The Severed Tower

by J. Barton Mitchell

  Nothing happened at first. The little girl just sat motionless on the torn seat, breathing in and out. Then something flickered around her hands, faint at first, then it grew. A layer of wavering, golden … energy. There was no other word for it. It moved and throbbed, almost in slow motion, like frozen fire, spreading from Zoey’s hands, up her arms and toward her shoulders.

  Mira stared in shock, feeling her pulse quicken.

  Holt had mentioned this, the light, but it was all new to Mira. She’d missed Zoey doing her thing at Midnight City. She had been lost at the time, and the little girl had saved her. Another of her powers, the most important one. Zoey could stop the Tone. Block it somehow, make you immune to it. It was still mind-boggling to think about.

  Mira watched the energy slowly envelop the girl, knowing they were running out of time. If Zoey couldn’t get this thing going, they were as good as—

  Mira jumped as the truck suddenly shook. Golden energy bubbled up from underneath the hood, as the engine, impossibly, came back to life and rumbled loudly. The dashboard sparked once, twice—and then the old analog gauges all floated into place. Static hissed from the aging radio.

  Mira looked at the controls, stunned. She remembered riding on her father’s lap as a kid, steering the family wagon in a parking lot. It had been all the driving experience she’d gotten before the Assembly came. She hoped it was enough.

  Mira yanked the driveshaft down and stepped on the gas. The truck jumped forward … then jolted to a stop.

  “Parking brake!” Holt yelled behind her.

  “Where is it?” Mira frantically studied the interior of the truck.

  “Where the parking brake usually is!”

  “It’s been awhile for me, okay!?”

  The garage shuddered as the entire rear wall was ripped away by one of the alien machines. It trumpeted angrily, a horrible mix of electronic tones and static.

  “Mira!” Holt shouted, pushing back as far as he could. Max barked wildly.

  Mira found the brake, a hand lever on the floor, and shoved it down. The old truck lurched forward violently, roaring out of the garage.

  The Hunter behind them let out a sharp, surprised sound and jumped after them.

  As the truck bolted forward, it plowed through the garage’s door frame—which was enough to bring the entire thing down like a house of cards. Mira watched in the dusty mirrors as the tripod was buried underneath a massive pile of wood and refuse. Another one down, but there were plenty more.

  Nearby, new walkers gave chase, their three spiked legs pushing them forward with dizzying speed.

  Next to Mira, Zoey sat, eyes closed, the golden energy pulsing all around her.

  The truck shook badly as it caught a curb, slammed back down, and skidded onto the road. Ahead of them, coming fast, was an obstacle course of old cars and other debris … and the Hunters were still closing.

  Mira gripped the steering wheel so hard her knuckles turned white.

  * * *

  HOLT HELD ON AS the battered truck lurched forward. All around him the street began to whiz by. A street full of hazards.

  The vehicle reeled left suddenly, barely avoiding an old burned-out car. Then it yanked back to the right, around a pile of debris. Holt went rolling, crashed into the side of the bed and grabbed Max as he flew past, barely keeping him inside.

  “What the hell are you doing!?” he yelled, holding on.

  “Would you rather I hit everything in front of us?” Mira yelled back. “Because that would be easier!”

  Distorted trumpets sounded from behind them as the two Hunters chased after them. Holt ducked as they opened fire, yellow plasma bolts spitting from their cannons. Mira screamed as the rear windshield exploded.

  Holt looked around the truck bed. It was full of junk, pieces of trash, about a dozen old cans of paint … and two large crumbling, wooden crates. He gave them an experimental push. They were full of something heavy and metallic. It would have to do.

  “Try to keep us moving straight!” Holt shouted as he moved for the tailgate.

  He grabbed it, but it was rusted shut. He’d have to kick it open if he—

  Holt lunged backward as a gleaming silver spear point punched straight through the tailgate, almost impaling him.

  Eyes wide, he looked up and saw a metallic cable running from the harpoon back to one of the Hunters. When he’d spotted the green-and-orange walkers, he’d thought they looked different. Now there was no doubt. They’d upgraded, and Holt had no desire to find out what other new tricks they had.

