They’ve done this kind of thing before. When they fell from the rooftop, they caught themself, and that was with only the maz in their necklace. Now they’re surrounded by nearly unlimited power. They’re fine. Probably.
“Diz,” Jaesin says, low and calm. “You need to get these failsafes off, then shut that other platform down. See if you can override it, send them back up the tunnel, something. We need them off our backs so Remi can do whatever it is they’re trying to do.”
Dying is what they’re trying to do, it seems. But as I bring up a command prompt, something starts to change in the sea of maz below us. It begins to shift and bubble, like a great creature is swimming beneath the surface, and the different shades of maz start to separate under the will of some unseen hand.
Remi. Cool relief spreads from my heart. They really are fine. Somewhere down there, they’re doing what they do best: weaving something so intricate and beautiful that it takes my breath away.
The clatter of gunfire intensifies. No time to think about it. Remi will do what they can do. I need to do my part.
I type furiously, forcing my way through layer upon layer of useless subroutines and redundancies, trying my best to get the lay of the digital land on the fly. Manipulating our own platform is easiest, so I focus on removing the limiter from the maneuvering jets first.
“You’re going to get a really sudden kick, Jaesin,” I shout in warning as I override the safeties. “Get ready to compensate in three—”
My finger slips.
The platform lurches forward, snapping my neck back and knocking me on my ass, and toppling Ania down right next to me. She manages to keep her shield between us and the incoming projectiles despite the tumble, though the guards are still firing in the empty space where we just were anyway. Jaesin catches himself by the edge of the console and just barely keeps the platform from careening out of control, looping us down and underneath the nearest enemy platform.
Okay, task one, complete. Not exactly graceful, but I’ll call it a victory. Next up: figure out how to mess with the other pods and platforms. I’m well inside the system now, its architecture nearly as familiar as my favorite buildings in Kyrkarta, but I’m having trouble telling all the platforms apart. They’re labeled in the system, but there’s no way to know what label goes with which platform when they’re named generic things like A-694. I just have to test it. There’s no other way.
I find the command for the emergency lighting on the platforms and send a ping, then lean my head out for a second. On the complete opposite side of the cavern, a platform lights up with orange emergency lights in one brief, bright pulse. O-kay. Seven platforms over from the one I wanted. Assuming the labels are in order, that would make the correct one . . .
I send another pulse and lean out again, nearly getting my head taken off by a stun spell aimed right at me. Another platform lights up, seven down in the complete opposite direction.
“Damn it, Diz, hurry it up!” Jaesin shouts, hauling back on the controls. “This isn’t the Sunnaz Festival, quit playing with the lights!”
“I’m trying, asshole,” I growl, and count seven platform IDs in the right direction. I alter the code this time, then push it out to the other platform with a grin.
The alarm sirens go off at full blast, and the lights strobe on and off in a completely random pattern on the correct platform this time. One of the guys on the platform covers his ears and doubles over, but their techwitch quickly weaves a dampening spell to block the painful sound. Spoilsport. Doesn’t matter anyway. It was just a brief distraction, since I was already there. Now, to find the lift controls.
I take a quick glance away from my deck, just long enough to see the maz below whipping into a frenzy, spinning faster and faster in a hurricane of glowing power, with a clear eye at the center. And in the eye, hovering in midair near the bottom, is Remi, using their entire arms in grand versions of the usual subtle gestures they use to weave spells. Something is taking shape in front of them, glowing fiercely and growing larger by the second.
They’re doing it. It’s working.
I send them every ounce of strength I have. I hope they can last long enough to get the patch in place.
Then, as I watch, a guard on one of the other platforms takes aim at Remi.
Oh, hell no.
I identify the correct ID for the platform’s thrusters and hastily push through a new command . . . one that fires the thrusters at full power for two seconds, causing their shots to crash into the cavern ceiling as they fall back. Not hitting Remi, that’s all I care about.
