The creature was barely alive when Ezra crashed against it using his horns. The inertia of his savage charge was too strong. He crashed against the wall, splattering the remains of the Fleck in a gory explosion.
The strength he had felt building up in Nandi proved to be real; he felt twice as powerful, and it made it twice as dangerous. He couldn’t succumb to the bloodlust.
“Ezra what did I just say! Use your core!” came Garros’ furious command, his voice straining from the effort of tearing a Fleck apart.
Where’s Milos? Where’s Akiva? he thought.
“Move into the tunnel, keep going!” Erin said when the first group of Flecks dispersed, ready to attack. “The energy is stronger here, they won’t—Oh my god.”
He could barely see the space, but suddenly there were of hundreds of Carrier types—small humps of transparent flesh with many legs that carried the contagious disease—swarming the chamber like ants. Ezra stomped Nandi’s feet to crush the things—
“Use your goddamn energy!”
Ezra felt something pulling him back and quickly discovered that a Fleck had grabbed Nandi’s horns in a surprisingly intelligent move from a normally feral creature. It was its mistake. Ezra drew energy from his core to the horns, and the creature’s gnarled hands all but melted off. The sudden disappearance of its hands angered it more, and it lunged forward to attack with its jaws alone.
When Ezra prepared to receive the monster, there was a massive flash of colorful light, and when it passed, only charred carcasses and ashes remained where the Flecks used to be.
Milos Ravana was standing by the entrance to the tunnel, knees bent, one hand on the floor. Galaxy Cluster, Ezra remembered—a massively powerful technomantic technique he had first seen outside of Roue. He made a gesture with both hands, and Ezra could understand its meaning: “All clear.”
“Go, go! Move!” Erin said, and the three other Creuxen moved into the tunnel from where they were attacked.
“I’m sorry,” said Ezra. “Garros, I apologize; it came out of nowhere, and I was confused for a second, I forgot that—”
“Yeah,” replied Garros. The four of them continued walking down the tunnel; the sudden battle only added a new degree of urgency to their mission. “I won’t give you any crap about it; you know what happens if you become a liability to us.”
“Yes,” he said. It was still so hard for him to perform in battle; even after learning how to control Nandi well, how to use its strength to his advantage, there were always things he forgot to consider, often thanks to becoming mentally clouded, lost in his need to fight. “I’m not. I’m sorry.”
“But good work on those two,” Garros said, almost begrudgingly.
“We’re close, but there are others in the tunnels ahead. They sound like more Carriers,” said Erin. Ezra almost wanted to say that there was no point in worrying; Milos Ravana was too powerful, and having it by their side rid them of any real threat. It almost made the rest of them irrelevant.
“How far is the repeater?" asked Ezra.
“Right there—oh. Oh boy,” Erin said. “Look at that.”
Phoenix took a step back, pressing herself against the wall so that the others could see. There was something very strange about the topography of the area. The massive tunnel where they stood grew very small very suddenly, leaving only a tiny opening about thirty feet above ground level.
There were rocks blocking the entrance to the tunnel. They were too carefully placed to be there from an accidental rockslide like William had hypothesized.
“What happened here?” Garros asked.
“I don’t know, but this is probably what William was talking about. It doesn’t look like a rockslide. This was deliberate.” Erin walked towards the small tunnel and pushed Phoenix’s hand inside. She began to remove the stones, which would be impossible to move by human muscle. “There is no damage to the walls. Where did these rocks come from?”
“Down there,” said Ezra, and pointed to a spot next to his foot. The wall had suffered damage, as though it had been kicked by something very strong—something as strong as a Creux.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Erin said, removing the last stone, and opening the tunnel. Artificial red light crept the chamber from within. “Garros?”
“Huh? Oh.” Quantum Ares was looking back at the tunnel, waiting for another threat to present itself. “Maybe the Laani aren’t as stupid as we thought? I agree this looks deliberate. What’s next?”
