Remi looks up at me from the corner of their eye, a bit sheepish. “The professor’s stash in his lab. I took a little while I was replenishing our stock, kept it in the smallest chamber in my necklace, sealed up with linkaz. In case of emergency. I thought this qualified.”
“This is ridiculous,” Jaesin says as soon as we prop Remi up against the wall to recover. “The mission is blown. We have to get out of here.”
“And then what?” Remi says. “We just disappear? Never do anything about this giant world-killing problem? Let them destroy this city? Let them continue to exploit the planet, put everyone in danger, and profit off it all?”
Jaesin looks pained, and shakes his head. “But it doesn’t have to be us. We retreat, we spread the word until something gets through—”
Remi cuts him off with a weak gesture. “We’ve already screwed that possibility. Now that they know we know, this place will be a fortress. No one but the most high-level employees will ever set foot in here again. No one else will ever have a chance to fix this without blowing a huge crater in the city and letting all that toxic maz out. It’s now or never, Jaesin. I choose now.”
“Remi, look at yourself right now. You’re about to collapse. I don’t think you should—” Ania begins, but I slam my fist against the nearest wall, shaking with all of it—nerves, anger, fear for Davon, sheer terror for us.
“It’s their decision.” I take a slow breath through my nose and meet Remi’s gaze, trying to convey my meaning. “I know I’ve been a jerk about this in the past, but I really mean it. It’s your choice. Only you know if you feel well enough to do this. And you’re right, anyway. This is our one and only chance to deal with this. If we don’t do it now, it could be years before we can try again, and we’ll have to be on the run the entire time. I know that’s not how any of us wants to live.”
Remi smiles at me, that same warmth in their eyes that I saw this afternoon. Something in my stomach flutters, tightens, but I force it down.
“Time’s wasting, then,” Remi says, holding my gaze for an extra beat, then looking to Jaesin and Ania. “I promise I feel well enough. I probably won’t later, but this is save-the-world-level stuff here. We need to move on before reinforcements show up.
Jaesin reaches out and pulls Remi in for a hug, clutching them to his chest like the big brother he is, blood be damned. Then he lets them go, steps back, and nods.
“Let’s do this.”
Ania squeezes Jaesin’s arm and nods.
“Let’s do this,” she echoes.
Remi grins and turns back to me with a little bow.
“Well, pathfinder,” they say with a wave at the blank hallways beyond. “Find us a path.”
“I don’t know where we’re going,” I say, but even as the words leave my mouth, I take in our surroundings. Behind the giant metal security door, this part of the station looks much like the rest of it, much like every other MMC building I’ve ever wandered in, through, or on. In fact, I’ve been on the roof of this one before, about a year ago, and with the positioning of the vapor stacks . . .
“This way,” I say, and set off down a hallway to the right.
I’m not sure. I’m never sure about anything, and that’s part of my constant problem. Sometimes, though, the situation calls for decisiveness. My steps are sure even as my guard is up, checking around every corner before proceeding.
I don’t have maz, but this is all me.
The way forward quickly becomes clear, fortunately. All I need to do is follow the glaring orange signs that warn of potential illness OR EVEN DEATH. Quite dramatic.
We pass two empty security checkpoints along the way. The guards are likely lying passed out or dead in the pile we just left behind, but the comms are still working just fine. Voices chatter back and forth, calling in the report of the bodies we left behind, signs of our passage, and most importantly—our location caught on video. I whip around and spot the offending camera in the upper right corner of the hallway.
Great.
I give them a rude gesture and turn another corner, my mind an uninterrupted litany of swear words. The hallway ends in a decontamination airlock, loudly marked with yet more warnings, and a wall of bright orange storage lockers with—yes, victory—eight heat-shielded suits, each with canisters of oxygen and nullaz. I pass three of them back to the others and yank one down for myself, holding the thing out at arm’s length. Where the hell is the zipper?
