by F. T. Lukens
“Of course, I am,” Asher said, sticking his chin out playfully. “I’m always right. You should know that by now. And you should remember it when I’m trying to rescue you.”
Ren groaned. The spell broke, the circumstances of their world rushed back in. “You’re horrible.”
“Yes, I’m that too.”
Ren pushed his toes through the slats and dug them into Asher’s leg. “I’m going to sleep. Try not to rescue me while I’m sleeping.”
Asher laughed. “Sure thing, damsel.”
“Shut up.”
“Night,” Asher said, chuckling.
Ren rolled over and curled into a ball. He fell asleep smiling.
%
The next day found Ren back in a floater heading out to the hangar, smooshed between Oz and a big, burly guard Ren hadn’t seen before. The big guy, Art, laughed a lot and draped his heavy arm across Ren’s shoulders.
Ren disliked him immediately.
But Ren wasn’t looking forward to any part of the day. Oz had arrived at his cell in the morning stating that Abiathar wanted Ren back at the ships despite Janus’s protests. And now, tucked into Art’s side with his hot breath on the side of Ren’s neck and his meaty hand wrapped around Ren’s shoulder, Ren cursed his luck. His frustration grew with every minute.
Once at the hangar, Ren broke away from the two guards and entered the lancer. Irritation was a heavy feeling in his chest.
“Reporting for work,” Ren said, his tone heavily laced with annoyance.
Janus popped up from a console she had been working under, goggles on her face, gray hair sticking up everywhere. “You!” she snapped. “I told you not to come back.”
Ren rolled his eyes. “It’s not my choice. I don’t want to be here any more than you want me here.”
“Where are your guards? I told the dumb one not to bring you back, Abiathar’s orders be damned. I don’t want your kind working on these ships.”
She poked a finger hard into Ren’s chest, and he staggered back and rubbed his hand over the spot.
“What the stars do you mean by ‘my kind’?”
“You don’t know?” She laughed, almost hysterical. “You’re more dangerous than I thought. You can’t try to control it if you don’t even know what you are.”
Ren frowned. His tolerance for the cryptic nonsense everyone had spouted since he arrived was gone. He took a step toward the hull, and Janus stiffened.
“Don’t,” she barked.
“Don’t what? Touch it? What will happen, huh?”
Her face paled, and her chest heaved. “You don’t know what you’re capable of.”
Ren laughed. “I’m capable of nothing. I’m a duster, planet-born with very limited experience with tech. You have no reason to be frightened of me.”
He moved closer to the hull, hand outstretched, fingers splayed.
She whimpered. “Please, don’t.”
Ren slammed his hand against the hull. His fingertips left greasy marks on the shiny surface. As he predicted, nothing happened.
He turned back to Janus. “See? Nothing–”
His words tangled in his throat, cut off, because suddenly, Ren was consumed with power, rushing from his toes to his fingertips. A blue tint clouded his vision, and his body suffused with golden warmth. And then he was floating amongst the wires, connected to the ship, to the energy source, to everything. The lancer pulsed under his skin, woven in his veins, its systems integrated with his senses.
It was freeing and frightening.
His consciousness raced along the circuits and he could fix it. He could fix everything. He found the twist of wires in the artificial gravity system and bypassed it. He found the broken circuits in the air recyclers and, with a pulse of power, refurbished them. He saw the static in the comm system, a physical entity, and he cleared it away with a brush of his metaphysical hand.
The longer Ren floated through the ship, the less connected he was to his physical body. He didn’t need his body. He was free here. He moved around with ease; the wires and the systems were his route, and the more he pushed, the more he felt the other ships, too. They were nearby, on the edge of his perception, and he could go to those, he could jump to the other ones and repair them.
He could.
He could.
Suddenly, he slammed violently back in his body, his consciousness rushed in and he found himself on the floor, looking up at the ceiling of the ship. His back ached from where he had hit the deck plate, and Oz stood over him, looking worried and afraid.