“I’m going in. Ezra, you’re coming with me. Garros, you stay back here with Akiva.” Phoenix’s hands moved, conveying the clearest form of the same message to Milos Ravana. “The tunnel is too small for a Trooper, but not for a Carrier. Cover the entrance; it shouldn’t take us very long. Give us a boost when we’re down, will you?”
Ezra knew why he was being asked to go down instead of staying inside the Creux to fight if needed. He didn’t mind the minor humiliation; he wanted to see what was inside.
Besoe Nandi, I’m leaving.
You’ll return.
Of course.
Thank you.
Thank you.
ф
Vivian prepared herself for one of the first nights of peaceful sleep in months. For the first time, things seemed to be going well, or at least that was the sensation Director Blanchard and Rebecca were successfully conveying. Rebecca had begun to work closer with the director, and she’d often talk to Vivian about the progress in the grand plan, which was very far from over.
Of course not everything could be shared, even with Vivian, whom both of them trusted. All three of them now knew with complete certainty that there was a traitor in Zenith, someone other than Kat, and that he or she could be living in the Blanchard house right then.
Still, things seemed to be moving forward effectively. Director Blanchard had begun a new phase of her plan, and it involved returning to Zenith to take back control of the Creux.
The prospect of piloting Rose again filled her with hope. She had even asked the director to let Rebecca work with her as a crewmember, even if to a reduced capacity. Rebecca had agreed; Rose needed her more than Nebula.
She shifted her weight on the soft bed and turned back one page in her book; her mind had wandered away, and she had stopped paying attention, so she re-read.
Vivian was close to finishing Alice Nolan’s book for the second time. It wasn’t even an exercise in education anymore; it was something else—she wanted to remember Alice through her wisdom, and her book was the best possible time capsule of it. Learning more, and re-learning material, was a secondary satisfaction.
Her eyelids were beginning to grow heavy when the sound of the door creaking open snapped her awake. Tessa stepped into the room quietly. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You didn’t,” Vivian replied and closed the book. She had been wondering where Tessa was. The room Director Blanchard had assigned them had two beds, and one of them was Tessa’s after she requested to stay with Vivian. Vivian herself wasn’t very happy with the pairing, but wouldn’t dare protest. “Where were you?”
“You remember Ezra’s crewmembers for Besoe Nandi?”
“Of course I do,” said Vivian. “How could I forget?”
“Well, Dr. Mustang is here. He just got here a few hours ago. I guess the director called him. Maybe she needs him for something—her plan’s moving forward, isn’t it? Has she told you anything about it?”
“No, not really,” said Vivian, setting the book aside and covering herself to the chest. She sounded angry and bitter towards Tessa—it was something she couldn’t avoid; even if she couldn’t think of an alternative, she still resented how Tessa had lied to Luke so easily. It almost felt like Tessa had changed since she was dubbed a Zenith hero. “I’ll turn down the lights, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course not,” Tessa said smiling, entirely unaware of Vivian’s resentment. “Good night, Viv.”
She went to sleep.
; Vivian dreamed she was walking down a long, wooden hallway, framed pictures hanging at either side, displaying the distorted faces of Rebecca Miles, Jed Townsend, Tessa Mason, Ronald Heath, Erin Perry, Akiva Davenport. With every heavy step she took, the frames shook, and the portraits fell onto the floor, crashing in a rain of broken glass that cut her flesh. One after the other they fell.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Her eyes came open and the hallway disappeared, but the sounds didn’t. Even awake, there were aural remnants of the strange dream she was beginning to forget.
But then they didn’t go away, and, now fully conscious, she recognized them as footsteps. Many footsteps. There were people in the hallway outside, running and moving about despite the time.
The sudden sound of someone crying made her sit up. Cold sweat beaded on her forehead. She left the bed and ran towards the door. At the other side, all the lights of the hallway were on, and it was like everyone in the house had decided to meet there.