Ania, who can deconstruct any piece of clothing on sight, discovers a nearly invisible seam that hides a zipper running down the center of the suit. She steps into it with impossible grace—but pulling it on is another matter. It’s impossible for even Ania to do without looking like a complete jackass. I stumble to the right, hopping on one foot as I try to yank the skintight suit over my shoes. It keeps sticking to me like it wants to strangle me. Remi barks a laugh and falls against the wall, their feet completely tangled.
“Wait, wait,” they say, gasping. “These things are spelled. Wait one . . .”
They draw a bit of maz to hand and weave it into a simple pattern, then crush it and sprinkle it over the suit. The gaudy, violently orange thing sags and stretches like a punctured balloon, the arms and legs loosening into wide, floppy noodles. Three more quick spells, and we’re all able to maneuver our way into the suits with much more success.
Once we’re all zipped up, Remi weaves four more tiny spells that snap the suits back into shape, molded to our bodies in a way that’s surprisingly attractive on some and utterly, miserably uncomfortable on me. It’s like the suit is trying to give me chest compressions and an all-sides wedgie. Not great.
Masks come next, which are horrifically claustrophobic, then the press of a button to activate the nullaz field. Down the hall, a door slams, and the sound of running boots follows.
“Take the other suits,” Ania says. “It’ll slow them down. We can destroy them on the other side.”
Ooh, smart. We all snag an extra suit and, with no ceremony whatsoever, pull the big dramatic lever and hit the ominous red button. The lights on either side of the door begin to blink, and a countdown appears above the door. Jaesin bounces on the balls of his feet, looking back over his shoulder.
“I swear these seconds feel eight times longer than normal seconds,” he murmurs, waggling his gun at me as a reminder to have mine ready.
He’s not wrong. Remi and Ania glance at each other, then take up stations on either side of the hallway and draw maz to hand. We’re about to travel down to the source of all maz, after all, so the need to conserve our short supply isn’t quite so dire. Remi preps a projectile of some kind, holding it at the ready for the first guard to round the corner, while Ania crouches low and threads a slippery weave over the hallway floor. After a moment, an MMC minion rounds the corner at a run and is immediately downed by a golden-red blast to the chest. The man right behind her approaches more slowly, sticking close to the wall with his gun drawn. The second his feet hit Ania’s spelled area, though, his legs go right out from under him in ass-over-head fashion. Beautiful. Wish I’d thought to have my lenses record it for the internet to enjoy.
Just as a third guard appears, the airlock behind us hisses and cracks open to admit us into the most secret and most deadly area in all of Kyrkarta. Jaesin and I step in, holding the door open with our guns pointed out into the hallway, while Ania and Remi back toward us, the spare suits held in the crook of their elbows to leave their hands free for maz. Once we’re all inside, the airlock chimes cheerfully and slides closed, trapping us in the transfer room.
My breathing picks up as I have a horrible realization: this spot, this airlock, is where we’re most vulnerable. There could be anything, anyone on the other side. Hell, maybe there’s a security station somewhere where they could simply cut power to the airlock and let us suffocate in here, or lock us in until more guards arrive. The airlock suddenly seems incredibly small. Another ten-second countdown appears as the door behind us hisses, forming the
seal that protects the rest of the station. After a literal eternity, the door in front of us finally slides open, revealing an empty catwalk overlooking a small, dry ravine.
We cross the catwalk with careful steps, wary of the edges. We’re on our way toward a drop so long you could call every one of your acquaintances for a tearful goodbye on the way down. Too dramatic. I’d just embrace my fate and spend the time watching funny vids on my lenses or calling up my favorite music on my deck. Because I don’t know when I’ll die, but whenever I do, it’ll be with a deck in my pocket, guaranteed.
I pat my back pocket through the protective suit. Hopefully today won’t be that day.
We proceed with caution, Jaesin and me in the lead with the guns at the ready, looking in every direction for movement. It’s still only eleven thirty at night, despite all that’s happened since we entered the complex, and the entire area seems deserted. Death drilling is a day-shift-only kind of job, I guess. The catwalk deposits us onto a platform with a large control rig attached to an intricate system of piping, similar to the arrangement we always saw in the sewers. A long line drawn in reflective paint bisects the platform. On our half, machinery and consoles line every wall. The other side is dominated by signage.
