J. Mitchell - The Severed Tower

Zoey stayed silent a long time, watching the black doorway rushing toward her. Much of what the Tower had told her was beyond her ability to grasp, but she still thought she understood what this decision meant. How would she ever explain it to Holt or Mira? Of course, those would be wonderful problems to have. It would mean they were alive and she was with them. “It’s the right thing to do.”

“We find this interesting,” her replica stated. “This choice was… unpredicted. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps this Deviation is singularly important. We wish we could observe the end result, but… balance must be restored. This will be the last time we speak, Zoey. From here until the inevitable end, we can no longer help you.”

“I understand.” The door was almost there, rushing toward her. “And… thank you.”

“An inefficient sentiment,” her twin responded. “Good-bye, Zoey.”

Her mirror image faded. The door roared toward her. Zoey closed her eyes—and was swept away.

* * *

“ARE YOU… REAL?” BEN asked.

It had been an instant transition, without pain or sensation. One moment Zoey was in all that empty, bright whiteness. Then she was here. An old, ruined church, most of its ceiling missing, the stars visible outside. A campfire lit the interior in flickering orange.

Ben sat on one of the ruined pews, staring up at the night sky. At the sound of her approach, the boy calmly turned and considered her. He seemed slightly dazed, as if he were waking from a dream. Zoey saw the Chance Generator, and the hand that held it shook slightly.

Zoey nodded. “Do you remember me?”

Ben pushed his glasses up the rim of his nose and blinked. “Your name is Zoey. You were with Mira.”

“I was?”

“In the Vortex.” Ben’s voice sounded haunted. “Where I… left her.”

Zoey wasn’t sure what that meant. She had been unconscious at the time, but whatever had happened with Mira clearly bothered Ben a great deal. For the first time since she had known him, she could see things were wearing on him. He looked exhausted, confused, not entirely present, but whether that had to do with the Chance Generator or something about this place, she wasn’t sure. All she knew was that she had to find a way to get him to listen to her.

“I did it because I was supposed to come here,” he continued, “but nothing has happened. The only thing that’s been different is you. You’re the first thing that’s changed. I don’t… feel right.”

“It isn’t right, Ben,” Zoey said. “You aren’t supposed to be here.”

“Yes, I am!” he yelled with a pained stare. “I know it! But… nothing’s happening. Why won’t something happen?”

“Ben, I need you to listen,” Zoey said, trying to stay calm. Who knew how much time they had before the Chance Generator was used up? “Everyone outside is gone. They’re dead.”

Ben barely reacted, he just nodded. “I know. I watched her…” He trailed off without finishing. “Why is nothing happening? ”

“It doesn’t have to be this way. We can change it.”

“How?”

“I’m a part of the Tower. It… made me. Long ago. It’s why I can enter and everyone else just gets absorbed and becomes a part of it and disappears.”

For the first time Ben’s stare focused. She guessed it was because what she was saying was intriguing. From what she understood, that was a big part of who Ben was. “Absorbed?”

Zoey retold the Tower’s explanation as best she could, but she wasn’t sure she got it right. It had been horribly confusing. Ben, however, listened to what she said, processed it, and the look in his eyes suggested he not only understood it, but that it made sense to him somehow. He looked down at the old abacus in his hand. “It’s this, isn’t it? I’m alive because I have this. ”

“Yes,” Zoey answered.

The realization set off a chain reaction of other realizations in Ben’s mind, which Zoey knew could only point in one inevitable direction, and for him it was a horrible one. “I was… wrong,” he whispered, barely loud enough to hear. He seemed dazed. “All along, I was wrong. I wasn’t supposed to be here.”

“Ben, I think—”

“But, I…” His eyes lost their focus again, they blurred and moistened, both his hands shook. “Oh, God…”

“Ben…”

“She died because of me. I stood there… and I thought… I thought I could fix it. I…”

“Ben, you have to listen to me.” Zoey was unable to keep the note of urgency out of her voice. They were running out of time. “Mira doesn’t have to die. None of them do.”

“What have I done?” he whispered painfully, ignoring her.

“Ben!” she yelled with as much force as she could. It got through. He looked at her. “We can still save her.”

“I saw her die!” he yelled back in a raw voice.

She looked at the abacus in his hand, saw how white his knuckles were from gripping it. “You have to give me the artifact. The one in your hand.”

Ben looked at the Chance Generator. “Why?”

“If I have it, I can control the Tower. I can fix things. For a little bit, but there isn’t much time.”

“You can fix it?” He looked at her with hope. “You can make it so the Assembly never came?”

“No.” Zoey shook her head sadly. “The Tower doesn’t work that way, Ben, but I think I can fix it. It won’t be like you hoped, but I can save them, if you help me.”

A dark hint of suspicion passed over Ben’s face. “You… you’re lying to me. You want it. You want the abacus for yourself.”

Zoey tried to stay calm. “Why would I want that, Ben?”

“You’re like everyone else,” he snarled. “You want to take it from me, but I won’t give it up. Why would I ever give it up?”

Zoey hesitated. This wasn’t working. She had to think of something different. She looked around them, at the church, the flickering fire, the exploding stars above. “This place—it’s important, isn’t it?”

The change of subject seemed to jar Ben out of his hostility. “It doesn’t exist anymore. It fell down not long after she and I were here.”

“You and Mira?”

Ben nodded. “Why is this what the Tower looks like? Why show me this place?”

“Maybe… you see what you want to see here,” Zoey answered.

Ben’s stare moved all around the church. “I guess, if there was one place I’d want to be for eternity, it would be here, but it would be with her. Not alone.” Ben looked back up at the stars bitterly. “I was… I was supposed to be here.”

Zoey almost argued with him again, but then something occurred to her. Something profound. “I believe you.”

He looked at her hopefully. “You do?”

She nodded, thinking it all through. “Don’t you see? If you hadn’t been here, if you hadn’t come—I couldn’t fix any of it. We would already be gone, all of us, but… because of you I can.” She and Ben stared at one another as the impact of what she was saying sunk in. “I think you were supposed to be here, and in spite of everything, you found a way to do it.”

Ben’s gaze softened at her words and he slowly deflated back into the pew, thoughts running through his mind. Zoey couldn’t read Ben in this place, for some reason his emotions were closed to her, but just by looking at his face and the barest expressions which formed there, she knew what he was feeling all the same. Relief. Contentment. Resolution.

“If I give you the abacus,” he quietly said, “I’ll die. Won’t I?”

Zoey stared back at him. “I don’t know what happens when someone is absorbed into the Tower, Ben, but I don’t think it’s the same thing as dying.”