J. Mitchell - The Severed Tower

There were four green-and-orange Hunters in the building, watching her intently. Since the others had left, these four had kept their glowing triangular eyes locked onto her, never moving, just watching her like some prized possession.

They didn’t want Zoey touching things in here, and she understood why. If just touching the frozen things unstuck them, what would happen if she touched that truck bursting through the wall?

It made her shiver thinking about it.

The other tripods, including the differently marked one, were outside. She could feel each of them, could point to them if she had to. They were circling the city ruins they’d found, but it was probably less for pursuers, Zoey guessed, than for the Anomalies.

It was odd, but she found comfort in the closeness of the Hunters, of relying on their senses and technology. Every time she thought of them, she thought back to riding as they raced through the dark. The walkers had run all night. Zoey had held on as they leaped and dodged through the invisible Anomalies, moving with agility and power, until she forgot she was holding on at all, and for a moment it felt like she was one of them. The Feelings stirred inside her pleasantly at the memory.…

But she wasn’t one of them, she told herself, pushing the Feelings away. The walkers were bad, and they had hurt her friends.

Before they left, the machines had hung Holt from the thick wooden rafters that spanned the length of the old building. He was still unconscious, recovering from his injuries, hanging limply about five feet off the floor, legs dangling underneath him.

Zoey swallowed and got to her feet, took a few tentative steps toward Holt. The walkers watched, but made no move to stop her.

“Holt,” she whispered. He didn’t respond, just hung silently. She said his name again, louder. On her tiptoes she couldn’t even reach his dangling feet. Zoey jumped upward, swatted at them, but she was still too short. She frowned, made ready to jump again…

…and then shrieked as the cloaking shields of more walkers flashed and dropped away, revealing three green-and-orange machines right beside her.

One was the leader, the scary one. It trumpeted angrily, stomped forward, and Zoey scampered back. The other two walkers just watched. So did the four at the other end of the room. The machine’s three powerful legs impaled the floor on all sides of her. It towered over her, its three-optic eye spinning and staring into her.

Zoey shut her eyes.

Then her mind was suddenly full of imagery and sound. It all came lightning quick, an impossible blend of sensation and impressions, and it was all too fast to make sense of. It flowed through her mind’s eye faster and faster, consuming all her thought.

And then it stopped.

Zoey exhaled violently. Her head was full of pain now. She moaned and clutched it between her hands. It was worse than it had ever been.

“Please…” Zoey said. “It hurts.”

The sensations came again, pouring into her head in a thick stream of suggestion. Zoey cried out, crumpled to the floor. “Please…”

The sensations ended. Above her, the walker trumpeted again. There was a note of frustration to it.

Green laser light flashed from two of the Hunters, and bathed Zoey in their glow, moving and focusing on her head. The pain lessened. Zoey looked up at the walkers. Somehow, they were stopping the pain.

The four tripods from the other end of the room joined the rest and added their own streams of warm, green laser light to Zoey’s head.

The pain vanished almost completely. More pain than she even knew she had been feeling. She slumped against the wall in relief, breathing in and out. It felt so amazing, a world without pain.

The lasers shut off. The differently marked walker stepped back, and stood unmoving like a statue. A humming emanated from it, so deep and low it vibrated the crumbling floorboards underneath Zoey’s legs. The sound began to grow louder and louder, building in power.

Zoey had no idea what was about to—

She shielded her eyes as bright, powerful light flooded the interior of the building.

The illumination bled up and out of the three-legged walker, drifting into the air, filling more and more of the interior with its radiance. When it was clear of the machine, it almost instantly formed into a brilliant, huge crystalline shape, made of pure energy, that hovered over Zoey.

The tripod that the field pulled itself out of suddenly became lifeless. Its lights died, there was a slow, descending hum as its mechanics shut down and it slumped downward. It was as if without the strange pulsing field of energy the walker was dead.

Zoey stared up at the bright, fluctuating crystalline shape. She had seen those shapes before, of course. They floated up and out of any destroyed Assembly craft. But those weren’t like this one. The glowing, geometric shape above her was not golden like all the others she had ever seen.

This one… was a brilliant green and orange —just like the colors of the walkers around it.

The two colors mixed together so perfectly it was impossible to tell where one began and the other ended. At the same time, both were distinct and prominent, and they lit everything in a combination of emerald and rusted light.

The sight was so beautiful, Zoey almost smiled.

An intense burst of static exploded to life in her mind. It overtook everything, roaring through her consciousness, and Zoey grabbed her ears, futilely trying to block it out.

But the static hiss pushed in regardless. The bright green-and-orange, light-filled shape pulsated above her. She wanted to cry out in fear—but stopped when the first “suggestion” came.

It was the best word Zoey had to describe it.

It was almost the same as the Feelings. Only these were much, much more powerful—forceful, insistent, and aggressive. They were loud and scary. And the pain was coming back. Building inside her head again, threatening to rip it apart.

Zoey screamed as the suggestions came in a powerful steady stream, filling her mind. They were like words or thoughts translated directly into pure perception, and they flashed by too fast for Zoey to make sense of.

“Stop!” the little girl cried out on the floor. “ Please …” The crystalline shape hovered over her. The stream of suggestion continued. Zoey wanted to weep, but she forced herself not to. She had to be strong. Like Mira and Holt. Like Max. But, the pain…

Green laser light flared outward from the walkers around her.

Zoey breathed out as the pain diminished. Even with the combined laser light of all the Hunters together, it wasn’t enough to stop it completely, but it was enough that she could think.

The sensations continued, one after the other, racing past like a flooded river.

Zoey reached out for the Feelings, the ones deep down in that other part of herself, and they rose, flooding her with comfort, giving her strength. She let their ideas wash over her, feeling what they intended. If she could just slow down the suggestions somehow, they seemed to say. If she could give herself time to read them, maybe it would be bearable then.

Instinctively, Zoey did the only thing she could think of. She pushed back with her own thoughts against the pure sensory information being force-fed into her mind.

And the stream shuddered. It slowed. For a brief moment she could almost make sense of the suggestions. The Feelings swirled in encouragement. Zoey pushed back even harder, projecting her own thoughts directly at the crystalline shape with all the strength she had.

The suggestions slowed again—and this time they stayed that way.

Zoey felt elated. As long as Zoey pushed back against the stream of sensations, she could force them into a more tolerable speed. She could understand them.