Below, he heard sparks and a high-pitched whine as something began cutting through the door. When it blew open again, a storm of Seekers would explode inside after them.
But it didn’t matter now. Above them was a door set into the concrete wall at the end of the stairs. And beyond that … was freedom. They were going to make it, Holt told himself. They were going to make it.
Holt reached the door and burst through.
On the other side was another concrete room. It was small, only about forty square feet. One wall was full of windows, and underneath them was a long bank of aging, rusted, useless buttons and knobs and screens, which he guessed used to control the dam’s functions. Sunlight filtered in from outside.
Holt stopped dead as he stared through the windows. The breadth of the entire floodplain stretched out before him, and he watched the battle raging below.
Dozens of blue and white Spider walkers marched toward the dam. Massive volleys of plasma bolts and missiles burned through the air, slamming into the structure, spraying fire and rock everywhere. He felt the floor under him shake with each hit.
Flights of Raptors filled the sky, roaring over the control center, hammering it with their own cannons. Vultures and Ospreys circled high above, watching the action, ready to pick off anything that moved.
“No…,” Holt said to himself in dread. It couldn’t be as bad as it looked. There had to be a way.
A ladder in the center of the room led up to the ceiling only half a dozen feet above their heads, where there was another door, square and metallic with a big handle that kept it shut.
Holt set Mira on the floor and scaled the ladder. He cranked the small handle and shoved the metal door open …
… and then leapt off as blasts of plasma bolts seared past, inches from his face.
He hit the floor hard, rolled, stared up into the sky beyond the ceiling, watching the yellow bolts of heated death flashing past, shredding the air right outside. Anyone who stepped out would be nearly instantly cut down.
Holt grabbed the Chance Generator. It had helped them this far; it could get them a little further. The only problem was, there were no more beads to push up. He had used all of them. He pulled a row down, pushed it back. Nothing happened. No flash of light, no colors in the air. It sat in his hand, lifeless. He tried again. Still nothing.
With a sinking feeling, Holt knew the truth: It was used up. His luck was gone.
Explosions rocked the room, plasma burned the air just outside, missiles screamed and blew apart against the dam. This was it. This was as far as they could go.
It was over.
A buzzing echoed inside from the stairwell, and the sound ripped Holt from his depression. The Seekers were coming up the stairs.
“Get back!” Holt yelled at Zoey as he lunged for the door and slammed it shut, twisting the dead bolt into place.
The door rocked hard as something crashed into it. Again. And again. The sound of buzzing grew louder.
Holt looked at the door, backing up. There must be dozens of them in the stairwell. God, when they broke in …
“Holt…” Mira’s weak voice reached him from behind.
He spun around instantly, dropped to the ground at her side. She was trembling, staring upward with her almost black eyes, oblivious of the explosions and the coming death that surrounded them. She was trembling, fading … and there was nothing he could do about it. Not anymore.
“Holt…,” Mira repeated.
“Right here,” he forced himself to reply, and he heard the tones of defeat in his voice. He took her hand.
“Zoey…,” Mira said next, and the little girl moved closer. Zoey wasn’t crying. She looked down at Mira with gentle tenderness.
Explosions flared outside again, shaking the room. The glass along one wall shattered and crumbled to the floor.
Mira’s free hand rose and took Zoey’s, then delicately placed it on Holt’s. Holt and the little girl looked at each other.
“Trust…” Mira tried to speak, but it was getting hard. Holt’s stomach dropped as it occurred to him that this was the last time he would hear her voice. “Trust … Zoey…,” she finally managed to say. The words barely registered for Holt. He felt himself going numb, felt any semblance of feeling or emotion dying where he sat. Fading away with Mira. “And … thank you…,” she continued, her words barely audible now, just broken whispers that floated out on her final, conscious breath. “… for … the dance.…”
While Holt was forced to watch, the Tone finally took Mira Toombs.