WARNING: SHEER DROP AHEAD
HEAT PROTECTION REQUIRED BEYOND THIS POINT
ONLY LICENSED TECHNICIANS MAY OPERATE DESCENT VEHICLES
CHECK IT TWICE, SAVE A LIFE:
1. IS YOUR SUIT’S INSPECTION DATE CURRENT?
2. IS YOUR O2 FLOW IN THE GREEN?
3. IS YOUR NULLIFIER ACTIVE?
4. IS YOUR COMM UNIT RECEIVING?
PROTECT YOURSELF AND YOUR COLLEAGUES
AND REPORT ALL ACCIDENTS PROMPTLY
“Better do as the sign commands,” Jaesin says. “Final checks? Everyone good?”
One by one we sound off, all clear. “Though,” I add, “maybe we should take those extra suits with us instead of throwing them into the hell pit, just in case something happens to ours.”
“It looks like there’s extra O2 tanks here too,” Ania says, peeking inside a series of storage cabinets. “Might not hurt, just in case this takes longer than we hope it will. And, worse comes to worst, they’re heavy enough to hit someone with.”
She tosses one to Jaesin, who catches it in one hand and hefts it, testing its weight. “Yep, that’ll hurt. Good idea.”
Once the canisters are distributed, we can’t avoid it any longer. We have to approach the edge of the drilling tunnel. Jaesin and I take the lead again, shuffling carefully over to the line of maintenance capsules—descent vehicles, they call them—lined up at the edge of the platform. They’re silver with loud yellow warning stripes, like some kind of bee, and just as round. A peek through the open doorway of one shows they’re clearly intended for only two people at a time, but splitting up into separate pods seems both terrifying and like a terrible idea. We’ll make it work.
The yawning edge of the chasm before me makes my head swim, but I force my eyes to the solid floor under my feet and take a deep breath. The contamination suit is hot and sticky, like a second skin that’s glued itself to me via my sweat. The heat radiating from the planet’s exposed core is suffocating, even though my suit pipes plenty of fresh oxygen into my mask. This whole thing is going to be hell.
And it doesn’t matter. It has to be done.
A few feet away, Jaesin and Ania stand close, double-checking each other’s suits with lingering hands and intense eye contact. Whoa. Looks like mom and dad are getting back together after all. Remi stands a little way off to the side, seemingly mesmerized by the edge of the cliff, the sheer drop that leads down to a giant pool of exactly what’s been trying to kill them for the past ten years. I step over to them and bump their suited shoulder with mine.
“Hey,” I say.
I’m terrified for you and wish you would stay here, I want to say, but that’s not fair. It’s not right.
“Are you okay with this?” I ask instead. “With going down to the source, being so steeped in it? It’s got to be weird for you.”
“No weirder than it is for you all, I imagine,” they say, returning the shoulder bump. “You lost everything to the plague too. You didn’t get the same consolation prize, but it doesn’t mean this won’t be hard for you.”
I shrug. The time for getting philosophical and emotional about the spellplague is long over. Something broke in me, back at the professor’s house. But something started to heal a little too, I think. Today is a day for fixing things. That’s what we’re here to do. No point in dwelling on the rest.
“Everything will be just shiny once we get down there and give the planet a nice Band-Aid. Worth it, right?” I ask, turning to look them in the eye.
Remi smiles and holds my gaze.
“Yeah,” they say, tipping their head forward until our helmets touch at the forehead. “Definitely worth it.”
I take their hand in mine, swallow hard, and open my mouth, maybe to respond, though I have no idea what I’m planning to say. It doesn’t seem fair to take the cheap way out, to plead my case and confess everything in me right before our confrontation with death. But I want to, stars, how I want to. I can admit it. And that’s a victory of some kind, at least, right?
To my relief and disappointment, Jaesin’s hand lands on Remi’s shoulder, effectively ending our conversation.
“Hey,” he says, his eyes warm and smiling. “Let’s go before they show up at the door with some emergency stash of suits and decide pushing us off this cliff is their best option.”
I peek over the edge again and wince.
