J. Mitchell: The Severed Tower

An explosion flared up and rocked the ground from the other side of the wall. Yellow bolts of light sizzled through the air around her, ripping into other buildings she was just now noticing. A drugstore, a gas station, a post office, all of them crumbling and falling apart where they stood.

As Mira Toombs’s memory returned, she remembered where she was and why.

She’d stashed an emergency kit in these ruins years ago, inside an old school. Supplies for the Strange Lands, if she ever needed to go there on her own or in a hurry, and she’d convinced Holt and Zoey to help her find it before heading to the Crossroads.

The good news was that they’d found the pack. A black canvas bag with a strap that fit around her waist. It was still there, she could see the red δ symbol embroidered on its front flap. The bad news was that, right as she’d found it, they had shown up.

Assembly walkers. The frontline troops of the alien armada that had conquered the planet almost a decade ago, and who had been obsessively pursuing them for more than a month.

She hadn’t had time to see what kind or how many before the plasma bolts sent her to the floor and everything went dark, but judging by all the heated death flying through the air right now, there were a lot of them.

“Mira!” The voice was masculine this time. One she recognized and depended on. She felt hands on her, one of them turned her head to the left, and when it did Holt Hawkins came into view.

Mira smiled, still groggy. He looked the same as always.

His thick, wavy hair messed up and unkempt, but somehow still intentional in its look. Tall and well built, with brown eyes that never seemed anything but confident, no matter how crazy the world got. Even now, in the middle of this chaos, there was a calculated awareness of everything going on around them that somehow made her feel safe. He was one of the few that ever had.

“Mira! Can you hear me?” More plasma bolts flew by.

Mira made herself focus, quickly brushed the red hair out of her eyes. “How’d you get us out of there?”

“Wasn’t easy,” Holt replied. “You’re a lot heavier than Zoey.”

“Thanks a lot,” she said tartly.

“Mira!” It was the little girl’s voice from before. Mira felt tiny arms wrap around her from the other side, and she looked down.

Zoey’s head was buried under Mira’s arm, the little girl’s eyes peeking out through her blond hair. It always felt wrong seeing Zoey in a place like this, in the middle of something life threatening. A little girl, barely eight years old, didn’t belong here. Yet here she was.

Next to Zoey sat something else, its chin and paws across the little girl’s legs, its beady eyes staring right at Mira. She felt her usual loathing at the sight of it.

“You…” she said.

Max, Holt’s stinking cattle dog, growled back at her, but that was nothing new. The dog still saw her as Holt’s prisoner. But as long as Mira didn’t have to touch the thing, she was fine having it around. Holt had trained Max well, and he had his uses.

Zoey flinched as another explosion rocked the ground.

“We have to get out of here,” Holt said. “Can you move?”

“I think so.” She felt the wound on her leg and grimaced. It wasn’t bad, the plasma bolt had only singed her, but it stung nonetheless. “What are you thinking?”

“I have… kind of a plan.” He wasn’t entirely convincing. “We gotta find a residential neighborhood.”

The corner of the wall exploded in shards of plaster. There was a series of loud thuds on the roof above them, and Mira craned her neck to look up.

Staring down at them, a silhouette against the bright sky, was a powerful and terrifying machine. As she’d guessed, it was an Assembly walker—but of a type, up until a month ago, she’d never seen before.

Green and orange, like the ones that had chased them into the Drowning Plains; three legs, a tripod, lithe and agile—but it was different, too. It looked more heavily armed, with blocky equipment on its back. Also, it looked newer. Its armor and colors were unscratched.

LEDs flashed on its body, and its red, blue and green–triangular, three-optic “eye,” the same one all Assembly walkers had, whirred as it focused down on her.

Mira stared back at it, frozen in fear.

“Come on!” she heard Holt shout as he yanked them up.

A mass of metallic netting fired from the walker above and slammed into the ground, barely missing. It was clearly meant to snare them.

“At least they’re not trying to kill us,” Holt yelled—and then ducked as a stream of plasma bolts sparked into the ground all around him.

“You were saying?” Mira shouted back.

As they ran, strange noises filled the air. Trumpet-like sounds almost, but electronic and distorted. They seemed to echo from everywhere, answering each other back and forth.

Max raced past, charging after Holt as he dodged another blast of plasma.

“Mira!” Zoey shouted behind her. The little girl was falling behind, her little legs unable to keep up. Mira lifted Zoey onto her back and ran after Holt.

Holt headed for a row of crumbling houses nearby, but the walkers were everywhere. She could see them in the streets, leaping between old buildings or cars. They were surrounded.

As they ran, Mira saw Holt’s hand slip into his jacket pocket. A second later, a sphere of yellow energy crackled around him briefly, then disappeared.

Mira’s eyes widened. Had she just seen what she—

Mira ducked as plasma fire whizzed harmlessly by and sparked against what was left of a delivery van. They were out in the open, the walkers shouldn’t have missed. But somehow they had.

Mira kept running, following after Holt and Max.

Zoey screamed as a tripod leaped into view behind them and gave chase, its cannons beginning to hum; but before it could get close, an errant stream of plasma bolts slammed into it, sending it spinning and crashing to the ground in flaming debris, a victim of friendly fire.

Another improbability.

Mira kept running with Zoey, weaving in and out of old cars, headed for the houses just ahead. She caught Holt, and together they rounded the side of an old, badly leaning billboard—and came skidding to a jarring stop.

In front of them stood another Hunter.

The thing sprung toward them… and the decrepit billboard chose that moment to come crashing down. Holt shoved Mira and Zoey out of the way as the structure collapsed in a shower of wood and steel, and buried the tripod where it stood.

When the dust cleared, Mira checked Zoey. She was fine. So were Holt and Max. Mira looked at Holt with suspicion.

“How are you—?” Mira began.

Holt grabbed Zoey before she could finish, pulling her onto his back as they all started running again. Another flash of color, orange, flared around him, and Mira’s heart sank as she saw it.

There was no denying it now. The colors. The improbable outcomes that kept saving them. The Chance Generator was in Holt’s pocket, and he was using it.

Ahead of them she saw what Holt was running for. The exterior garage of a ruined house; a small, barely standing building that still covered what remained of an old, rusting pickup truck.

Holt ran for it as fast as he could, carrying Zoey with him, and Mira followed. Max must have figured it out, too, because the dog dashed ahead and bounded into the back of the truck.

Mira felt the heat of plasma fire as she ducked inside the garage.

The truck was in bad shape, a hulking piece of metal with broken windows, but, miraculously, it had four working tires.

“Zoey, get inside,” Holt told the little girl as he sat her down. She climbed into the old truck, over to the passenger side.