Her eyes swirled and went completely black. Her body relaxed and slumped in Holt’s arms. He looked down at her with a dead gaze. It was over. She was gone. And just as before … he was to blame.
The anguish he felt now wasn’t intense. It was more like a numbing cold. An icy grip on his heart he knew without doubt would never end.
The explosions outside were inconsequential. Escape was meaningless now. Everything was over. Everything he had fought for, everything he had come to this place for.
He’d gambled, and he’d lost.
To his left, he heard a sizzling sound. The fine, red sliver of a laser beam burned through the door and began to cut into the room. It would all be over soon; that was one consolation. And Holt would sit here, with her in his arms, until it happened.
48. BELIEF
HOLT SAT LIKE A STATUE with Mira in his arms. She just lay there, unmoving and mindless. She would rise up soon, Holt knew, try to start her walk toward the nearest Presidium, but with the battle raging outside and the air full of searing plasma, there wasn’t much chance she would make it. Next to them, the laser continued to cut through the room’s door. It wouldn’t be long now.…
“Holt,” a small voice said beside him, and the sound dragged him out of his stupor.
He glanced to his right … and saw Zoey.
In his grief he’d forgotten about her. Max sat next to them both, watching him with sorrowful eyes.
Explosions flared outside; the room shook. Holt’s hand was still in Zoey’s, and he looked at the little girl. The mere sight of her, someone so small and fragile amid all this chaos, drove home that it was more than just Mira he had failed.
“Zoey…,” Holt began with a cracked voice. A flight of Raptors roared by outside, their cannon screaming, shaking the room as they flew past. “Zoey, I’m sorry. This … this is all my…” The words rang in his mind as he spoke them, because he knew they were true. “We shouldn’t have come here. I shouldn’t have brought you.”
“Why did you come, Holt?” Zoey asked, studying him curiously. Almost like she was seeing him for the first time.
“I wanted to save Mira and you, but I failed. Just like before.” Holt stroked Mira’s hair absently. “I should have known better.”
Zoey was silent next to him. She didn’t seem to be weighing her own words, so much as Holt’s. “There’s a reason all this is happening, Holt,” she continued. “Not like how you think … but there’s reasons.”
Holt looked away from Zoey. He suddenly felt tired, more tired than he’d ever felt. He just wanted it all to be over. “If there are reasons, kiddo, I sure as hell don’t see them. I don’t see any purpose at all, to be honest.”
Zoey’s hand remained in Holt’s a second longer … then she pulled free, stood up, and moved for the ladder that led to the open air beyond, where shrapnel and fire filled the sky.
“Zoey!” Holt grabbed the little girl and pulled her back. “What are you doing?”
Zoey looked at him evenly. “I need to go outside, Holt.”
He was so stunned that all he could do was stare. Explosions erupted against the dam, and he heard the haunting, electronic bellow of dozens of giant Spider walkers outside. “Zoey you’ll be cut to pieces out there!”
“I know it looks like I’ll be hurt, Holt,” she said, “but I promise … I won’t. I can see how things work now. I don’t have all the answers, but I have a sense of things. I kind of know
who I am. And what I have to do. But to do those things, I need your help. I need you to believe, Holt. It’s the only way we’re ever going to make it.”
Holt kept his grip on her arm. He had no idea what to say. “Zoey—”
“I can help you, Holt,” she said before he could finish. “I can find your hope again. I can show you that great things can happen. Even right now.” Holt looked at the little girl, listening to the calm, assured words that came from her. She had never spoken this way before, and something about it was … comforting somehow. “But I need you to let me go. I need you to trust me, Holt. You’ve trusted me before.” Her eyes held Holt’s intently. “Trust me again.”
Holt watched her with a contorted mix of emotions. Trust Zoey, Mira had said. So had the Librarian. A part of him, what was left of who he used to be, wanted to do just that. But could he? Could he gamble again, after everything he’d already lost?