Ren shivered, and his chest heaved as though he hadn’t breathed in days. He was covered in a sticky sweat. His limbs were overly heavy; the shackles pulled his hands to the deck. He could barely move.
“What happened?” he breathed.
“Ask him,” Janus shouted. “Ask him. Ask him now.”
Oz visibly steeled himself. “A man tells you everything he speaks is a lie. Is it a truth or a lie?”
Ren shook his head, trying to clear the static. The question made no sense. “It’s a paradox?” he said, though his answer sounded more like a question.
Oz blew out a breath. “Yes. It’s a paradox.”
Laughing wildly, Janus pointed her finger at Ren. “I warned you. I warned you both.”
Oz helped Ren to his feet, his hands under Ren’s arms, but Ren’s knees buckled even with the support.
“I was… I was in the ship,” Ren said. He barely believed it, but the way Oz looked at him, and the way Janus shook her head, he knew it was true. “What… what am I?”
“You’re trouble. You’re a liability. You need to go.”
Ren leaned hard into the strength of Oz’s body. His head lolled on Oz’s shoulder. “I don’t understand.”
“Come on,” Oz said, dragging Ren toward the exit. “Let’s get you back to the citadel.”
“Did you tackle me?” Ren asked as Oz helped him down the stairs to the hangar floor.
“Yes. I broke the connection.”
Ren wanted to ask why, but he was drained. His body ached all over and he missed the freedom of the machine. He longed for it, to be free of his lanky, uncoordinated mortal self. His joints creaked, his body felt bulky and, when he looked at his hands and flexed his fingers, they felt foreign, detached.
“I feel strange,” he said, as Oz loaded him into the floater.
Oz didn’t say anything. His expression was pinched; his eyebrows were drawn together. He started the floater, leaving Art to deal with Janus, and drove them back to the castle.
Ren slumped into the seat. Eyelids heavy, he watched the landscape zip by, but he existed in a daze. Time meant nothing. His body meant nothing. His circumstances meant nothing.
Ren’s fingers drifted toward the metal of the floater. It was a machine. He could merge with it. He could fix the catch in the engine. He could repair the front starboard thruster, which wasn’t running at full capacity. All it would take was a brush of Ren’s fingers, and he could run free along the circuits.
“Hands in your lap,” Oz barked.
Ren roused from his stupor and realized his hand was hovering in front of him, and his fingertips were but a hair’s breadth away from touching the casing.
He dropped his hands in his lap, threaded his fingers together and gripped them hard.
“Keep your wits about you. At least until I can get you back in your cell.”
Ren nodded. Yes, he had to stay awake. He couldn’t doze off. He opened his eyes wide, concentrated on the countryside and counted the trees and bushes. He was up to seventy-three when Oz pulled the floater to a stop.
“Can you walk?”
Ren turned his head. His mind buzzed. His skin tingled. His legs felt disconnected from his body. He took too long to respond, because by the time an answer formed in his head, Oz had pulle
d him out of floater and tossed Ren over his shoulder.
Ren hung limply. Oz’s shoulder dug into his stomach. Blood rushed to his head and his vision blurred.
“What happened?” Asher’s voice cut through Ren’s haze and he became more alert. He had missed the entire walk back to the dungeon, and Asher sounded absolutely panicked.
Ren heard Oz unlock the cell. Then he went from hanging upside down to being tossed onto the hay mattress. He lay there and waited as Oz unlocked the cuffs.
Asher hovered nearby, hands curled around the iron, looking down on Ren, concerned.
“Ren?” he asked. “Ren? Ren talk to me. What did you do? What happened?” He looked to Oz. “What did you do?”
“Ask him. I have to report.”
Oz left, and the force field engaged behind him. Its hum was loud in Ren’s ears.
“Ren?” Asher said. He knelt next to the wall. He shoved his arm through the slats and gripped Ren’s shoulder. “Are you all right?”
Asher’s voice and his touch grounded Ren, and the buzz in his head fell away. The desire to fuse with any available tech dimmed to an annoying twinge instead of a consuming fire.