Lara Blanchard was being held by Jed, who tried to comfort her—it was her she heard crying. Vivian looked to her right, two doors down, where several others had gathered, looking into the room.
“Vivian, wait!”
She ignored Jed and walked down towards the commotion.
“Take her down!” someone yelled.
“Everyone, please go down to the dining hall!” the director was yelling. She appeared from the room, herding everyone else away from the door. “Please, I know it’s difficult but we need to—”
She stopped cold when she noticed Vivian.
The look in the director’s eyes almost made Vivian throw up. “What happened? Director, what happened?”
When there was no answer, Vivian went to look for one herself. She pushed her way through the people until she finally took a step inside the room. Acid burned her esophagus. Her tongue was being drawn back to a throat that grew too tight to breathe.
She had to focus on drawing air, and she couldn’t even cry, much less scream, at the sight of Rebecca’s limp body hanging from a wooden beam on the roof.
ф
Desynchronization was still a queerly painful process in which he felt like he was leaving a piece of himself inside the Creux. Nandi’s whispers became less and less and less audible until everything went dark and Ezra opened his own eyes to deeper darkness, pushed back only by a bright white dot. It felt good to hear again.
Ezra stepped out of the Egg. It was unexpectedly cold inside the caves. Wind that smelled like rotting corpses swept into the Apse, and Ezra powered through it to climb down to the glossy floor of the tunnel. He looked up to see Erin climbing down Phoenix’s shin to join him.
“Didn’t expect it to be so cold,” said Ezra.
“Or to stink this much, but it shouldn’t surprise us; Laani are coming here to die. Come on.” She raised her hand, looking at Ares. The gigantic Creux closed in on them, bringing its hand down to ground level. Ezra took several steps back, feeling like they would be squashed by this monstrosity, yet Erin didn’t even flinch. Once the massive steel hand was on the floor, she climbed on its palm, and he did the same.
He remembered Lazarus as Ares’ hand carefully rose to the level of the cleared tunnel, and they took a step into it. Ares retreated and gave them a thumbs-up before turning around to protect the entrance. The sounds of its heavy footsteps were amplified by the cave; it was deafening.
“The smell is worse in here,” he said, walking towards the red light. About twenty yards into the tunnel, it opened to another chamber. It was like being back in Clairvert—the walls were blue stone, but the rest looked like Zenith. There was a large computer panel flashing a red light in an obvious statement of malfunction. At the far end of the room, a huge iron door, claw marks on its dark surface.
But the most remarkable thing, what made both suddenly stop in their tracks: the unmoving bodies of several Carriers.
“What are those things doing here?” Erin asked, covering her mouth and nose. “Did the others seal these things in here?”
“They tried to make their way in there.” Ezra pointed at the door and walked towards it, ignoring Erin’s warnings. He knew the Carriers were dead. The door looked solid, impossible to open by force. It was locked by a strange mechanism that converged at the center of a thick metal plate welded onto the door. They would need a key. “What do you suppose is inside?”
“The repeater itself, probably,” Erin said, still afraid of the dead Carriers. She couldn’t investigate the flashing computer without looking back at them every few seconds, as if expecting them to suddenly come alive. “I don’t know how it works if it’s underground, deep in the caves.”
“Me neither. But I’m not Dr. Mizrahi,” said Ezra, touching the cold door. “This looks way too strong to just be protecting the repeater.”
“This is damaged,” she said, inspecting the computer. “Those things came in here and messed with it on purpose. They’re the only ones small enough to do it. God damn them.”
“Is there any way to fix it? I don’t want to think we came all the way here for nothing. What about this?” By the huge console, Ezra saw a piece of iron sticking from the wall, pointing downward. It looked like a lever, but it was broken, torn down by brute strength. “This might be a master switch.”
“That actually is the master switch,” she said. “Or, well, was. Maybe it still works. Put that new muscle to work.”
Ezra grabbed the iron piece and pulled it up. He felt it budge, but the pressure against the twisted metal broke his skin. He cursed when he saw blood in his palm.
