The Severed Tower

by J. Barton Mitchell

  44. SUNLIGHT

  “MIRA…”

  The voice was far away. It wasn’t what she expected. She never expected to hear anything ever again.

  “Mira…”

  It was a girl’s voice, she could tell. A little girl, and it sounded worried.

  She heard and felt other things in her hazy delirium—the sound of a gentle wind, the warmth of the sun—and for some reason, those sensations seemed very out of place.

  “Mira.”

  The insistent tiny voice pulled her out of the dark. Light poured in as her eyes blinked open—and what she saw didn’t make sense.

  The sky was directly above her. It was midafternoon, bright and sunny.

  Pieces of buildings and other things hovered over her—windows, gutters, old billboards she couldn’t read, the top of a rusted ambulance, all of it warped in twisted shapes. The wind stirred her red hair gently.

  A little girl was next to her. Someone she recognized. Someone she never thought she would see again. Staring down at her with a slight, wondering smile.

  “Zoey…” Mira whispered.

  “Mira, look,” the little girl urged. “It’s not like it used to be.”

  Mira was stunned by what she saw. She remembered the Vortex, tearing her apart in unbelievable pain. She remembered Ben, too. Then she woke here, with Zoey. But where was here?

  It took a moment for her mind to connect the dots.

  She was exactly where she had been. In Bismarck. The heart of the Strange Lands. Only the Strange Lands were gone. No oppressing darkness. No black, swirling clouds or furious winds. Even the Charge was missing.

  Instead, the sun shown down. The sun. Shining through white clouds that only partially covered a brilliant blue sky. Where the Tower had been there was nothing now. Just a massive blackened scar, as if from some epic blast of fire, stretching northward. Everything there was flattened and charred, but to the south it was all untouched.

  “What happened?” Mira asked.

  “Everything’s like it’s supposed to be,” Zoey told her. “Well. Almost everything.”

  Mira wasn’t sure what Zoey meant, but she was too shocked to ask. She couldn’t believe what she was looking at.

  “Thank you, Mira,” Zoey said.

  “For what?”

  “I couldn’t have gotten here without you. You were the only one who could do it.”

  The words eclipsed whatever awe Mira felt at the landscape. They were words, just yesterday, she would have thought impossible to hear. It reminded her of Holt. Which reminded her of many other things.

  “Did we … die?” she asked. “Did you save us, Zoey?”

  “No.” Zoey reached forward and put something in Mira’s hand. “Someone else did.”

  It was Ben’s brass dice cube. The sight of it, without him holding it, was jarring. She had never not seen him with the object. Mira felt her emotions begin to build.

  “He wanted you to know he meant what he—”

  “I know.” Mira nodded and wiped away the first of the tears. “I know.”

  She looked to the south. There was destruction there, too—burning buildings, the wrecks of Assembly walkers—but it also had life. There was movement, figures slowly wandering the streets and gathering together.

  In the far distance there was even more motion, just becoming visible. A mass of thousands of figures marching toward them, moving through the now-quiet battle zone. Each was flanked by two shining points of color.

  The White Helix were arriving.

  “Come with me,” Zoey said, holding out her hand. Mira took it and slowly rose. There was no pain, her limbs were no longer shattered.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “To them. I have something I need to do, before … before everything else.”

  They walked through the ruins, all of it warped and twisted by Dark Matter Tornadoes that, already, in the sunlight, seemed like a foreign concept. “What does that mean, Zoey? Everything else?”

  Zoey squeezed Mira’s hand tightly. “It means it isn’t over.”

  45. EVERYTHING

  HOLT EYED HIS COT and sleeping bag wantonly. He would sleep for a week if no one stopped him. The way his luck had been going, though, that didn’t seem likely.

