J. Mitchell - The Severed Tower

“What’s that stuff?” Ravan asked.

“Ever get bubble gum in your hair as a kid?” Mira asked back. “What did your mom do?”

“My mom was too drunk most the time to do much of anything, but I think you mean peanut butter. Spreading it in the hair loosens the gum.”

Mira nodded. “This works the same way. We call it Paste, it’s a mix of silicone, magnet shavings, and mercury. It separates artifacts from each other, loosens the molecular bonds between them and whatever they’re fused to. It’s how we get artifacts loose.”

As Mira spread the paste over the screws they sparked and sizzled, vibrating, pulling loose. She reached in with her fingers and worked one of them free. She smiled. They might get out of this yet.

The door rattled behind Mira. She spun, saw the handle turning and raised her light at it.

The rattling stopped.

Ravan was slouched against the wall, staring off in a daze.

“Ravan!” Mira shouted. It snapped the girl out of it, and she raised her flashlight again. Mira glared at her. “You have to stay awake or we’re both dead! The only reason we have a shot is because there’s two of us—we can watch both directions.”

“It’s so hard…” Ravan said, blinking her eyes, trying to focus.

“Talk to me, then,” Mira said. “It’ll help.”

“About what? I don’t got any gossip to share.”

“I don’t know. Tell me your story.” It was the only thing Mira could think of. “Tell me who you were before the invasion.”

Ravan shook her head angrily. “Screw that. Everyone has stories. I’m tired of hearing them. It doesn’t matter who you used to be.”

“Fine. You pick the topic. But talk. ”

“Fear,” Ravan answered. “Nothing keeps you more focused than fear. It’s the most useful emotion. More than pain, even.”

“You must be a blast at parties.” Mira turned back to the artifacts on the shelf—but for the life of her, she couldn’t remember which one she needed to—

The battery! Right.

She started working on one inside its box with the Paste, loosening it, watching the sparks as she did, using them to guide her. “So tell me what you’re afraid of then.”

“Dying alone,” Ravan simply said.

Mira laughed at the answer. “Well, you beat that one. If we’re going to die, it’ll be together.” Mira burned loose one of the D batteries and grabbed it, set it on the floor with the screw. Then she turned to the case of tonic water, started working on it next. “Is that it? Just dying alone?”

“No. Dying and not… earning it.”

Mira’s eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”

“Means…” Ravan didn’t finish; just sat blinking, trying to think.

“ Ravan, ” Mira said louder. “What does that mean? ”

“It means… I’ve seen the Tone take kids worth ten of me. But, I’m still here, and I don’t know why. I don’t know why me and not them . All I know is, whatever the reason, I don’t want to waste the extra time I got. And I’m scared I might.” Mira felt the girl’s attention shift to her for just a moment. “I mean, doesn’t that bother you ?”

The truth was, Mira hadn’t always been Heedless. Her answer would be a lot different. But before she could reply, her head filled with dizziness and the components spilled from her hands. She tried to reach for…

What was she reaching for again? Something. Something important…

“ Hey! ” Ravan yelled at her.

Mira focused, remembering what she was doing. She grabbed the components, arranged them on the ground. God, it would feel so much better to just shut her eyes—but she couldn’t. She had to keep going.

“Make the stupid artifact,” Ravan told her. “Talk. Tell me yours. Tell me what you’re afraid of.”

Even in spite of the dizziness, the answer came to Mira’s mind easily, but was it really something she wanted to share with Ravan? She hadn’t talked about it with anyone, not even Holt; she’d kept it bottled up inside, and it was starting to ache there. But maybe Ravan was the perfect person to confide in. She didn’t care about Mira one way or another. Plus, they were probably going to die, anyway.

“I’m scared of failing,” Mira said. It was strange to hear the words. A simple sentence that broke down a host of complicated emotions into its most basic idea. It hurt to hear them.

Ravan, however, scoffed. “That’s a softball answer. Everybody’s scared of that.”

“No. I mean failing people I care about. That scares me more than anything.”

Mira finished the first tier, wrapped it in duct tape from her pack, then broke the bottle of water against the concrete floor.

When she did, there was a bright spark and a hum, like something electrical powering up.

A rippling sphere of some kind of blue substance formed over and wrapped around the artifact. It was like a shell of water, only petrified and hard. Mira picked it up. It was cold in her hand.

“Failing who?” Ravan asked her.

Mira tried to focus, to think… “Holt and Zoey. I promised them I’d get them to the Severed Tower. They’re relying on me, but I know I’m not good enough. I’m going to fail, and when I do, they’re going to die. They’re going to die and it will be my fault.” There it was: the truth. Spoken out loud.

Ravan was silent a moment. “The quickest way to screw something up is to believe that’s what you’re going to do,” she said. “You don’t believe in yourself, you might as well quit.”

“It’s not that simple. I know my limits.”

“Limits are bullshit,” Ravan said. “They don’t exist except in your head. Something bad happened to you. Whatever it was, someone should have kicked your ass and got you back out there, but they didn’t. They did the opposite. They told you this stuff and filled your head with it, made you doubt yourself. Whoever that is, they ain’t your friend. I’ve had people like that around me my whole life: bastard father; pathetic mother; brothers in juvenile for stupid, senseless crap. I would have got out of there as soon as I could pass for eighteen, but the Assembly took care of that for me. I meet those kinds of people now—I shoot them.”

Mira laughed. “I’m not really sure that’s an option for me.”

The door to the room creaked open.

Ravan tried to kick it shut, but she was too weak now. She lost her balance and fell over, weakly raising her light back up. Shadows, horrible ones, massing and pulsing around the door, disappeared.

But her light was dimming, it was running out…

“Hurry,” Ravan whispered.

Mira put together the second tier, using the blue-shelled one as the Essence. Her hands shook as she did. It wasn’t just becoming impossible to think, it was getting hard to move.

She wrapped the combination in duct tape. Another flash, another hum. It was ready.

Mira tried to stand—but failed. She fell to the ground, her head full of fog. She was losing herself.

“Mira…” Ravan’s voice was weak. Her light was dying. The door rattled.

Mira forced herself to move, crawling toward the sink. Above them the air vent into the closet shook as something tried to rip it off. Mira aimed her flashlight up at the vent. The shaking stopped.

There was a soft exhale from Ravan at the other end of the room, and Mira saw her slump to the floor, the flashlight fading away.

“Move.” Mira tried to yell, but the words came out feeble. “Move. Move! Move! ” Each separate word was louder, carried more force, filled her with partial strength. “ Move! ”

The door creaked open. Things squirmed in the dark outside.