hiss, revealing a small interior.
“Get in,” he shouted. Damos hurled another Gifted aside and leapt, grabbing on to the pneumatic pump which opened the plane’s hatch. Lily ran to follow, but a Gifted grabbed her before she could jump. Instinct kicked in and she grabbed his shoulders, forcing them down while her knee came up to meet his chest. The force alone sent him staggering back.
Thank you, Victoria, she thought, before leaping herself. Damos grabbed her arm and pulled her inside. A moment later the pair shot away. They ducked as Owen began to raise the door. Lily saw the pair of flying Gifteds leap off to give chase before the door closed completely, but she knew there was no way they would be able to outspeed the plane. They had escaped.
Chapter 21 - Remorse
10:30, Airspace above Plexus City
Lily struggled to her feet, pushing off Damos’s shoulder for support. The plane shuddered in the air, destabilising her, but using the walls for support she managed to make her way through the hold.
“What do we do now?” she asked, stepping into the cockpit. No sooner had she entered than she was overcome with hopelessness. Her eyes darted to the window, contemplating how far the fall would be and whether it would release her from this torture. When she eventually pushed through the pain and regained control of her thoughts, she was amazed Owen hadn’t steered the plane straight into the ground.
“I did it again,” Owen whimpered. His arms were locked rigid, holding the control wheel still. His eyes were set dead ahead, staring off into the distance.
“What have you done?” Lily asked, stepping closer.
“Let my arrogance overcome logic. I swore I’d atone for what I did, and instead I let them take Victoria and kill Matt.”
“You did what you had to do,” Lily replied, doing her best to sound comforting while fighting through the waves of negative emotion.
“I was played! Nicholas brought Victoria to the station deliberately. He knew I would finish my work to wake her, and in my arrogance think I could keep it from him. I’m a fool, and now I’m a murderer.”
“You are not a murderer. Nicholas is the one that killed Matt. You did the right thing; you and Victoria had to escape. With or without you he would have completed the algorithm.”
“But I still wrote it. If I killed someone, I couldn’t claim innocence because someone else was going to do it too.”
“But you didn’t kill anyone!”
“I gave them the means, is that not the same?”
Lily opened her mouth to reply, but no words came. Either due to her own convictions, Owen’s negative emotions, or a mixture of both, she began to doubt herself.
Is a gun manufacturer responsible for the way their weapons are used? They may not pull the trigger, but they know what their product is intended for.
“See, you’re doubting yourself now,” Owen replied. “I did this, and now I have to deal with the consequences.”
“So deal with them,” Lily replied, finally realising her true opinion.
Everyone makes mistakes, but the way in which we deal with them is what determines whether we are good or bad.
“How? Nothing I can do could bring Matt back.”
“No, but you can prevent your mistake from taking more lives. How do we stop Nicholas from using your work to hurt more people?”
Lily felt the drop outside the window become slightly less appealing and knew she’d made progress. Several moments of silence followed.
“We attack the source of his power,” Owen said eventually. “It’s too late for plans which might work, or might give us an edge. We need to do something decisive, and we need to do it now.”
“What do you mean?”
“We take down the problem at its root. We have to attack ManaNet itself.”
“What? Is that even possible?”
“There’s no reason it shouldn’t be. You just need to find the right angle of attack. Shutting it down is out of the question, too many people have life-giving grafts, but we can prevent it updating. Nicholas clearly hasn’t uploaded my algorithm yet or all hell would have broken loose. If we can stop him doing that, it’ll buy us time to deal with him.”
“So how do we do this?”
“We attack the server stations, like the one Victoria and I were held on. Mana itself is as much a part of the world as the earth, sea and sky. It cannot be destroyed. But ManaNet is different. It takes the earth’s natural Mana and distributes it to the devices which use it. They’re how he’s going to exert his control. We stop them updating, we stop him.”
The plane lurched as Owen swung it around. Lily stumbled, just managing to catch onto the door frame before she fell. They turned into a steep climb, heading for the clouds.
“What are you doing?” Damos yelled from the hold.
“Can you fly a plane?” Owen whispered to Lily. She shook her head.
“Damos, come take control,” Owen shouted. “I have some code to write.”
* * * *
10:48, Approaching Server Station 01
“It’s ready,” Owen said. The keyboard in front of him vanished, and he held up a small drive. Lily took it from him.
“Damos, I’ll take pilot again,” he continued.
Damos set the plane to continue its current course, then levered himself out of the seat. Owen took hold of the control wheel on his own side and released the autopilot again.
“That drive contains a virus which will attack the station’s infrastructure and stop it from accepting updates,” Owen said.
“What about the other stations?” Lily asked, handing the drive to Damos.
“Before attacking the system, the virus will trigger the station to transmit it to other close servers. They, in turn, will broadcast it to their closest servers and so on until all are infected.”
“That seems too simple. Wouldn’t some crazy anti-ManaNet group have done this already?”
“The virus itself may not be too hard to write, for a tech-savvy person at least, but getting it on the server is another matter. Each run their own internal networks, so they cannot be hacked from the outside. That’s what the drive is for. Damos, you’ll need to get inside the server control room and plug the drive in. The virus will do the rest.”
“Expect guards?” Damos asked, taking the drive from Lily and tucking it into a pocket.
“Yes, lots. And it gets worse. The only place we can drop you is the hangar, where they’ll see us coming. No stealthy approach I’m afraid.”
Damos nodded, pulling his glove tight. “How long to arrival?”
Owen didn’t reply, instead pointing out the window. Lily looked up to see a huge metallic donut floating in the sky above them. Inside the ring sat a sphere with a spike extending out of its top and bottom. The whole structure appeared to be gently rotating.
“We land there,” Owen said, pointing at a small rectangular extrusion sticking out of the ring. “Anywhere else and the lack of air pressure will kill you after a few seconds. Once inside, head to
the control room. It should be a room off the ring, on the inside edge. I’ve hooked your earpiece up to the plane’s radio so we can stay in contact.”
“Got it,” Damos replied, standing up and making his way to the back of the hold. Lily slipped into the newly vacated seat.
“What can I do to help?” she asked.
“Just sit tight.”
Owen slowed the plane as they approached the hangar.
“I’ll lay down some covering fire,” he shouted into the hold. “It should buy you some seconds to get out the plane and into cover.”
Damos didn’t reply, but then Lily didn’t really expect him to.
“Five, four,” Owen counted as he swung the plane around. The hangar opening came into view.
Back again, Owen thought, looking through the translucent blue barrier which kept the pressure inside at a comfortable level. He felt a phantom ache in his leg where the bullet wound was still healing.
“Three.”
The plane passed through the barrier. Owen immediately let off the throttle and the plane jerked to a stop.
“Two.”
Owen quickly surveyed the guards in the hangar. They seemed to be paying him little attention, clearly assuming the plane was piloted by one of them.
“One.”
Owen reached down and held his fingers over the door release, simultaneously moving his other hand to hover over the trigger for the front guns.
“Go!” he yelled, pressing both.
* * * *
The sound of filled machine gun fire filled the hold as the plane door lowered. Damos leapt into the hangar just in time to see the guards scrabble for cover.
Shield, he thought, raising his palm. A translucent disc appeared from his glove, large enough to cover his head and torso. Keeping low, Damos sprinted across the hangar to the far wall. A quick glance over the room revealed the only exit was on the far side, opposite the opening to the sky.
The guards’ initial panic seemed to be wearing off as they swung their guns down and prepared to return fire on the plane. Fortunately, none of them seemed to have noticed Damos. How long it would stay that way he wasn’t sure.
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