  He was inside one of the offices where the Menagerie had set up camp. They were small offices, still filled with the ruined possessions of their owners, all of them fused to one another and immoveable. The Strange Lands were gone, but the Artifacts remained. They still had their powers, even now. Holt wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

  The office’s windows looked out on the streets of Bismarck, and for once they were empty. The White Helix had gone to bury Gideon. Holt wasn’t sure why Zoey couldn’t save him like the others. Maybe his death happened too far back in time to influence. Maybe she had her own reasons for not helping him. Either way, he was gone, and though the White Helix mourned, they were resolved. For what exactly, Holt couldn’t say.

  Ambassador and the silver Assembly set up to the south, including several dozen green-and-orange Hunters and their artillery walkers. Holt wasn’t sure why they hadn’t been wiped away with the others, but they seemed cooperative at any rate. Still, everyone gave them a wide berth. They were Assembly, after all.

  The office had a door, which was good. It made it private. Holt moved to shut it, wincing as he unbuttoned his shirt. Every part of him ached.

  Ravan leaned against the door, smiling conspiratorially. Holt sighed. All he wanted to do was shut his eyes. “Ravan…”

  “Just pretend I’m not here,” she said, studying his shirt.

  “Not sure I’d sleep all that well with you staring at me,” Holt retorted. She hid it well, but Ravan was tired, too. Holt knew her well enough to see the signs. He knew when something was bothering her as well. It was the same as always. She wouldn’t talk about whatever it was unless he asked. “You okay?”

  Ravan held his stare. “Not as good as you, surprisingly.”

  “I think I’m too tired to be worried about much right now.”

  “We were dead, Holt. Dead and gone, and that little girl of yours brought us back.”

  Holt leaned against the door frame across from her. “You don’t sound all that thrilled. Would you prefer she hadn’t?”

  “No,” Ravan said. “I’m just saying … it’s a pretty scary power to be able to tap into. There’s gotta be a price, messing with the order of things like that. Repercussions.”

  Holt rubbed his eyes tiredly. “What’s your point, Ravan?”

  “You care about her, I get it, but a power like that sets off red flags, and it should. If I were you, I’d be asking myself just what it is I’m traveling with.”

  “She’s a ‘who,’ Ravan, not a ‘what,’” Holt said with intensity. “And I don’t just care about her, I trust her. She saved us.”

  “Just pointing out something you might be too close to see,” she told him. “You used to value that.”

  Holt frowned and looked away. Ravan wasn’t totally wrong. What Zoey had done … It didn’t seem possible. Controlling machines was one thing. Reversing time was quite another. If Zoey could do that, what else could she do? And did he want to find out?

  “Thought anymore about Faust?” Ravan asked.

  He shook his head. “I have to help Zoey, Ravan.”

  “You’ll help her a lot better without the Menagerie hunting you down, and with Avril, it’s your best bet of changing things.”

  “Yeah,” Holt replied. “Also my best bet for getting shot between the eyes.”

  Ravan smiled. “It’s still better odds than you had two weeks ago, and you won’t get near that good again. Besides, we had a deal, you and I.” Her stare drifted downward, to the half-finished image on his wrist.

  “I break deals all the time,” Holt said half seriously.

  She looked back up at him with her sapphire eyes. “No, you don’t.”

  A shuffling outside the door br
oke their attention. Mira stood in the hall. The sight of her, watching him and Ravan, caused a twinge of unease.

  “Sorry,” Mira said. “I can come back…”

  “That’s okay, Red. I’m done,” Ravan replied. She looked back at Holt as she turned and stepped into the hall. “Think about it.”

  Holt watched her disappear, waited until the sound of her footsteps faded, and then looked at Mira. She wore her feelings much more on her sleeve than Ravan did. “Hi,” he said.

  Mira smiled a little. “What was that about?”

  Holt turned and stepped back into the room. “The usual. Old debts.”

  “She wants you to go back with her?”

  “Yeah,” he replied.

  “Is that what you want?”

  “Not particularly, I like my head where it is.”

  “But she thinks you can fix things. With the Menagerie. Wouldn’t that be worth it?”