“Nice!” Jaesin calls back to me, then drops our platform straight down so suddenly I think my stomach gets left behind. I grit my teeth and get ready to send another burst, but half my vision flickers red, and a warning notification popped up. My open blocks of code began to disappear one by one, replaced by a laughing triceratops with a skull and crossbones on its forehead.
“Won’t be nice for long,” I say, typing furiously. “Reinforcements are almost here, and they have a counterhacker.”
“Well, do something about it,” Jaesin shouts back. “Remi needs more time.”
His voice is harsh and desperate, laced with all the frustration of being a helpless mundie in a maz fight. Driving the platform is taking all his focus, leaving no time for anything offensive. I look around the cavern, searching for anything that could possibly . . .
Then I have an idea.
“Oh, this is mean,” I say, throwing some coded shields of my own up against the Great Death Triceratops, wherever they may be working from. I dig back into the controls for the gunners’ platform, with extra care to cover my tracks, and take control of its thrusters again. Different tactic this time, though. I lock them out of their own controls and program in a new route, set it on a trigger command, then quickly repeat the whole series with several of the empty platforms closest to the tunnel back up to the surface.
Then, with a gleeful smile, I send the final command.
The platforms’ thrusters fire at full strength, safeties off, and the gunners and weavers on the closest platform fall to their knees. All fire momentarily ceases. One man tumbles over the railing at the edge and plunges down into the Maz Sea. I wince and breathe a tiny, useless apology; that guy is almost certainly going to die, but at least he’ll be spared what awaits his friends. Angry shouts drift across the cavern as they try to regain control of the platform, but they aren’t fast enough. The course I programmed sends them back up the tunnel, where, somewhere in the vast depths, three more pods are descending at max speed.
It won’t end well for anyone involved.
Then, just to make extra sure we’re covered, the rest of the platforms I tampered with make the ascent up the tunnel as well, blocking them in completely.
They might live. If the Great Death Triceratops turns all their resources toward overriding my lock on the other platforms, they might be able to save themselves. Either way, they’re off our backs for a bit.
A violent crash of colliding metal echoes down from the tunnel.
Well, maybe for more than a bit. I’ve dealt with Death Triceratops, but I’ve also blocked our only known way out. There are still two platforms full of guards left. And we never did figure out what to do with the drill.
Below, a huge swath of the Maz Sea has solidified into a vast swirling grid, strongly barred with terraz and formaz for structure and interwoven with a delicate lace of every other type of maz twined together, more colorful and powerful and beautiful than anything I’ve ever seen. Even standing on the sea floor next to the rift, maybe fifteen, twenty feet below the surface, Remi can still orchestrate the whole thing. Their power is the key to everything.
It’s time. Time to fix this, to salvage what’s left of our planet, to eradicate the source of the spellplague and maybe . . . just maybe, start down a totally new path together. As a family.
When I head back into the drill controls and prepare to do my part, my eyebrows shoo
t up. There’s a whole category of commands that I missed last time around, completely separate from its drilling operations. A plan starts to take shape in my mind—probably a terrible one, but better than the nothing we’re working with at the moment.
“Ania,” I call, even as I pore over the code before my eyes and pull out a few select commands. “Weave an amplifier so we can call down to Remi. We have to time this right. Jaesin, keep those other platforms off our back as best you can, and get ready to pick up Remi as soon as they’re done.”
I trust them both to tackle their jobs, and the faint white light of songaz shimmers in my peripheral vision to confirm it. A few more commands, and I’m ready. The drill whines as I power the engines back up, readying it to pull free. I blow out a slow breath and turn to Ania.
“Call it down,” I say, then cover my ears.
“Remi!” she booms, her voice filling the entire cavern. Damn, girl. “We’re ready up here. Can you send us a signal?”
A quick shower of sunnaz sparks shoots up from the center of the woven hurricane.
Ready.
Okay then. Time to back the drill out of the rift. More maz-15 will come pouring out, but it’s okay. It’s fine. Remi is there to apply the patch. It’s almost over.