“Yeah,” I say. “If I’m gonna die in that giant hole, I want it to be saving the world. Let’s get on with it.”
Jaesin nods solemnly. “Be real for a second, though. Beyond this point, we have no idea if we’ll have a way out. We get down there, do our thing, and if we’re lucky our brilliant plans will magically work out. But this could be it. Last chance to back out. Are we all in?”
“Absolutely,” Remi says without a second’s hesitation.
Ania purses her lips, a hard look in her eye. “I’m in.”
I take a deep breath and close my eyes for a moment.
My father is so distant in my mind, his face hazy with memory and time even as I stand in the space where he died. There was no funeral, not for him specifically. The city’s funeral industry couldn’t support a million funerals in one weekend. But I laid a polished stone for him at the memorial site, like he told me our people do back in his home city, Agara, on the Small Continent. I sat beside my mom as she lit candles and spun what little maz we had into the mourning spell for him, sending points of light into the night sky like a flock of bright, shining birds. And I got Remi to do the same for my mother, once I stopped being mad at her for dying. Or less mad, at least.
Everyone’s gone. There’ll be no one to send up mourning spells for us. The world has gone to hell.
And we hold the key to fixing it all.
“Yes,” I say, squaring my shoulders. “Let’s move.”
Twenty-Seven
EVEN WITH MY DECK PLUGGED straight into the maintenance pod and the diagnostics running right before my eyes, I can’t shake the feeling that the awful thing is going to drop us straight into the fiery pit at the heart of the world at the slightest provocation. Theoretically, engineers have been using these things to descend to core level to perform maintenance and change drill bits for ten years running.
Theoretically, I don’t give a shit. My stomach is ready to empty in all directions, and it’s not a great feeling. I’ve never had a problem with heights crawling all over Kyrkarta’s buildings, but this is heights on a whole new level.
The rocky walls fly by at nauseating speed, nothing more than a blur at nearly two thousand miles per hour. Even at that speed, the descent takes nearly thirty very uncomfortable minutes, the layers of our planet’s thin crust, then the thicker outer mantle, shifting in color and texture as we go. As we near ou
r destination, the pod begins to slow, the heat-shielding spells coating its exterior flaring to life in a spectacular light show. A moment later, we burst from the tunnel into a vast cavern . . . and into the grandest sight I’ve ever seen.
A vast ocean of maz glows beneath us, strands of every single strain known to humankind twisting and twirling together in a dance far older than our civilization. The colors flow before our eyes, greens, blues, reds, and golds, everything together, but somehow it manages to keep from looking like a tangled mess, a muddy mash-up of colors. Instead, it’s like looking at a pearlescent shell, colors shifting in gentle waves. Jaesin and Ania stare, awestruck, but their expressions are nothing beside Remi’s wide-open heart worn full on their face, eyes welling with a sort of near-religious ecstasy I can only imagine. With a connection to maz like theirs, this moment must feel monumental. Divine.
Sacred.
But in the center of it all, an enormous piece of machinery like a soaring pillar pierces the surface of the sea. All around it, maz roils in bubbling violet waves, like slowly boiling water. Maz-15, leaking out of the planet’s core like an open wound.
The rift. The source of it all.
The pod’s maz-powered brakes flare to life, making the final automated descent to a solid steel platform built out from the cavern wall. When it finally comes to a stop, a light winks on as the computer requests further instructions. I do a quick visual inspection of the area and find ten other platforms circling the drilling zone, some nearly a half mile away and at a variety of heights. The one next to us is quite a bit higher than we are, and I zero in on a rather important detail.
“These platforms have maneuvering jets,” I say, my fingers flying over my deck. “They’re mobile. Let’s get out of this clown car and get some breathing room, figure out our strategy.”
With that, I command the pod’s door to open, and we spill out into the wide-open cavern, steel beneath our boots and deadly maz just beyond the nullifying barrier of our suits.
Inside the pod, it was almost like playing a video game. The sense of scale was completely off. Now, standing on an open platform with nothing but a spindly railing to keep us from tripping face-first into the Maz Sea, the vastness is overwhelming and humbling.
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