J. Mitchell - The Severed Tower

And there was something else, something mind-boggling. The opposite wall was bursting inward, in a frozen explosion, where a huge tractor trailer truck was punching through. Bricks, debris and wood, it all hung suspended in the air.

He suddenly knew why, and he groaned out loud at the realization. He was in the Strange Lands now. Wonderful.

Holt struggled against his bonds, trying to break them loose, but the strands of strange material holding him were too strong. He looked at the other end of the building. The elevated part of the room contained an old judge’s bench, and the rest of the walkers were gathered around it, standing in a circle, looking down at something underneath them.

It was Zoey.

She was here, too, he saw with relief. She was okay.

Then Holt looked closer. In front of her were four small toys. A train and a car were doing figure eights around each other, helicopters were zigzagging in between the walkers that circled Zoey. She appeared to be concentrating intensely. The little girl’s eyes were shut, and her hands were covered in the same glowing, wavering golden energy Holt had seen at the dam.

She was controlling the toys—but why?

“Zoey?” he asked softly.

The girl’s concentration broke. The golden energy vanished. Her eyes ripped open.

“Holt!” Zoey yelled. The car and train slowed to a stop. The small helicopters crashed to the floor.

The group of Hunters watched as Zoey rushed to Holt and stared up at him, beaming. Then the smile vanished. The little girl turned, looked back toward the tripod that had been underneath him—the one with the different markings, the Royal.

Holt watched the little girl and the alien machine stare at each other intently. Though no words passed between them, they held themselves as if speaking to one another. The thought was chilling.

“It says I can talk to you. For a second,” Zoey said. “It says it’s my reward.”

“Reward for what?” Holt asked warily.

Zoey told him everything, and most of it came back to him as she did. The death of the Crossroads, how he was shot, his wounds. These walkers had carried them both a long way, ventured into the Strange Lands to avoid other Assembly clans that were looking for her, had taken up inside this old ruin. They were waiting for a ship to come and pick them up, to take them back across the sea.

“The sea?” Holt asked.

“The one to the east,” Zoey said. “Their land’s on the other side.”

Did she mean the Atlantic? Was their “land” Europe? Africa? It implied the Assembly had divided the planet between clans of some sort. If so, it meant these green-and-orange walkers had come a long way to find her.

“Zoey,” Holt continued. “Did they… fix me where I was hurt?”

Zoey nodded.

“Why? Why not just kill me? Why bring me along?”

“You impressed it, the Royal liked the way you did things in the flooded place, and how you escaped it the other times, too. It thinks you’re good enough for…” Zoey paused as she tried to put words to something, as if translating a foreign language. “The ‘Criterion,’ I think is right. The Mas’Erinhah are more picky about who they test than the others.”

“Mas’ what?” Holt stared down at her like a complete stranger.

Zoey looked at the green-and-orange tripod walkers behind her. “It’s the name of their clan, or at least the best I can pronounce it. They don’t really use words to talk with. I have to make my own up sometimes, to fit what they show me.”

Holt felt the same chill at her words.

“It’s not really talking; it’s hard to explain. But… I understand them. And they understand me.” She looked back up at him and he could see the fear in her eyes. “They make me… remember things, Holt. The things they teach me, it’s like I’ve done them before. Like I forgot how to do them and now I’m remembering again.” Her voice had a haunted tone to it. “I remember more and more, the longer I stay near them. I don’t understand why, I don’t like what they show me. It scares me. They call me the Scion.”

The word bothered Holt for all kinds of reasons. It wasn’t just that they had a name for Zoey, a label, or that she was something specific to them. It was also that the word itself had a sense of menace to it, somehow.

He had to get them both out of this. Quick—before whatever dropship these “Mas’Erinhah” were waiting for showed up.

Holt looked and followed the thin line of cable that held him to the rafter. It looked like the same strange, fibrous material the aliens used to tie Zoey inside that crashed ship so long ago. From what Holt remembered, it was thin and cut easily, but it was also incredibly strong. He wouldn’t be able to simply snap it, and he had no way to sever it.

But the rafter the line he was tied to was a different story. Holt could make out the cracks that ran through it. It had been weakened, probably by that truck plowing into the building. If he could use his weight somehow, shake that rafter hard enough—it might break. He’d hit the floor pretty hard, but he should be okay.

Holt could feel his Swiss Army Knife in a pocket of his cargo pants. In fact, he could feel all his stuff, minus what had been in his pack, of course. The Assembly hadn’t bothered to remove it. They probably didn’t consider any of it a threat. If Zoey could get that knife once he hit the floor, she could cut his bonds herself.

The problem was, for the plan to work, they would pretty much have to be alone inside the courthouse, which meant… they needed a diversion.

“Did you see the wall, Holt?” Zoey asked. She was looking at the truck with wonder.

Holt frowned, refused to look back at the thing. “Yeah, I saw it.”

“If you touch it, it unsticks in time.”

Holt shivered. This place was a nightmare. “Then we probably shouldn’t do that, wouldn’t you say? How far are we into the Strange Lands, anyway?”

Zoey shook her head. “I don’t know, but the Mas’Erinhah are very good at finding Anomalies. We’re safe with them.”

Holt didn’t say so, but he wasn’t sure he felt the same way.

“Do you think Mira will come after us?” Zoey asked.

Mira.

The mention of her brought pangs of shame. He saw himself standing over her, Chance Generator in one hand, his other poised to strike. He remembered the scared and hurt look in her eyes.

He’d almost hit her. It still didn’t seem real, but he knew it was.

The Chance Generator. If only he had that now, he could—

No, he told himself sternly.

He had to let that go. Mira was right. It had changed him, made him reliant on it instead of himself. It had made him do things he never would have imagined, and it may also have cost him whatever feelings Mira still had for him. He hoped he never saw that thing again.

“Unfortunately, kiddo, I think she’s too smart for that,” Holt said. “Don’t worry, though. I’ll figure something out.”

“I know, Holt,” Zoey said simply. “You always do.”

Behind her, the green-and-orange walkers watched them. Holt sighed, looked back up to the rafter he was hanging from. All he needed now… was a miracle.

THE ASSEMBLY TRACKS HAD VEERED OFF the Forlorn Passage about ten miles back, and headed down a rural road lined with old barns and farmhouses before ending here. That road hadn’t been marked as safe in Mira’s Lexicon, and she’d spent a good amount of time steering the pirates through pockets of Vector Fields and Daisy Chains.

The Menagerie were still proving themselves capable; they hadn’t slowed their pace at all, and much to Mira’s relief, no more had died. Ravan, for her part, seemed unsurprised by her men’s performance. She drove them hard and expected their best.