All I have to do is send the final command.
My throat locks up.
“You have to pull the drill, Dizzy,” Jaesin shouts, fighting to hold the platform’s controls steady. “Remi can’t get out of there until you do.”
Another shower of sparks goes up, weaker this time.
I have to trust them. Have to back off, do my part. Watch.
And be here for them when they come back.
I take three deep breaths.
Go.
The drill rumbles as it springs to life and begins to slowly inch its way out of the rift. We have five seconds of relative peace, nothing but the beautiful swirling maz below and the vibration of the drill, almost more of an even, soothing hum—then, all at once, a wave of intense violet maz-15 comes rushing out, flooding the empty eye of Remi’s storm. Remi’s gestures speed up, whipping the weave into a frenzy and incorporating as much of the new maz-15 as possible, but it’s too much, too much, and after a moment they’re completely swallowed up by the flood of poison. Invisible to us.
No, no, no, no, I chant in my head, gripping the edge of the platform as Jaesin pulls a hard reversal, barely avoiding a ramming attempt by another platform.
Then a bright flash, temporarily blinding in its intensity. A moment of nothingness, like the pressure in the cavern has dropped all at once, like someone has sucked all the air out.
Stillness.
Silence.
Then the brightness fades, and there’s Remi, their wards holding the Maz Sea back away from a shimmering, tightly woven patch, perfectly sealed to the sea floor around it. There’s no bubbling maz-15, just the calm waves of maz rolling gently outside the barrier Remi erected around themself.
They did it.
“Jaesin, take us down!” I shout, my voice high and unrecognizable. He’s already at it, though, practically putting us into freefall as the two remaining platforms plummet after us, spells flying and guns cracking. They must have finally figured out a way to override the speed limiter on their own platforms, because they easily keep pace with us, as if they’re herding us toward the sea floor.
Below, the Maz Sea begins to encroach on Remi’s circle, their wards breaking down in the face of so much raw energy. Tendrils of glowing, glittering maz lick in toward their crumpled form, casting a mottled rainbow of light over them. A bright green thread curls over their cheek . . . and they move. Just a hand, curling and uncurling as if to reach up and brush the maz away.
But it’s movement. They’re alive. Barely a second later, their eyes blink open, and they roll onto their front, pushing to all fours, then to unsteady feet.
The guards on the other platforms notice at the same time we do. They angle for Remi, and I didn’t think I had any more adrenaline left to give, but apparently I do. I grab the gun from Jaesin’s waistband as he brings us down to the seafloor, hovering just a foot off the ground, and I rush forward to pull Remi on board. I reach out and grab hold of their hand, leaving my other one free to fire the gun over their shoulder with no real accuracy, but plenty of intent. I haul back until Remi is securely on deck, wanting nothing more than to wrap my arms around them, but now that we present a single target instead of two, the other platforms are concentrating their fire. We’re so close, damn it, just let us win or something.
Jaesin hauls back on the controls, and the platform obeys with a lurch, a clatter of gunfire peppering the deck just in front of me. I stumble back and fall straight on my ass, slamming my shoulder into the console, and something behind me digs hard and hot into my back. I jerk away and grab my deck, ignoring the pain to pull up the drill interface once more.
“Jaesin, head for the drill’s core,” I shout over the sudden roaring in my ears. The maneuvering jets have gotten a lot louder. That can’t be good. Hopefully they aren’t about to give out. Just a little farther. Hold it together.
“Dizzy,” Remi says, falling to their knees beside me, but I shove the gun at them without looking. If I look, I’ll want to touch, and if I touch, I’ll never want to let go. There’s still work to do.
“I know how to get us out of here. Hold them off until we get to the drill,” I say, eyes locked on my deck. I dig through the new commands I discovered and prep a series of them to go off at my trigger. “Jaesin, you think you can land us on a moving target?”
