J. Mitchell - The Severed Tower

Of course, Polestar and its Gravity Well no longer existed, did they? Mira tried to ignore the thoughts, kept talking.

“Ben was there, too,” she said. “So were Echo and Deckard, and others. I had this plan to beat the Anomaly. I was only ten then, but still really impressed with myself.” She paused, the memories and the guilt all coming back. “A group of people decided to follow my plan. And…”

“They died,” Holt finished for her.

“Most of them. Not all. Echo survived. So did Ben. But not the rest. And it was my fault. They followed me, and they’re not here anymore, same as Zoey.”

Holt studied her. “These people. You made them come with you?”

Mira sighed. “It’s not that simple.”

“It was their choice, sounds like, and whatever your plan was, it couldn’t have been all that bad. You survived it, didn’t you? Maybe they just weren’t as good as you. That’s not your fault, either.”

“I survived because of Ben,” Mira whispered. “I couldn’t have been a Freebooter without him. Hell, far as Deckard and a few others were concerned, I never should have been.”

“But you made it this far without any of them. Didn’t you?” Holt asked. “Why do you keep discounting everything you’ve done? It’s like all you can see is the negative.”

Mira turned to him, unable to find an argument, but also unable to bring herself to agree. He was right. Why was it so hard for her?

“The Arc is entering meditation.” A sharp voice made them jump. The small girl, the White Helix leader, stood almost on top of them, still sweating from the morning training. Behind her the other Helix had disbanded. Neither Holt nor Mira had noticed her approach. It was disconcerting.

“Well,” Holt replied, “thanks for the update.”

The girl’s stare didn’t waver. “After meditation we leave for Sanctum. We’ll get there tonight, if they haven’t resettled.”

“Who are you?” Mira asked.

“My name’s Avril,” the girl said, and Mira remembered the Forlorn Passage, how Ravan seemed to recognize the girl. “I am the Doyen of the twenty-seventh Arc of the White Helix. And I had been given the honor of returning the Prime to Sanctum, but that… isn’t going to happen anymore, is it?” Her voice was bitter. That “honor,” it seemed, was something she valued, but Mira felt no sympathy for her.

Avril balanced on one end of her Lancet. Where the sharpened, red spear point touched the tattered wooden floorboards, a thin trail of smoke began to rise. The crystal was burning through it, a testament to its power, and Holt studied the effect curiously.

“Can you… shoot those things?” he asked.

Mira’s eyes moved to the Lancet. The weapons were infamous, even outside the Strange Lands. In a world of high alien technology and low-rent firearms from the World Before, the Lancet was an enigma. Ornate and well crafted, no two were exactly alike, but they were all the same in design. Long, close to five feet in length, with their colorful spear points of glowing Antimatter crystals. Avril’s was made of dark cherrywood bound together with silver metal casings that contrasted each other like ice and fire. The spear point on the floor was red, while the one at the other end glowed green. A double helix was etched in white on either end of the weapon, both worn smooth from use.

Holt’s question was spurred by one of the Lancet’s most unique features, the dual hand grips and triggers on either side.

In answer, Avril spun and raised the Lancet in a blur, sighting down it like a rifle. There was a click as she pulled the trigger closest to her—and the crystal exploded from the end with a loud, strangely harmonic ping.

It ripped the air like a missile, and punched straight through the faded, black eye of a huge yellow jacket—the old school’s mascot, most likely—on the far wall in a burst of red sparks, leaving nothing but a smoking hole.

“Huh.” Holt studied the hole in the wall with a mix of fascination and skepticism. “Nice, but, seems to me, not all that practical. I mean, with only two shots, you’d better make them count, right?”

Avril pressed the glowing red Antimatter ring on her middle finger against a similar glowing crystal on the weapon’s shaft. There was a spark and a rumbling from the distance. Then the same wall from before exploded outward in a shower of debris as the spear point burst back through it.

Avril’s eyes found the projectile, raising her Lancet up and around. Another strange, harmonic ping ripped the air as the crystal slammed back into the end of the Lancet. Avril dispersed the inertia from the impact in a spin that landed her in low, agile crouch.

When it was done, she looked up at Holt and Mira.

“I… stand corrected,” Holt remarked.

But while the show was definitely impressive, it only reinforced Mira’s confusion about something. “It’s never made sense to me,” she said. “Why train for that? Why train so hard, way back in the deepest parts of the Strange Lands, where the only thing you run into is the occasional Freebooter?”

“I’ve asked the same question.” Avril slowly stood back up. “We all have. Gideon says we will know when we are ‘strong’ enough—and we grow stronger every day.”

Mira could hear the frustration in Avril’s voice, and she understood. All that training, the development of skills, without any outlet to really use them. She saw the fall of Polestar again, remembered the White Helix leaping and riding the wreckage to the ground in bursts of color, yelling in excitement. At the time it had felt insane, but now she saw it was a release. The White Helix were caged panthers, Mira realized, eager to expend their formidable energy. It made them even more dangerous than they already were.

“But you can ask Gideon himself,” Avril continued. “You’ll meet him soon enough. Though I can’t say you’re all that important anymore. The Prime will reach Sanctum some other way, I suppose.”

Mira sat up. “You know she’s alive?”

“I can feel her. Everywhere. The Pattern moves whenever she moves.”

“What does that mean?” Holt asked.

“Everything here is tied together,” Avril said. “The Anomalies, the artifacts, the earth. The Strange Lands is all one thing now, blended together into something we call the Pattern; but we are separate from it, you and I, because we do not belong. We can sense it, we can avoid it, even dance and spin through it, but that’s all. The Prime, though… belongs. When she moves, the Pattern ripples around her like water after a stone’s throw. I’ve… never felt anything like it.” Avril’s voice was full of wonder—and something else. Fear, it sounded like. Mira wondered just what kind of mythology the White Helix had built up around Zoey, and why.

Holt jumped in surprise as someone grabbed him by the wrist. A tall White Helix, handsome, powerful but lean, with long, wavy hair. Like Avril before, no one had seen him coming. Holt struggled, but the Helix simply twisted his arm and pinned him facefirst onto the floor.

“Hey!” Mira shouted as she moved to get up, but more hands shoved her back down and kept her in place. The rest of the White Helix had surrounded them.

“Dane!” Avril yelled in anger.

Holt groaned as Dane pushed him harder against the floor, holding his right wrist, twisting it painfully so Avril could see what was there. The half-finished tattoo of a black bird, an image that marked him as something many people didn’t like very much. Mira stared at the image and felt cold. She remembered Ravan’s words. We were much more than friends…

“He’s Menagerie!” Dane told Avril. “Look!”