  “There’s no fixing anything with Tiberius.” He reached the end of his room, near the window overlooking the strange, twisted streets, all of it eerily contrasted by the bright sunshine. Those two things didn’t belong with each other. Like a lot of things in his life, now that he thought about it.

  Mira stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. In spite of everything, the silence between them was still thick. Holt hated it. The apprehension that existed whenever they were close now, but it was what it was.

  “Where’s Zoey?” he asked.

  “At the burial. No one except her and the White Helix were allowed, but I watched from a roof. After they were done … she started cleansing them.”

  “From the Tone?”

  Mira nodded. “All of them, one at a time. There were thousands, Holt, waiting their turn, and more are still coming in. I just wish I knew what we’re supposed to do now.”

  “I don’t have the first idea,” Holt admitted. “I guess we just keep following Zoey’s lead.” Holt hesitated, looking at Mira. She was unkempt but still beautiful. Her hair had grown even longer now, stretching past the back of her shoulders. He liked her with longer hair, he decided. “I wanted to tell you I … don’t want it to be weird between us. We don’t have to try to be what we were. Or … almost were. You know what I mean. But we shouldn’t go our separate ways. Not now. Zoey needs us—maybe more than ever—and we need her.”

  Mira just stood there silently. He hadn’t expected anything else, really. After all, what was there to say? She didn’t owe him anything, not anymore. God, he was tired. “Look, I need to close my eyes, and I’m sure—”

  “You believed in me,” she interrupted him softly.

  Holt blinked. “What?”

  “When no one else did,” Mira continued, staring at him. “I would have quit without you. It’s what got me through the Vortex. It’s what’s gotten me through everything that came before, I just never saw it.”

  Holt stared back, unsure what to say or think. All the same, he felt his heart beating faster. He watched her move to him, slowly reach down and take his left hand, running her fingers across the unfinished tattoo there.

  “This used to be something that bothered me,” she said, “but it doesn’t now. Now it’s proof you really are who I thought you were, and I don’t think you should cover it up anymore.”

  The words had more impact on him than he expected. Slowly, Holt ran his fingers through hers. He half-expected her to pull away, but she didn’t.

  “You asked me something and I never answered,” Mira said, looking up from their hands and back into his eyes. “You asked if what happened at the dam meant something. If it mattered to me like it did to you. I should have answered, but I was … scared then. I’m not anymore. It did matter, Holt. It meant more than something. It meant everything, and it still does.”

  Something about the way her voice gently broke at those last words pulled Holt forward like a magnet, his exhaustion forgotten. He wrapped his arms around Mira and pulled her to him, and their lips found and moved over one another. It was a release more intense than any he had ever known, and he could feel in the way Mira desperately clung against him that it was just as intense for her.

  She gasped as he lifted her up and off the floor, their mouths and hands roaming wildly, carrying her to his cot and laying her on top of it, the heat from their bodies melding together and slowly intensifying until the world melted away and there was nothing left but them.

  46. REPERCUSSIONS

  ZOEY STARED AT THE RUINS below from her perch at the top of the tall building. The White Helix had buried Gideon and now they filled the streets. The brightness of the world, now drenched in sunlight, startled them. The dark oppression of the Strange Lands was normal, and all this light and warmth was unsettling.

  She had cleansed all of them—so many, one after the other, that time lost its meaning. She didn’t know how long it took, but she stayed until every White Helix was free of the Tone. Whatever else they felt for her, there was gratitude now, loyalty.

  Mira sat next to her, feet dangling over the edge. From her, Zoey sensed old emotions. Ones that had been lost in recent days. Mira’s mind shifted occasionally to images of her and Holt, intertwined and lost, and it made Zoey smile in spite of everything. She hoped they could hold on to that through what was to come.

  Zoey told Mira almost everything she had learned in the Tower. Only the details about her final choice, about the bargain she struck with fate, she left out. She would learn that soon enough.

  “I still don’t get one thing,” Mira said when Zoey finished. “Why are you so important to the Assembly? Why do they keep chasing you?”

