J. Mitchell - The Severed Tower

Ben was quiet a moment longer, then he looked back down to the artifact. His hand was no longer shaking, Zoey noticed. “It was so hard to give up before…”

“You can do it. Holt gave it up. You’re just as strong as he is—only in different ways.”

Ben looked up again. “If what you said is true, that we see what we want to see here, then…”

As he spoke, what was left of the ceiling was wiped away and the breadth of the night sky opened itself. The stars burst apart in prismatic color, over and over again. It was beautiful. In spite of the situation, Zoey stared up in wonder.

“The problem was always too much interference,” Ben said. “Too much data. I always wondered…”

Above them the stars flashed out, one by one, one after the other, until nothing was left but a single, strange-looking constellation.

“There.” A smile spread across Ben’s face. From what Zoey knew of him, that was a rare thing. “There.”

“What is it?” Zoey asked.

“A scorpion.” He almost laughed as he spoke the words. “I can see it.”

Zoey stared up at the cluster of stars in the black sky, but it looked nothing like a scorpion to her. After a few moments Ben turned to her. He pulled something from a pocket and placed it in Zoey’s palm. It was a single brass cube of dice.

“Will you… tell her I meant what I said?” Ben seemed calm now, at peace. “At the Anvil.”

“She knows, Ben,” Zoey answered, “but yes, I will.”

He nodded… and then his hand slowly raised and held out the Chance Generator. Zoey stared at it hesitantly, as if the old, innocent-looking abacus were a coiled viper. If she wanted to make everything alright, she would have to take it. Slowly, she forced her hand around it, and she and Ben held it at the same time. He stared down at it intensely—and then finally, slowly… he let it go.

At first there was no indication anything had changed. Then a crimson sphere flashed around Zoey. She saw Ben’s form begin to lighten and glow. Streaks of light drifted off him, rising into the night sky, each streak reducing his luminosity by a fraction.

Whatever was happening to him, it didn’t seem painful. He was smiling again. “It’s… like pure knowledge,” he said.

Zoey watched as he faded, bits of light drifting up from him into the sky, until his entire body gently broke apart and blended into the air. When she looked up, the stars had been repopulated with those streaks, and their light rained down on her… and then he was gone.

Zoey looked at the abacus. She knew what she had to do. She knew the sacrifices involved, but she’d promised Ben. She’d promised them all.

The last thing Zoey felt before the world exploded in white, was the brass dice cube in her tightly squeezed fist.

TIME STREAMED BACKWARD PAST AVRIL in painful blurs of light, and it felt like her mind was being split apart.

Then it abruptly ended.

She barely recovered fast enough to avoid a burst of plasma bolts from an Assembly Hunter, flipping up and back and just catching the edge of a crushed Volkswagen. Instantly, she fired her remaining crystal and watched the walker fall in a burst of flame.

What had just happened? The last she remembered, she was holding Dane on the water tower, both of them bleeding and clinging to each other.

Dane.

Instinctively, she searched the battle raging around her—and found him. Crouched on a rooftop, staring right back at her. Avril breathed in stunned relief. So did he. But it was clear neither knew how it was possible.

All around her, Avril saw her Arc—Masyn, Castor. Most of the others. Flipping and darting through the air as yellow bolts sizzled past them, firing their spears, continuing (or repeating, she wasn’t sure) the same fight.

In the distance, bright flashes of light sparked to life up and down the line of larger walkers. Seconds later, the popping sounds of ordnance being fired echoed through the air.

Avril remembered this. She remembered. “Heads up!” she yelled to the jumping Helix around her. She saw the streaks of light rain down just like before… but they never fell.

The sky flashed. The projectiles slowed… and then burst harmlessly apart above the White Helix.

Two massive Dark Matter Tornadoes suddenly descended from the clouds right on top of the artillery walkers. The huge machines sparked and burst into flames as the black funnel clouds moved over them, warping and ripping them to pieces. In just seconds the huge walkers disintegrated into flaming, twisted metal.

Lightning—red, blue, and green—fired down from the sky. Explosions flared everywhere as the lightning targeted the Hunters, one by one, blowing them apart in showers of colored flame, leaving craters of glowing crystals.

Avril watched, stunned, as the lightning ripped through the Assembly ranks, saw them turn and run, confused, unable to defend themselves as the land itself turned against them. More Tornadoes descended from the clouds, barreling down on the army.

Toward the north, in the far distance, Avril saw something even more incredible.

The Vortex was gone, as if it had never existed, and without it, the truth of the Severed Tower was fully revealed.

The black shape of an Assembly Presidium base ship hung over the city ruins, broken into two giant pieces, one falling away from the other in a rupture that was, somehow, stuck in time.

The winds ripped through Avril’s hair. All around her she could hear explosions and streaking missiles, but her eyes were on the Severed Tower… and a single speck of glowing brightness hovering in front of it, a thousand feet off the ground, wrapped in shimmering golden light.

“Zoey…” Avril breathed in awe.

* * *

THE ONE THE SCION named Ambassador felt the world rip backward and resume at the most opportune moment. It was surrounded by seven Hunters and the one the Scion named the Royal.

Each opponent hesitated, confused, dazed, unsure what had happened.

But Ambassador hesitated the least.

It plowed through three of the Royal’s guardians, driving them into the ground in bursts of flame.

As before, the others twisted, trying to target the five-legged walker—but this time they had no chance. Red and green lightning streaked down and blew them to pieces, one at a time.

The Royal trumpeted in shock, suddenly facing its adversary one-on-one, its advantage lost.

The tripod barely lunged out of the way of Ambassador’s charge, its cannons whining and firing.

Ambassador’s shield collapsed, like before, but it didn’t care. This was the opportunity it had waited for. It would vanquish an ancient enemy. Or that enemy would vanquish it. There was no middle ground.

It spun around and charged. The powerful walker connected with the Royal in a horribly violent impact, sending it crashing through what was left of a drugstore. As it did, bright, glowing things formed in the air. Each the shape of a cube.

The cubes drifted toward the tripod as it tried to stand and right itself. One of them made contact with the Hunter’s armor and a great plume of sparks shot from it. The Royal stood up, tried to move…

And another cube sank into it. Then another, and another. More and more, piling on top of the machine. The Royal trumpeted, and if Ambassador had still been connected to the Whole, it was sure it would have felt its enemy’s fear.

The desperate machine burst through a window, crashing outside, but it was too late. Its armor disintegrated as dozens of the glowing cubes burrowed into it, driving it to the ground. Flames shot everywhere. The green-and-orange Ephemera of the Royal drifted into the air, glittering and flashing, frantically trying to form, but it couldn’t. It broke into a billion pieces and dissolved into nothing, while Ambassador watched in satisfaction.