  The walker drew back the cable with a powerful yank, and ripped the tailgate completely off. It slammed onto the street and skittered backward on the asphalt in a shower of sparks.

  The tripod jettisoned the cable, leaped over the tailgate and kept running.

  “Thanks for the help,” Holt said. He reached in his pocket, and when his hand closed around what was there, he felt the same sense of comfort he always did.

  The Chance Generator was an old abacus, an ancient counting device, but it was so much more: a major artifact from the Strange Lands, with the ability to increase the luck of anyone who used it. It had saved their asses in Midnight City, and it was saving their asses right now.

  Holt pushed more beads up to the top, and a sphere of red flashed around him. Every time he pushed more of them up, the effect intensified. Which meant he had to be careful. He’d already used it a few times, and the artifact only had so much power per day. If it ran out of juice before they escaped, they’d be in a lot of trouble.

  He got behind the crates, shoving them toward the edge of the truck bed. They were falling apart, but somehow stayed together just long enough to tip off the back. They exploded on the street and sprayed their contents everywhere, most of it scrap metal—springs, nails, bolts, aluminum shavings, broken tools, exploding all over the road.

  The walkers ran right into it.

  For one brief moment, they lost their footing on the metal bits and pieces, their legs splaying wildly. That was all it took. They tipped over and crashed into an old water truck, plowing right through it in a shower of metal, dust, and black liquid. They didn’t get up.

  “Yeah!” Holt yelled in triumph—but it was short lived.

  More tripods vaulted down from nearby buildings, charging after them on the street.

  Plasma bolts sliced the air and slammed into the truck, tearing the rear end to shreds. The vehicle listed dangerously as Mira tried to stay in control. “Holt!”

  It was a short, unsuccessful battle.

  They skidded left, twisting and grinding toward a pile of old cars, and crashed straight into them. Mira screamed. Holt grabbed Max as the impact tossed them forward along the bed and into the back of the cabin.

  Holt hit hard. The world went fuzzy. Somehow he found the edge of the truck bed, pulled himself up and out of the wreckage, and slumped down on the ground.

  “Holt!” Mira yelled as she scrambled out with Zoey.

  “Having fun yet?” Holt groaned as tried to get to his feet. Mira frowned, helped him move. More plasma fire seared the air, and they pressed their backs against the ruined truck. The Hunters would be on them in seconds.

  Holt looked around, trying to find a way out, and saw something down the street, a block or so away. It looked like a large concrete drainage ditch that vanished into a dark tunnel, probably an old runoff exit. If they could reach it, the entrance might be cramped enough to keep the tripods from following.

  Reaching it was the problem. It was open territory between here and there, and there was no other cover. They had to run for it. They didn’t have any—

  On either side of them tripods burst into view, lunging into firing positions.

  Holt instinctively focused on one in front of the others. It was marked differently. Its green-and-orange color pattern was bolder, more commanding. New armor or not, Holt had seen that walker before. Twice. And it was even more frightening now.

  From the Hunter
came a flash. A mass of metallic netting flung forward, hissing through the air toward them. Mira screamed. Holt tried to cover them.

  Something big, bright, and powerful landed between them and the walkers with a thunderous crash.

  The net slammed into it and bounced off.

  Holt and Mira stared at it in shock. Another walker—but different.

  It was big, much larger than the Hunters, and it had five massive legs arranged around a blocky body. There was no discernible weaponry, but a shimmering field of clear energy circled it, like some kind of protective barrier.

  There was something else.

  This walker, unlike every other Assembly machine Holt had ever seen, had no colors.

  It was just bare metal, as if its paint had been stripped away. The machine gleamed in the afternoon sunlight.

  Its three-optic eye shifted and focused, bore into them. Then it emitted a strange, deep rumbling sound, and leaped powerfully into the air, soaring over them. It shook the ground when it hit. Three more Hunters skidded to a stop in front of it. The boldly marked one trumpeted in anger, missiles and plasma bolts flashing out.