“Ren?” Asher said softly.
Ren looked at Asher. “I’m exhausted.”
Asher swallowed. “Get some rest then. I’ll be right here.”
Reaching up, Ren patted Asher’s hand. The spark was more pronounced this time, but Ren ignored it. “Okay.”
“Go to sleep, duster.”
Ren smiled and gave in to sleep.
* * *
Ren slept the rest of the night and didn’t wake until Oz clanged open the door to his cell. When Ren stood to accept the shackles onto his wrists, he glanced at Asher.
He looked paler than normal, and dark circles stood stark under his eyes.
“Did you stay awake all night?”
“Someone had to make sure you were breathing.”
“Thank you.”
Asher offered a wan smile. “Don’t worry about it. You be careful today, okay? And make sure you come back. You have to tell me what happened.”
“I will.” Oz yanked on Ren’s chain, and he stumbled out of the cell. “See you in a few hours, Ash.”
Ren left the cell and walked the corridors to the courtyard. He didn’t bother counting the turns. His mind was still too fuzzy. He doubted he would get much work done.
“Are you taking me back to the ships?”
“No,” Oz said. “You’re not going to go back there for a while. It’s the courtyard today for you.”
Relief washed over him. He remembered the want that had coursed through him and he didn’t know if he could control it if he was on the ship. Small tech seemed a much safer bet.
Ren sat on his stool and surveyed the piles of broken tech.
Tentatively, he picked up a prod.
“Hey, Oz,” he said. “I want to try something. Be ready to knock me on my butt again.”
Oz snorted, but he nodded, his eyes fixed on Ren.
Ren took a breath and closed his eyes. He pushed at the prod, and his fingers tingled. He felt a surge of heat wrapping him in warmth from his middle to his shoulder and down his arm. It wasn’t like when Abiathar made him unlock the cuffs. He wasn’t being commanded. He did this on his own. He understood that now.
Ren imagined his power as a stream, and his will was a dam, a solid wall that held back the vastness of a lake. He could control a tendril. And he did, wielding the power with ease, seeking out the damaged parts of the prod. There was a loose connection in the energy source, and Ren mended it, using his mind to tighten down the joining. The prod sparked to life in his hand.
With considerable effort, Ren disentangled from the circuits and, when he was back within his organic self, he opened his eyes.
He gasped and dropped the prod. Oz eyed him with suspicion, while Ren’s pulse raced and he gulped down air.
“You need to learn to breathe when you do that,” Oz said. “You almost turned blue.”
“How long was I out?”
“A minute, maybe more.”
Ren took stock. He felt a little odd, but not nearly as bad as the day before. His hands tingled, but everything was attached. He was winded, as if he had beaten Liam in a footrace, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t recover from. He licked his lips.
“Can I have water?”
Oz shrugged. “Sure. I’ll get you a canteen.” He took a step, but paused. “Don’t do any more until I get back.”
“Good idea.”
Ren dropped the prod into a crate and picked up a comm. He studied it for a moment, twirled it in his fingertips.
Whatever this was… whatever Ren could do… he was going to master it and he was going to use it to escape. And he was going to take Asher and Sorcha and Jakob with him. He cocked his head as he observed the courtyard: the young boys carrying buckets, the reluctant soldiers training, the girls scrubbing dishes while guards leered. No, he was going to take them all with him.
6
Ren practiced for most of the morning and afternoon. He was careful not to overexert himself, but by the end of the day, his hands trembled and a fine sheen of sweat covered his skin. He drank two canteens of water. Evidently thirst was a side effect of using his gift. He wolfed down his lunch, which was brought to him by a kitchen girl. The recruits had left the courtyard, and the quiet allowed Ren to concentrate.
Though he’d thought he wouldn’t accomplish much, his pile of broken tech dwindled, and by dinnertime, he had one comm left to fix. He held it in his palm, took a breath and closed his eyes.
A commotion broke out near the main gate.
