J. Mitchell - The Severed Tower

“A lot more than a dozen. What are they?”

“Vector Fields. Two-dimensional walls of charged particles. The first ring in this direction is full of them.”

“What happens if you touch one?”

“Every atom in your body explodes,” Mira answered simply. Ravan unconsciously took a step toward the middle of the highway. “They’re repelled by metal. Which makes this old road the only safe passable route to the northwest. The cars repel the Fields. There’s a Stable Anomaly coming up. Once we’re past it, we shouldn’t have to worry about Vector Fields anymore.”

At least Mira hoped so. For all she knew, the Grindhouse was gone and the Vector Fields were replaced with something much worse.

“Why’s it different now?” Ravan asked.

“I don’t know,” Mira admitted. “Something’s wrong with the Strange Lands. They’re changing. It’s why the Crossroads was evacuated.”

There was a commotion behind them, back near the middle of the line. One of the pirates had collapsed next to an old station wagon and was on the ground.

“It’s Keller,” one of Ravan’s men said. The name was enough to grow a scowl on the girl’s face. Whatever was happening, it wasn’t unexpected. Ravan moved down the line toward the boy.

“Come on, stinky,” Mira said to Max, following after the girl.

The boy lay shuddering on the ground, spasming and breathing heavy. Two of the pirates were holding him down, while the others stood in an ever-tightening circle, trying to get a glimpse.

“Get back, give him room,” Ravan yelled, pushing through them.

The boy was tall and big, older than Mira, probably about twenty, easily the most muscular of the group, and he was missing a finger on his left hand. One look and Mira knew what was wrong. His eyes were full of black. He was fighting the Tone—and he was losing. He had a tremendous will to stay himself, she could tell, but it wasn’t going to be enough.

“Keller. You hear me?” Ravan knelt down and put her hand on the boy’s chest. He didn’t respond, he was lost in his struggle. “I know it’s tough, you’re a fighter. I get that. But there’s always something stronger than us. Nothing to be ashamed of, just the way of the world. You listening, Keller?”

Keller just kept shaking on the ground, groaning.

“You remember that Landship we took in the Barren, the fast one, the one with the train engine grill on its front?” Ravan asked with a soft voice, smiling slightly. There was a surprising touch of tenderness in her tone. “It was your idea to jump off a Gyro onto the masts, rip the sails with knives, and ride them down onto the deck, strand the ship. Said you saw it in some stupid pirate movie. Most insane idea I’d ever heard for robbing a Landship—but hell if it didn’t work.”

The pirates around her laughed softly, remembering the moment themselves. Keller’s body slowly calmed as Ravan spoke, until he was lying peacefully on the ground, staring up at the sky with his black eyes.

“No one else would have been crazy enough to try that,” Ravan said. “It’s what I’ll remember about you.”

A barely audible, cracked voice answered her, and it took a moment for Mira to realize it was Keller. “Just… give me a moment, boss,” he said hoarsely. “Be back on my feet. Keep going. You… know I can.”

Ravan nodded. “Yeah. I know. You’re one tough bastard, Keller.”

Keller’s chest rose as he inhaled a long, last breath—and then the air hissed slowly out of his mouth. His body went limp as he Succumbed, sinking peacefully into the asphalt of the old highway.

Mira closed her eyes as he faded. She felt guilty. Guilty at the relief that came, knowing this was a fate Zoey had spared her from. Even though he was Menagerie, she still felt sorry for him. He became a pirate because of the very thing that had just taken him. Who knew what Keller would have been if the Assembly hadn’t come? Peace activist? Philosopher? Poet? In this world he became a brigand. And that was how it was.

The pirates were all silent now. Ravan stared down at Keller another moment and then stood back up. She nodded to one of her men, and the boy unstrapped a rifle from his back and threw it to her. Ravan cocked it and aimed down at the boy who had been Keller. The group of pirates backed up.

“Wait!” Mira shouted, horrified. “What are you doing?”

Ravan slowly turned to Mira with a look that suggested she wasn’t used to being questioned.

“You can’t just… shoot him,” Mira continued, aghast. Surely even they could see that.

“He’s worse than dead, little darling,” Ravan replied with an icy tone. “Killing him’s a charity.”

Mira’s fists clenched. She’d had enough. “My name is Mira. It’s not ‘little one’ or Red or Freebooter. It’s Mira. ”

“You haven’t earned me using your name, Red.” Ravan took a step toward Mira, and the others backed up farther. “Until you do, I’ll stick with ‘little girl’ or ‘dear heart’, or any other name I feel like calling you. And you sure as hell haven’t earned the right to tell me what to do with my men. What is it you’d like to see happen here? Let him become some mindless drone for the Assembly? That what you do with your friends when they Succumb?”

Mira glared back. “It’s not that simple.”

“Isn’t it? How about we take a poll?” Ravan looked around at her crew. “Anyone here who’d rather be put down when your time comes than become some vegetable for the Assembly, raise your hand.”

The arm of every single Menagerie pirate raised without hesitation. They stared at Mira with fire in their eyes.

“Any other objections?” Ravan asked.

Mira sighed and looked away. What was there to say? Everyone made their own choices. Just because they were ones she wouldn’t make herself, that didn’t invalidate them. “At least do it with some compassion.”

Beneath them, what used to be Keller stirred and slowly pushed himself to his feet. When he was up, he stared sightlessly behind them, unaware of anything anymore. He began to walk, trudging step after step, back the way they’d come.

Ravan kept her back to him, still staring at Mira. “What, everyone should gather around and sing hymns before we do it? What’s the point of that? I already gave him my compassion. That story I told a second ago wasn’t just to calm him. It’s what I’ll carry forward for him, just like I carry forward something from every one of my boys who Succumbs. Because just like you, I’m Heedless. It’s the only thing I can offer them. The fact that they won’t be forgotten.”

Ravan spun on her heel and raised the rifle in a blur. She pulled the trigger and Mira flinched as the gun flashed. What used to be Keller, about twenty feet away, fell to the ground and went still.

Ravan tossed the rifle back to the same boy, and looked again at Mira.

“Compassion comes in all kinds of flavors,” Ravan said tightly. There was pain in her voice. “But they don’t all taste like pumpkin pie.”

The two girls held each other’s gaze. Mira forced herself not to look away.

“Get moving, Freebooter,” Ravan told her. “You got a lot of ground to cover.”

Mira stared back a second more, then spun and headed back to the northwest, down the ruined highway, pulling Max along with her. She could hear the others gathering their things behind her, readying to move again.

As she walked, thunder rolled around them, a strange anamorphic kind that was unique to the Strange Lands, and it always seemed to echo longer than it should. Mira looked to the black Antimatter clouds in the darkening sky to the north and saw flashes of green and red lightning.

The storm was growing. It looked ominous. Just like everything else.