Jay Posey - Morningside Fall

Wren had gone to join Sky by the roof’s edge. He had his hood up, and was sitting cross-legged next to him. Cass walked over and sat down beside her son.

They all sat in silence for a time, watching the Weir down below. As terrible as they were, Cass found that the fear they inspired was diminished by the broad daylight. Surely the darkness of night lent them some greater measure of terror. Even so, seeing so many gathered as one force was daunting. The thought of the battle that awaited them was not one she relished.

But at the same time, if what Wren said was true, if Asher was alive in some measure, and exerting control over those creatures, something stirred within her at the idea of doing all she could to destroy them. Asher had hounded them long enough, had caused them more than a lifetime’s worth of sorrow. Cass would do whatever it took to ensure that he would never reach Wren again.

And another thought hung like a black cloud in the back of her mind, one she didn’t even want to acknowledge. The great dreadful unknown that had haunted her since her Awakening: the fear that she might somehow revert to a mindless thrall of the Weir. Now, a new possibility arose, more nightmarish than any previously conceived.

If Asher had found his way into the Weir, was there anything preventing him from reclaiming Cass as well?

“Hey, Governor,” Sky said. “All those down there. Any chance you could wake any of them?”

Wren was still and quiet for a few moments — before he finally shook his head slowly.

“Yeah,” Sky said. “Just thought I’d ask. Makes me feel better if I know that before I have to shoot them.”

The comment lingered in the air, heavy with the imminent storm that awaited them all.

“Could you do it again?” Cass asked. “Could you send Asher away again?”

“I don’t know, Mama,” Wren said. “I wouldn’t know where to start.” She leaned forward so she could see his face beneath his hood, and his eyes were sweeping back and forth, as if searching for a solution. “It’s him. I know it’s him. But he’s different somehow. He seems… bigger.”

Cass didn’t know what to make of that. Though it seemed that she so rarely knew what to make of anything these days. She put her arm around her son, not knowing what else to do.

“I wish Three were here,” Wren said.

“I know, baby.”

Surely it was pure coincidence. But moments later, the Weir below erupted in a truly appalling clamor, an evil cacophony of short barking bursts. Wren instantly clapped his hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut. Yet again, it was like no sound Cass had ever heard them make before. Even as she winced against the noise, her brain processed it all with the knowledge that Asher was behind it. And just as their strange call had become intelligible to her, this too she understood. It was the sound of a horrible mechanical laughter.

And she knew that Asher was mocking them. Taunting them. Toying with them, as was his way. Cass understood now. He wouldn’t breach the building. Not while the sun was up. He was content to keep them contained until dusk, when the full force of the Weir would be available.

Rage kindled in her heart. Not an explosive, violent anger, but a cold, hardened wrath. And as she cradled Wren’s head to her chest, she found herself no longer dreading the impending battle — but instead inviting it.

Sky was a patient man, but knowing his wife was downstairs with nothing but a couple of doors between her and all that trouble made every minute into a test of his will and focus. Everybody had their jobs to do. His was to watch all those Weir in the street below. It was not his job to worry. But, well, he was worried. He just had to trust his teammates to do their jobs the way they trusted him to do his.

When Gamble and the others finally returned to the roof, everyone huddled up near the middle, where Wick was. As he joined them, Sky hoped his relief at seeing his wife again wasn’t too obvious. The team always gave him grief over it, but never as much as Gamble did herself.

“Gettin’ close to go time,” Swoop said.

“Yep,” Finn answered.

It’d been about two and a half hours since Lil had sent her first message. They’d already gone over the plan multiple times, with multiple contingencies, but they talked it through again anyway. It all came down to basically the same thing. Swoop had rigged the fused front doors with a heavy charge, laid out to disintegrate a good portion of the entrance and turn it into a massive shotgun blast. After it detonated, Gamble, Swoop, Able, Finn, and Sky would kill as many Weir as they could, while Cass and Mouse carried Wick out, and Wren and Painter made a run for Lil and her people. After that, it was pretty much react and hope for the best.

Not much of a plan, really. But then Wick always said a plan was just a list of stuff that never happened anyway.

At that point, they’d all done everything they could to prepare. Now it was just sit and wait.

“I’m going back to my spot,” Sky said.

“Don’t get too comfy,” Gamble answered, and then winked at him. He gave her a little squeeze and returned to his position at the edge of the roof, smiling to himself. The wink had given her away. He hadn’t been the only one worried.

When Cass received Lil’s pim a few minutes later, a swirl of emotion came with it; relief that help was near tempered by the thought of what it would take to reach it. Cass steadied herself with a deep breath, and then signaled to Gamble and passed the message along.

“They’re about twenty minutes out.”

The team all started moving at once.

“Finn,” Gamble said. “They close enough to hook in to the secure channel?”

“Yeah, probably, I’d guess.”

“Patch Lil in so we can talk to her.”

“Check.”

“And go ahead and loop our principals in while you’re at it,” Gamble said, glancing over at Cass. “This would be a bad time for communication to break down.”

A few moments later Cass responded to a connection request and found herself tied in to the team’s secure comms channel. Finn quickly talked her through it; it wasn’t much different than pimming, though the voices were tinny and had a little static to them. Much lower resolution than normal, and significant compression. Standing next to someone, she could hear a tiny delay between their real voice and the one through the channel. Cass guessed it all helped reduce their signature in the open, and maybe had additional layers of encryption.

“Alright, let’s get Wick loaded up,” Gamble said. “We’ll move into position in five.”

Mouse had already assembled his emergency litter, and he worked with Finn to get Wick transferred and strapped into it. Wick didn’t make any jokes about it, and didn’t put up any fuss, which worried Cass a great deal. While everyone else was making ready, she pulled Gamble aside.

“Let me go out first,” Cass said.

“Out of the question,” Gamble replied immediately.

“Gamble–”

“Cass, it’s not up for discussion. We’ve got a plan, we’re sticking to it.” Gamble turned to walk away, but Cass reached out and caught her arm. She gripped tighter than was strictly necessary.

Gamble looked down at Cass’s hand and then back up into her eyes. “I thought we covered this, Cass. Out here, I call the shots.”

“You don’t know what you’re up against, Gamble,” Cass said. “And you don’t know me. Not really.” Cass released Gamble’s arm, but she didn’t back down. “Asher will come for me, no matter what. If I go to him, it’ll give you time to gain some distance. You transfer Wick to Lil’s people, and then you’re back up to almost full strength. I can fall back to you then, and you can pick off the pursuit.”