The laser continued to cut the door. It was almost through now. The dam shook outside, screams of pain mixed with triumphant, electronic bellowing echoed in. Another pane of glass shattered right next to them.
“Let me go, Holt,” Zoey said gently. “Let me go, and everything will be all right.”
Holt felt his hands shake as they slowly began to loosen their grip on Zoey. It wasn’t a completely conscious decision. It was more like some other part was driving him, a subconscious part that had maybe put the pieces together on its own. Either way … he couldn’t believe he was doing it.
It felt wrong. Incredibly wrong. The grief and guilt he felt a second ago were gone, replaced with a muted horror as he watched his hands let go of Zoey.
When she was free, the little girl reached out and touched his face gently … then scaled the ladder, climbing up through the ceiling. Max whined fearfully as he watched her go.
“Zoey…,” Holt called after her, his voice barely audible. She didn’t look back. He watched her climb through and disappear outside, amid the flurry of plasma bolts streaking by everywhere.
To his left, the laser had almost cut a complete line through the door’s hinges, but Holt didn’t notice. Explosions flared outside again, and he shut his eyes, sank his head into his hands. God, what had he just done? What had he done?…
* * *
ZOEY WALKED SLOWLY ALONG the roof of the old control center, feeling the hard concrete beneath her feet. She saw the missiles and the yellow bolts and the debris flying through the air all around her, but she didn’t really hear any of it.
To her, it seemed like she was moving in slow motion toward the edge of the roof, and everything was calm and tranquil, and there was no sound. Just the feelings, deep in the background of her mind, but she could sense them easily now. They weren’t closed to her anymore.
The Oracle, in showing Zoey her past, had removed a block of some kind. It was as the Librarian had said. The feelings were tied to her memories, because memories were what made people who they are. She didn’t have all the answers yet, but she knew which questions to ask … and she knew where she needed to ask them.
But that was for later. Right now, people she cared about were in danger. Their time was almost up.
The roof came to an end at her feet in a sheer drop down the massive height of the dam’s main wall. Plasma fire streaked all around her, but none of it hit her. None of it even came close. And Zoey knew it wouldn’t.
Below her, she could see the entire battlefield, filled with Assembly Spider walkers obliterating what was left of the Midnight City defenders. Raptors roared through the sky, their cannons flashing, blanketing everything in fire.
Zoey stared at all of it calmly, without fear. She called for the feelings buried somewhere inside herself, and this time she knew they would answer. When they came, they flooded her with strength and peace. And then they waited.
Waited for her.
It would always be her decision, Zoey knew. Always her choice. And in that as well, the Librarian had been right. She wasn’t sure what the feelings really were yet, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was they were there.
Zoey took a long, deep breath. She closed her eyes and let herself go.
She sank into the flowing river that was the feelings, let it take her where it wished. She felt her hands rise at her sides. The feelings guided her, showed her where to look, and she reached out with her senses. When she did … she felt what the feelings intended. She felt the dam’s pieces and parts, the old mechanics that used to drive it, the generators that once controlled its enormous power.
And she knew what to do with all of it.
* * *
HOLT SAT WITH HIS head sunk in his hands. Mira lay silent and motionless in his lap, staring blankly up at the ceiling with black eyes.
The laser was sizzling in the door, almost through. The Seekers would pour inside soon, and when they did, that would be that. Holt was fine with it; he just wanted it done now. Wanted it over.
Beyond the windows, there were more explosions, more bellows, more roaring Raptors. Zoey was surely dead: there was no way she could survive outside in all of that. No one could.
And then, in front of him, at the other end of the concrete room … one of the control banks sparked.
Holt looked up from his hands at it, confused. Why would—?
Another spark. More. Lights flashed on the terminals; buttons began to illuminate. One of the monitors burst apart but the others flickered as they started to come back to life. Somehow, the dam’s controls were powering up.
Holt stared at all of it in awe. It was impossible. The machines had died long ago; their circuits must all be rusted and broken. There was no way they could work.