“I think I’m gonna have to, if you’re asking,” he says. He shoots me a quick glance, then does a double take, his eyes wide. “Dizzy—”
“Get ready to land us on the drill’s central platform, then, right next to its control center,” I say, and send the commands.
The whole cavern shudders with a clanking groan as, one by one, the four pylons holding the drill upright break free. The first lifts and bends, then plants back on the ground so the next leg can do the same. And the next, and the next . . . until the whole drill is moving, walking, like a bug with spindly jointed legs and a very long, pointed nose.
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” Ania says. Third f-bomb of the week. I like to think I earned that one.
“Not fucking kidding you at all,” I say. “Never let it be said that MMC doesn’t plan ahead. Why build a single stationary drill to create just one horrific disaster when you can build one for mobile destruction? Welcome to your ride home.”
Ania keeps talking at me, the pitch rising higher and higher, but it fades right into the background as I line up a series of commands to take us out of this hellhole. We can’t go back the way we came in, but there are plenty of other routes to the surface. That’s the whole reason Kyrkarta exists where it does; plenty of routes for maz to escape to the surface. I lift a hand to swipe at the sweat stinging my eyes . . . but maybe I don’t? My arm stays in my lap, fingers resting on my deck, refusing to obey my command.
Then a drop of blood hits my deck screen, and another.
I look down to find a small hole in my chest, near the junction of my shoulder, blood sliding over the slick material of my heat-shielded suit and dripping when I lean over too far. My helmet is intact, the oxygen flowing fine, but the hole in my suit . . . the heat beyond . . .
The pain hits like a sledgehammer. I gasp, covering the hole with my other hand even as more bullets and spells crash into the deck around me. The wound was numb before, but now that I’ve seen it, it’s like my body can’t ignore it anymore. It’s hot, so hot, like someone shoving a burning rod through my body while simultaneously beating my shoulder with a club. I drag my functioning hand down to tap SEND on the final series of commands I’ve queued up, my bloody finger sliding across the screen. It’s not enough, though. It’ll get us to the surface, but what then?
“Jaesin, you’ll have to . . . the drill has controls in the . . . and it . . .”
I break off, gasping through the pressure in my chest. Every gunshot that cracks the air is like a bomb going off in my ears, each several seconds long and hours apart.
“Jaesin, get us . . . to the . . . get us the . . .”
“Dizzy,” Remi shouts. I blink, and I’m suddenly horizontal, my head cradled in Remi’s lap, their hands covered in blood. Their lips move again, but no sound comes out.
I smile, watching their mouth form my name again and again.
“Hi,” I say.
Then I close my eyes and drift far, far away.
Twenty-Nine
WHEN I NEXT OPEN MY eyes, it’s with the echoing memory of creaking metal and rumbling, rhythmic footsteps. All that is gone now, though, replaced with gentle rocking and the peaceful sounds of sloshing water. I blink to clear my vision and take in two facts at once: the window across from my bed shows nothing but endless water and sky, and Remi’s head is pillowed next to my hip. They’re asleep right on top of my hand.
My hand, which is numb and tingly hopefully due to lack of circulation and not as an aftereffect of the gunshot.
At the thought of the shot, my chest gives a throbbing ache, and I hiss, lifting my free hand to cover the wound. It’s dressed with soft gauze, and I slip my fingers under the neckline of a shirt that definitely isn’t mine to scratch at the tape that holds the edges down.
“Don’t,” a sleep-gravelly voice protests, and a hand swats at my elbow. Remi lifts their head from my hand, a red-creased impression of my knuckles dotting their cheek. They swipe at a damp spot on my thumb with an apologetic “Yikes!” look, then sit back, taking in my whole appearance. I cringe, fighting the urge to curl into myself and hide. I opt for lightness instead.
“You look like you’re feeling well,” I croak, then clear my throat.
Remi nods, smiling faintly. “I slept almost as much as you did. Definitely feeling better, but planning on at least one more week of video games and heavy napping. You should join me,” they say with a significant look at my bandaged wound.
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