Ren snapped his eyes open. The recruits bustled back in with guards surrounding them, shouting at them to get into the courtyard, their prods and stunners at the ready. Ren heard “deserter” and “escape,” but the words mingled in the cacophony, and he couldn’t tell if it was guards or recruits who muttered them.
“What’s going on?” he asked Oz.
Oz shook his head. “I don’t know. Stay put. Don’t draw attention to yourself.”
Ren sat quietly. Oz was right. Ren didn’t want attention, especially now that he planned to use his gift as a means of escape.
However, all thoughts of not getting involved vanished when the last of the guards dragged in a bloodied Jakob, his hands bound in front of him, his feet tripping over the paving stones.
“Oh no,” Ren breathed.
He shot to his feet when they pulled Jakob onto the raised platform and kicked his legs out from under him. Jakob dropped to his knees with his head bowed and blood running in a steady stream down the side of his face. He looked a far cry from the boy Ren knew in his village. His cheeks had hollowed, and his clothes were tattered. Slouched forward, he was humbled in a way he never would’ve been back home.
“We have a deserter,” one of the guards on the platform yelled. The boom of his voice forced silence onto the courtyard. “This boy tried to sneak away from his post. General Abiathar will determine his punishment.”
Panic and sweat prickled Ren’s skin. He moved from behind his table to stand in front of it, though still separated from the crowd. Oz grabbed his arm and Ren shook him off, casting a glare in his direction.
“He’s my friend.”
“He’s good as dead. Don’t be stupid, Ren. You can’t do anything.”
Ren stood there, hands shackled, brown eyes wide as Abiathar emerged from within the keep and ascended the stairs. Dressed all in black, he looked like a shadow, except for the steel gray of his hair and beard. He walked a loop around Jakob, staring down at him like a buzzard lazily circling a corpse.
“What do you have to say for yourself?” he asked, polished black boot nudging Jakob’s side. “What was so important you risked your life and the lives of your fellow vil
lagers?”
Jakob raised his head. His voice wavered. “I want to go home.”
Each word pierced Ren to his core. His eyes filled with tears and his throat went tight. He couldn’t swallow the grief and the homesickness fast enough, and it spilled over in a wet gasp. He knew how Jakob felt, knew intimately the yearning for home, how it could fill every crevice until it consumed his thoughts. Ren had been trying to find a way. But he wasn’t fast enough. He hadn’t been fast enough.
“Home? You have no home.” Abiathar turned his piercing gaze to the crowd. “I warned you about the punishment for attempting escape. This boy must be an example for the rest of you. I hate to lose a potential soldier, but if his death will strengthen the resolve of the rest of you, so be it.”
“Death” rang in Ren’s head. Jakob was going to die.
“No!” Ren yelled.
He lunged forward, but Oz grabbed his arms and every head in the courtyard turned at his outburst. Even Jakob lifted his head. Ren fought against Oz’s grip, but he held fast, his fingers digging hard into the flesh of Ren’s arms.
“No! Don’t touch him! Please!”
Ren’s chains clanked as he hung in Oz’s grip, but he didn’t stop struggling, not even when Abiathar turned his predator’s eyes on him. Gaze locked on Ren as he thrashed, Abiathar lifted his fingers and gestured to the guards. They activated their prods so electricity sparked at the ends.
Ren ripped his arms away from Oz, just to be caught in another guard’s grip with a bicep like iron clamped across his chest. There were two on him now, and Oz’s voice echoed in his ears, urging him to stop, to calm down, but Ren couldn’t. He couldn’t. He had promised.
The guards on the stage inched their prods closer to Jakob. Ren managed to knock one of his captors down, but another took his place.
Time stopped when the sparking ends touched Jakob’s skin. He screamed. The sound stabbed through Ren. Jakob writhed. The electricity arched over him; its blue tangles streaked across his body, flashed from his open mouth.
Tears spilled over Ren’s cheeks. Sorcha’s scream wove with Jakob’s cries, horrific in intensity and anguish.
Ren had failed. He had failed, and he sagged in the guards’ grip, sobbing, yelling, still fighting.