  The ordnance sizzled and exploded as the machine’s flickering energy field absorbed them, protecting them but each impact sent it reeling back a step or two.

  The silver walker charged forward, slamming into the tripods like a battering ram, sending them crashing through the wall of a grocery store.

  Whatever the thing was, it had drawn attention away from Holt and the others.

  “Um, if there’s more to this ‘plan,’ we should probably make it happen right now,” Mira said.

  She was right. This was their chance. Holt whistled two short notes and Max darted forward. He got Zoey up and moving, and they all raced after the dog. Behind them came more explosions, thuds, and distorted electronic sounds.

  Max barreled into the concrete structure and Holt rounded the corner right after him. Then his eyes widened at what was there. It was a tunnel, alright, just like he’d guessed—but it was huge, about twenty feet in diameter, disappearing into the darkness beyond.

  “Damn it,” he said under his breath. The tripods could easily follow them through this. It wasn’t an escape at all.

  The huge silver walker landed with a bone-jarring thud on the ground right outside, its multicolored eye instantly finding them.

  Zoey grabbed Max’s collar, stopping him from charging the machine. Holt instinctively pulled everyone behind him, pushing them farther inside the tunnel.

  More plasma bolts slammed into the walker’s shield. It was flickering now. It looked weaker. The thing hesitated a second more, studying them intently—then it rumbled and rushed right at them.

  “Back! Get back!” Holt shouted, pushing everyone down, trying to get away from it.

  The silver walker slammed with incredible power into the concrete overhang of the tunnel. The whole thing cracked and sprayed dust, then fell apart in a fury of fractured sound.

  Holt shoved the others to the ground as the entrance collapsed in on itself, sealing away the daylight and the battle raging outside—and leaving them trapped in a thick cocoon of darkness.

  2. RED FLAGS

  THE TUNNEL WAS A BLACK SQUARE of nothingness that stretched endlessly ahead. Only what Holt’s and Mira’s flashlights illuminated was visible, and it was all so repetitive—gray concrete, clumps of dirt, water trickling by—if it wasn’t for the decades-old graffiti here and there, it would have seemed as if they weren’t moving at all.

  Max walked ahead of them, tail wagging enthusiastically, and Holt had to keep calling him back before he disappeared ahead and got into trouble. Behind him, Holt heard the plodding sounds of Mira and Zoey as they followed through the water of the tunnel floor.

  He kept thinking back to that strange silver walker, stripped of its colors, how it had seemingly blocked the nets that were about to ensnare all four of them, and then crushed the sewer entrance, sealing them inside. Even for Assembly, it was odd behavior, though when it came to Zoey, Holt had given up trying to understand their motives. Their interest in the little girl was as mysterious as her powers.

  “Holt, what’s in your pocket?” Mira’s voice startled him from his thoughts, and he looked back. She was studying him with a strange look. A suspicious one. It was only then that Holt noticed his hand was stuck in his coat pocket, his fingers clutched protectively around the Chance Generator. He couldn’t remember exactly when he’d reached in for it.

  “My head hurts,” Zoey said before Holt could answer.

  “Hurts how, kiddo?” Holt asked.

  “On the sides mainly, comes and goes.” Zoey stopped moving and rubbed her temples.

  “From the truck maybe?” Mira asked. It was a good question. Holt couldn’t imagine what kind of strain came with Zoey’s abilities, and to be honest, a headache would be the least of what he’d expect.

  “Everyone gets headaches now and then,” Holt said, gently rubbing the little girl’s head. “Rest a sec, there’s no rush.”

  The little girl leaned against the wall and Max whined gently, pushing his nose into the girl’s hand. “The Max…” she said softly, petting the dog’s head.

  Holt looked back up at Mira. Her eyes were already on him. “You’re using the abacus.” There was a note of accusation in her voice.

  Unexpectedly, Holt felt a swell of anger. Who was she to ask? She wasn’t his boss, or in charge of him. Hadn’t he saved them back in Midnight City, saved her, all with the artifact? Hadn’t he and it just saved them a few minutes ago?

