J. Mitchell - The Severed Tower

“We’ll recall before we reach them,” Dane shouted next to her. “With luck, we’ll drop a few more before we take them one-on-one.”

“One-on-one, huh?” another Helix asked skeptically.

“We’re faster than they are,” Masyn told him, smiling, one of the few. “Just keep moving. Try to lead them into a crossfire.”

Avril lifted her mask up over her nose and mouth. The others did the same. “Ignore the wind, listen for my voice, remember the Spearflow. It’s taught you everything you need.”

Holt stopped behind the line of warriors, staring past them at the rushing onslaught. So did Ravan and her men.

“ Fighting the Assembly is suicide,” Ravan told Avril. Holt was inclined to agree. It looked insane, impossible. Every experience he had ever had with the Assembly said it was.

“Not if what Gideon said is true,” Avril answered. The others were lowering their blackened goggles over their eyes. “And he’s never lied to me before.”

“Avril, there’s too many,” Holt said next, trying to get through to her. “Every one of you is going to die.”

“Then we will grow stronger,” Dane said, next to Avril. The two looked at each other and smiled. Then they lowered their goggles and looked south again. The line of tripods, countless numbers rushing forward, less than a mile away. Holt felt nothing but dread and horror now. He had no love for the White Helix, but he didn’t want to see them slaughtered.

“Fire as one!” Avril yelled.

Holt flinched as twenty-four glowing spear points launched forward with loud pings, streaking through the air like torpedoes.

“Again!”

Another flash, another burst of sound as the second volley launched and arced ahead in flickering green, red, and blue.

“Move as one!” Dane shouted next—and two Arcs of the White Helix, led by their Doyens, charged forward in flashes of purple, rushing toward their enemies almost as fast as the streaking crystals.

The Hunters never even slowed. They were Assembly. No military in the universe had ever come close to defeating them and they raced forward without fear.

Explosions burst upward into the sky, as the first line of crystals hit. So packed tight were the machines in their line, that nearly every one found a mark, some of them even two.

The walkers saw their mistake too late, tried to spread out, but the second volley ripped through their ranks before they could, spraying fire and debris into the dark. In seconds they had lost almost fifty of their front line, and all the while the White Helix charged forward, leaping between buildings and old vehicles.

The walkers finally returned fire, flinging a massive wave of plasma bolts toward something they hadn’t seen since the initial invasion years ago. Humans that weren’t running. Humans that actually dared to engage them.

Holt just barely heard a shout from Avril in the distance. “Recall!”

The spear points hummed to life and ripped from the ground, streaking backward toward their owners. Explosions flared again as the crystals punched back through the Assembly lines, and more walkers fell in colorful bursts of flame.

Then something stunning happened. Something Holt never would have imagined seeing in his lifetime. The line of Assembly Hunters, hundreds of them, all ground to a halt, trumpeting uncertainly, watching the small line of jumping, darting warriors bearing down on them. The machines were confused, disoriented and, Holt guessed, stunned.

The White Helix were none of those things.

They caught their spear points from the air and charged into the walkers fearlessly, spinning and flipping between them, their Lancets colorful blurs of death that struck into the machines and blew them apart from the inside out. Holt and Ravan stared in shock as the tripods returned fire in a way that actually seemed desperate.

“Tiberius was right,” Ravan said with a note of awe. “Gideon was building something here, he was building an army. An army to fight the Assembly. ”

Impossible as it seemed to Holt, it looked like that was exactly what the crazy old man had done. As he had told them, the White Helix now knew who they were, and they relished in that revelation, yelling with excitement as they fought in the distance.

There were flashes above them suddenly as the green-and-orange gunships uncloaked, filling the sky. Plasma bolts rained down, and Holt and Max barely lunged out of the way.

“Into the buildings! Move!” Ravan shouted, and the Menagerie dashed toward whatever edifice was closest. Not all made it, some were cut down, but the rest kept moving and firing upward.

As he and Max reached and lunged through the door of a ruined post office, Holt risked a quick glance to the south. Past the White Helix and the Hunters, he could see the other walkers now, the bigger ones. They just sat there waiting, but waiting for what?

MIRA STUMBLED FORWARD IN THE RAGING WINDS, moving through the fragmented street between the cars, all of them blended and morphed into each other. Only a few hundred yards ahead of her, red lightning revealed the Vortex, a wall of spinning, glowing particles that stretched out of sight and supposedly tore anything inside it to pieces. It was what the plutonium was supposed to somehow shield her from, but looking at the massive energy storm, that idea seemed ludicrous.

She didn’t even have any plutonium, and the Vortex was probably the most rawly powerful Stable Anomaly in the Strange Lands. How could anyone possibly expect—

Mira stopped herself.

She couldn’t think like that anymore. She didn’t have a choice—she had to do this. She remembered Holt’s words. Even if they weren’t true, Mira wanted to be the person he saw. She just had to think and figure out how.

Mira lowered Zoey down onto the ruined street, catching her breath, leaning against the remains of a crashed helicopter. Zoey was still breathing, but she was cold and limp, and the sight of her stung. Mira had to get her to the Tower. If anything could save her, maybe it could. She had to think.

She couldn’t carry the girl in her arms the whole way. The Vortex promised to be a daunting experience, and she was already exhausted. Mira needed to attach the little girl to her body somehow.

Quickly, she unslung her pack and removed the straps. When she was done with that, she set them on the ground and opened the bag, digging through what little was left inside. A strand of rope, her roll of duct tape, and the Aleve she always carried.

She stuck the Aleve in Zoey’s pocket. It would make the girl much lighter, but that was only half of what she needed. Mira took the straps from her pack and circled them, one apiece, around Zoey’s thighs, and then hefted the girl into her lap and arranged her legs around her waist. The wind howled around her as she ran the two straps through one another and pulled them tight, feeling Zoey’s legs circle her torso. Mira ripped loose long lengths of duct tape and wrapped them around the strap edges, securing them.

Next she took the rope, and holding Zoey’s chest against her own, started circling it around them both. When she was done, Mira tied off the rope and stood up.

The Aleve did its job. Zoey weighed next to nothing now, and the straps and rope kept her secured. Mira let herself smile. That was one problem solved. Now she just needed to—

A deep, concussive roar drowned out the furious winds. Mira looked in time to see a Dark Matter Tornado descend from the swirling, black clouds and touch down on the street.

As it moved, it changed everything, twisting objects into impossible shapes, warping buildings, and blending cars and trucks into singular chunks of metal, like blown glass.