J. Mitchell - The Severed Tower

More buildings fell from the air and crashed. The Gravity Well flickered. What was left of the superstructure of Polestar groaned pitifully.

“She means Zoey,” Holt said.

The girl looked at him now. “Where?”

“We don’t know!” Holt told her. “She might be at the bottom, but we’re—”

“She’s not at the bottom!” the girl yelled in exasperation. “We would have felt her, but we felt nothing!”

“If she’s near the Well, it might block her connection to—” Another Helix started, but cut off as the building shook violently, pulling free of its supports. It was about to take them all with it.

“Damn it!” the girl yelled in frustration, lowering her goggles back over her eyes.

“What do we do with them? ” one of her men asked.

“Let them die,” spat another. “Let them die here with this place.”

“No,” the girl said sternly. “Bring them. They can answer to Gideon for the loss of the Prime. Go! ”

With that, she turned, ran… and leaped straight off the edge of the building. Mira stared in shock as the girl fell through the air and disappeared.

Polestar shuddered its last death throe. All around them the Helix leaped off the infirmary into the air with excited yells. Mira felt hands yank her up, saw two others grabbing Holt.

Then they were both being shoved toward the drop.

“Wait!” Mira gasped, trying to pull away.

A Helix whispered in her ear, “Hold on or die, Freebooter.”

Mira screamed as the building disappeared under her feet and she was falling through the air faster and faster, the ground hurdling up at her. There was a sudden flash of orange, and their descent slowed violently, as though they had used a parachute.

The effect floated them downward, and as they did Mira saw more White Helix, flipping and spinning in flashes of color, leaping between the various buildings as they fell to pieces, shouting gleefully as they tumbled through the air a thousand feet above the ground. They were actually enjoying this.

The Helix landed gracefully on what was left of the Mezzanine, but Mira hit the ground and collapsed. So did Holt right next to her. They looked at each other, wide-eyed. One minute they were on the infirmary, hundreds of feet in the air, the next—

“Get up, Outlanders!” one of the Helix yelled as he ran by. There was excitement in his voice. “ Run! Run for all you’re worth!”

Above them the massive column of energy flashed and flickered once, twice… and then it died. Fading to black. Mira gasped in shock, she couldn’t believe it. The Gravity Well was gone, after all this time…

The Spire of Polestar groaned mournfully, what was left of the main supports buckling and crumbling under its own weight. Screams echoed up and down its length, the final sounds of those still trapped there.

Holt yanked Mira up, dashing away from the city as fast as they could, dodging through the refuse of the once-beautiful buildings and bridges that had spiraled high into the air.

As they ran, Mira saw a lone figure sitting where the grand stairway once was, staring off into space.

“Deckard!” she shouted. She thought he looked up as she ran, but she couldn’t be sure. Either way, he didn’t move. He just sat there calmly, alone, waiting for it all to end.

Then Polestar, the pride of the Freebooters, the great beacon of the third ring, came crashing down in a thunderous symphony of destruction that was unlike anything Mira had ever imagined.

“Zoey!” she yelled in anguish—but there was nothing anyone could do.

* * *

ZOEY’S ENTIRE BODY SHOOK, her knees buckling, the throbbing in her head unbearable. But still she held on.

She felt Max grab her pants in his teeth, try to pull her away, but she fought him off, too. “The Max has to go!” she yelled over the rumblings and crashings and screams in the air. “Go!”

The dog just growled, kept trying to drag her away.

Tears streamed from her eyes. This was all her fault, it was all—

She sensed something suddenly. A suggestion, like those from the Royal and the Mas’Erinhah. But it wasn’t them. It was something else.

Scion, it said. Let go.

Zoey hesitated. She was confused, didn’t understand.

It ends, the suggestion came again. It falls. Let go.

The sensations were growing stronger, their source was coming closer, racing toward her. Zoey opened her eyes and looked up.

Max howled as a five-legged, silver Assembly walker exploded through the stone wall that surrounded the courtyard. The same walker that had appeared twice before.

Zoey stared at it wide-eyed as it landed in front of them, barely able to keep control, barely able to hold on as the walker rushed toward her and Max.

We are here. Let go.

Zoey had little choice. The pain in her head was too much, her energy was spent. The golden light vanished around her, the connection with the Well severed, and she collapsed painfully to the ground.

Everything was a haze now. She could hear Max barking wildly next to her, could feel the giant, silver walker above her, and she could see the Gravity Well in front of her.

It flickered again—and then died, snuffed out like some massive candle wick. Snuffed out by her, Zoey thought with guilt.

The city roared above as it began to collapse straight down toward them.

The energy shield of the colorless Assembly walker flashed on, sealing them away in a wavering, powerful cocoon of light, as the world thundered apart around them and everything went black.

BEN AND MIRA MADE CAMP in what was left of an old country church in the second ring, three days’ journey from where the Time Shift had almost killed them at the antique shop. The building’s roof had fallen in long ago, revealing the night sky, and where the ceiling used to be the stars burst apart in prismatic color, over and over again, like tiny fireworks forever in the distance. Something about the atmosphere over the second ring filtered and changed the light from the stars, and gave them this mesmerizing effect.

Mira and Ben were wrapped together under their blankets, her head on his chest, and it felt like they had lain there for weeks instead of hours. The photograph of her father was propped up on one of the church’s old pews, and Mira stared at him, studying the lines around his eyes, the curve of his smile. They were things she never wanted to forget or lose, and she almost had.

“Is it just me,” Ben asked, “or is it a little weird that we’ve been doing what we’ve been doing with him there?”

“No.” Mira smiled. “He’d be happy, I think. Happy I was happy.”

“You miss him a lot.” Ben’s fingers moved through her hair.

Mira nodded. “This picture’s a good memory.”

“Tell me another.”

Mira thought a moment, then rolled over so she could stare up at the flashing sky through the ceiling.

“So, okay. That’s Libra,” Mira told him, pointing upward. “The big triangle, see it?”

“Yeah,” Ben answered.

“East is Andromeda, and Scorpio is in between them.”

“It’s supposed to be a scorpion?” Ben asked skeptically.

“You have to use your imagination to see it,” Mira replied softly. “It took my dad a million years to point out all the different stars to me before I saw the shape—but the whole time I never felt like he wanted to be anywhere else. And when I saw it, he was just as excited as I was. Every time I see it I think of him.”

Ben stared up at the constellation thoughtfully. “It just looks like a bunch of dots to me. But I’ve never been very good with imagination.”