  The anger grew so intense, it startled him a little. It wasn’t like him to feel that way. He was probably just jumpy, he told himself, on edge from the previous experience.

  When he thought about it … why wouldn’t Mira question him? She’d already said she thought the Chance Generator was dangerous. She was an expert, wasn’t she? She’d warned him.

  Besides, signs that suggested she cared had been rare the last few days. There were moments where he thought he detected it again. Glances. Smiles. Incidental touching that lasted longer than it should, but they had only been glimpses, a dim reflection of what had passed between them at the dam when they’d kissed.

  Holt wasn’t positive where her hesitation came from, but he had an idea.

  The other one, the Freebooter she’d been close to, the one they were probably going to run into sooner or later. Ben. It wasn’t something Holt was looking forward to.

  It didn’t really matter, though. Mira wasn’t the real reason he was here. Zoey was.

  As much as he didn’t like it, the kid had pulled one hell of a rabbit out of her hat at Midnight City. She’d saved them all, and at the same time done something even more impossible. She’d gotten Holt to believe that things could change—maybe even that the Assembly could be beaten—and Holt had promised to help her, whatever it took. He’d promised.…

  “Holt?” Mira asked again.

  “Yeah, I was using it,” he answered, trying to keep the anger out of his voice. “And if I hadn’t we’d all be dead. We wouldn’t have made it to that truck, and we definitely wouldn’t have outrun the tripods.”

  “That doesn’t make it right!” Mira exclaimed. “We can’t start depending on something unpredictable. We have to rely on our own skills or we’re going to wind up in trouble, especially where we’re going.”

  Where they were going, of course, was the Strange Lands. A dangerous place to the north, where, for whatever reason, time and space no longer worked right. Mira was a Freebooter, someone who specialized in traversing that landscape and bringing back the artifacts that lay there—common, everyday objects that had been imbued with otherworldly powers. The abacus in his hand, the subject of their argument right now, was one such artifact, one Holt had unwillingly become the owner of in Midnight City. Since then, it had proved to be more valuable than he could have imagined.

  Holt frowned. “I don’t see what’s wrong with having a little luck on our side.”r />
  “What’s ‘wrong’ is that, in order to increase your luck, that thing drains someone else’s nearby. Did you forget that?” Her eyes burned into his. “What happens when you use it in the Strange Lands, and there is no one else nearby? Who do you think it’ll take the luck away from? Max? Me? Zoey?”

  Holt shook his head. “If we stay in its influence sphere, we should be—”

  “You don’t know that! It could kill everyone in order to profit, you—me, and Zoey included.” She held her hand out toward him. “I’m sorry, Holt, but I need you to give it to me. It’s just too dangerous. I shouldn’t have asked you to carry it in the first place.”

  Holt stared at her and felt the anger begin to rise again. Now she was giving him orders? She just expected him to do as he was told?

  Holt pushed it back down. Again, it wasn’t like him … and maybe there was something to that.

  He pulled the Chance Generator out of his pocket. It looked harmless—an ornate antique piece of wood with chipped, colorful beads running its length. As he looked at it he felt the need to slide a few of them upward. Just to be safe.

  Just a few of them …

  Holt’s eyes narrowed. He pushed all the beads down, shutting the abacus’s power off. He showed it to Mira. “Look, it’s off, see? If it’ll make you feel better, I won’t use it anymore.”

  “Holt—”

  “I promise. If you think it’s dangerous, then I’ll leave it alone. You know more than me, and nothing’s more important than you and Zoey. I’ll shut it off, and I’ll keep it. You said it shouldn’t be near your other artifacts, that they might react to each other.”

  Mira stared at him, unsure, thinking things through. In the end she nodded. “It would be best if you could hold it, but I’d feel better if it was in your pack, not your pocket.”

  “Done,” Holt said, though he felt a slight twinge of worry. All the same, he shoved it in his pack and sealed it away. “Okay?”

  Mira smiled and reached out, touching his hand. “Thank you.” It had been a day or more since Holt had felt her hand. It felt good.

  The two stared at each other, then Zoey spoke up beneath them. “I feel better now,” she said. “The Max helped, I think.”