From beneath him, he heard a rumbling. Deep and powerful, and it vibrated the concrete floor as it began to build.
It couldn’t be. Could it? Could Zoey—?
The cutting laser flashed off, and the door shook in its frame.
Max barked wildly, and Holt lunged to his feet and slammed into the door, driving it back right before it fell open.
He heard a furious buzzing on the other side, felt the door shake as the Seekers tried to ram it open. It was just a piece of wood without hinges now, and the only thing keeping them out was Holt.
He looked back to the controls, watched them continue to light up and glow through all the dust and grime that had collected on them over the years. Beneath him, the rumbling continued to build.
Holt pushed back against the door with all the strength he had left, trying to hold on. Before, he would have let the machines pour inside and tear them to pieces, but now … now he felt a spark of something almost forgotten: hope. And he held on to it for all he was worth.
* * *
DEEP INSIDE THE BOWELS of the dam, its old, broken pieces and parts began to reanimate, like the organs of some long-dead metallic creature that was being resuscitated. And it wasn’t a smooth process.
Turbines lining a huge dust-caked room sprayed sparks in torrents as their components turned and spun. Gears that had long ago been rusted into singular pieces groaned angrily as they were forced to rip apart. Electricity popped and fizzled through frayed wires. Fire exploded from vents and grates along the walls. Metal whined as it tore and bent itself in an effort to function once again.
And all through the dam, the sound of a rumbling grew, louder and louder, as more and more of the old machinery inexplicably began to reactivate.
* * *
THE DOOR BUCKED AND kicked behind Holt, and he desperately tried to keep it shut.
The lights on the control panel were flashing with urgency now, faster and faster. Information scrolled down the monitors that still worked. The rumbling underneath him continued to build.
The windows of the control center overlooked the dam’s main wall as it stretched in both directions. The structure’s huge metal gates lay along its length, keeping an unmeasurable amount of water behind them at bay.
Even though Holt had an idea what was coming, when it happened, he
still couldn’t believe it. He felt his knees shake and buckle.
“Oh my God…,” Holt managed to whisper. And then the unthinkable occurred.
* * *
ZOEY LOOKED AT HER hands and arms and saw they were covered in golden, wavering energy.
Her real body was forgotten. She was the dam now. She was its turbines and generators and controls; she was the energy that coursed through its cables, and the pressure that was building in its pipes and lines.
She traveled through the structure, feeling it as individual pieces and as one giant whole. She found the parts she was looking for, the dam’s main function, and she forced herself into them, filling them with her energy and willing them to obey.
Beneath her, and in every direction, came a sound like rolling thunder.
The giant gates set into the concrete wall began to slide open, groaning and rumbling and spraying sparks and rust.
But they opened nonetheless.
Zoey watched as huge cascades of water exploded out the side of the dam, roaring downward like giant liquid obelisks that slammed and burst apart on the floodplain below.
Bellows erupted from the Spider walkers on the field, no longer tones of triumph or confidence. Instead they were sounds of shock and fear, and Zoey watched as dozens upon dozens of the huge machines, which had been on the verge of victory, turned and ran away from the dam, as fast as their powerful legs would propel them, toward the edges of the floodplain.
But it was too late.
The massive wall of water roared toward them, burying everything as it surged forward.
The flood plowed into the Assembly. Zoey watched them almost instantaneously be hammered forward and disappear under the giant swell.
The Spiders’ panicked, fearful electronic calls were suddenly drowned out as the water pounded them to the ground and enveloped them completely. Zoey watched the giant machines disappear in the torrent as it roared forward, saw them tossed and flipped as if they weighed nothing. And she felt them, too. Sensed their fear and terror as their shells broke open and the water gushed inside. And then, a moment later, the sensations were gone, wiped away.…
Midnight City: A Conquered Earth Novel (The Conquered Earth Series) Page 36