“Here,” Erin said and unzipped her jumpsuit to the waist. She removed the upper half to reveal her torso covered by a tight tank top. Strong arms and shoulders exposed, Erin wrapped the thick cloth around the broken piece of the lever. “Let’s try that again.”
Soldiering through the pain in his palm, he began to pull the lever up. The padding of Erin’s uniform made it almost painless, but it was still a matter of strength.
The lever suddenly slid upward with a loud clang, and a mechanical noise shook the computer, and the entire chamber. The red light stopped flashing, replaced by a much friendlier white light. “That did it,” she said, wiping her hands on her hips, and wrapped the sleeves of the jumpsuit around her waist, not caring about the cold.
“I kind of expected the door to open. Guess we need a key,” Ezra said.
Erin smiled—her big sister act. “Yeah. Come on. I need to get out of here.”
The deafening sound of a Creux’s roar suddenly blasted into the tunnel, and through it they could see the moving lights and crashing sounds of battle. Erin ran towards it.
“Stop!” Ezra yelled, more aware of the danger. He caught up to her and stopped her just in time to hear the horrifying sound of many tiny legs clicking against the stone floor. They were near.
Against the lights of the battle outside, he saw the shadows of Carriers.
“Oh my god,” Erin whispered. “Run!”
The clicking sounds grew louder as more Carriers walked past the Creuxen’s protection and poured into the tunnel. Erin and Ezra reached the chamber and turned back. There were at least twenty Carriers creeping up towards them, with more on the way. The monsters reached the room, moved their way towards them.
Erin and Ezra had nowhere to run. The monsters were so close, he could see orifices on their bodies begin to open, preparing to puke out their disease.
Ezra gave them his back and hugged Erin to cover her as much as his body could. She screamed into his ear, and it hurt. He felt her fingers clutch at him desperately.
The sound was drowned out by another roar, and then by a powerful gust of wind rushing inside. Ezra turned to be blinded by light. Technomantic energy flooded through the tunnel like a tidal wave. Carriers screamed as they were burned alive. The wave of light reached the room, consumed everything, and rushed towards them.
Akiva hadn’t thought through his attack well enough.
I
loved you. I love you.
He remembered when he left Zenith, thinking that he might soon die, and felt relief in at least finally knowing how it would happen.
These were his last thoughts before he closed his eyes and waited for the burn.
At least he wasn’t alone.
Chapter 11
Nothing on the Inside
Once more the tragic death of a loved one was turned into an embarrassing secret, thanks to political maneuvering and the prying eyes of strangers. Vivian couldn’t argue with the director’s choice to cover up the highly suspicious suicide of a former Zenith employee in the Blanchard home, but still, she was furious after seeing the entirely unauthentic nature of Rebecca’s departure.
She had to be transported to the military hospital in total secret, and her identity was never revealed to avoid the attention of stubborn, sore winners, who were always waiting outside the home in hopes of finding something else with which they could further damage the Blanchard name.
At least once inside the military base she received a respectful ceremony not unlike Susan’s. Vivian could attend, and she was thankful for that little blessing. She witnessed first-hand as Rebecca’s ashes, which no family member or friend claimed, were scattered into a subterranean water channel that ran beneath Roue so she could join what little parts of the planet remained pure.
“Now she’s nothing, everywhere.”
“Nothing, everywhere,” repeated the congregation.
Vivian hadn’t cried when Jena’s dad died, or when Susan or Alice died. She didn’t cry when she heard of Barnes’ death or Kat’s betrayal. She cried when General Adams gave her speech in front of at least fifty soldiers under the fake sky of the fake dome. There was always a script to follow when presiding over a funerary ceremony, and the general didn’t follow it at all; what she said was not written by anyone except herself. It wasn’t that Rebecca was a particularly important member of the army, or even Zenith; it was that her death worsened the sickness that was slowly poisoning their hope.
The Unfinished World (The Armor of God Book 2) Page 15