  It was a question Zoey had asked herself, the biggest question really, the only one that remained, and she had her theories. In their conversation, the Tower had never once mentioned her abilities, how she could control machines or feel the emotions and memories of other people. It confirmed for her that those things didn’t come from the Tower at all.

  She remembered the vision the Oracle had shown her, that horrible, black room and the blue-and-white shape that buried itself inside her and the pain that followed. It wasn’t until then that she had first felt the Feelings. The ones that rose whenever she called, and gave her aid.

  If the Feelings really were what she now suspected, then her path was clear. It was why she had used the Tower to arrange things the way she had. In the back of her mind, she wondered again if she had done the right thing. Would it have been better to die with the Tower, to not cheat destiny? What she had risked by making her choice, she didn’t know yet, but she did know what she had gained.

  Zoey looked at Mira, felt her emotions for Holt all over again. They were both alive. They could go on and be happy. All it meant was Zoey had to find a way, in whatever was to come, to make sure it stayed that way, and there was only one place she could do that now. She was starting to feel the weight of her choices.

  “I haven’t thanked you, you know,” Mira said softly, staring at the world ticking by below, “for saving us.”

  Zoey could feel her gratitude. That and something else. Guilt. She realized it came from Mira’s belief that Zoey had done something she could never repay, and she desperately wanted to. Not because she didn’t like owing people, but because Zoey meant so much to her.

  Zoey reached out and rested her tiny hand on Mira’s.

  Mira’s hand squeezed hers. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too, Mira.” She meant it. It made everything that was to come that much harder. “I need to share something with you.” Mira looked at her, unsure. “It’s something you’ll need, and you’ll know why when you do.” Her grip on Mira’s hand tightened. “Close your eyes.” Zoey felt Mira’s uncertainty, but she did as Zoey said.

  Zoey closed her own eyes, then reached for the Feelings and they responded, rising up from the depths. They saw what she intended, and for the first time since they had been a part of her, she felt dismay from them. Revulsion even, but she didn’t care. It was the price the Feeling
s would have to pay if they wanted what was to come. And she had a feeling they desperately did.

  Golden energy formed and flickered like flames, slowly spreading up Zoey’s and Mira’s arms, leaving a trail of tingling warmth as it moved. She could feel Mira’s trepidation growing.

  “It’s okay, Mira,” she assured her. “It’s going to hurt, but only a little.”

  Mira’s mind opened to hers. Zoey saw the infinity that it and all minds represented, stretching out in an unending field of memories. She pushed forward into it, wading through thoughts of herself and of Holt and Ben, drifting past memories of her father, finding a very specific part. Zoey reached for that part and wrapped herself around it. Mira shuddered. The pain seared Zoey’s mind the same as hers. She hated hurting Mira, but there was no other choice.

  That piece of Mira’s mind unlocked, and when it did Zoey sharpened it, made it stronger, more resilient. It would never be anything like her own abilities, Zoey knew, but it would be enough.

  Then Zoey pulled back and out. The golden energy faded. The Feelings receded into the dark, and Mira and Zoey both opened their eyes.

  “What … what was that?” Mira stared at her.

  Zoey squeezed her hand one last time, then pulled it away. “Now you’re ready, Mira.”

  “Zoey, what did you just do?”

  “Can you feel them yet? They’re close now.”

  A new emotion formed within Mira. It started small but grew fast, fueled by instinct. Mira was starting to guess the truth. That Zoey had set something in motion, something horrible, and it was quickly approaching …

  “Zoey … what did you—”

  In the distance, a series of rapid-fire pops and bangs echoed through the air. Mira turned to look, but Zoey didn’t need to. The silver walkers were firing to the south, outside the ruins, flinging streams of plasma bolts into the air.

  “I’m sorry, Mira,” Zoey said. “I … made a deal, kind of. A trade. It was the only way to make things right.”

  Mira’s eyes widened. Just visible to the south was a flight of Assembly ships, two dozen maybe, and these were not silver or green-and-orange. They were blue-and-white, and streaming toward them.