J. Mitchell - The Severed Tower

* * *

HOLT GASPED OUT LOUD as he unwound from time.

The first thing he noticed was Max licking his face. The second was that he was lying on the ground between two jackknifed semitruck trailers that were warped and merged together. Ravan and her men were there, too, staring at each other with odd, disturbed looks.

Holt shuddered as he remembered Max dying, Ravan’s limp form against a wall, the huge Spider walker crashing down on top of them. What the hell just happened?

Explosions shook the trailers violently. Plasma bolts sizzled through the air. Holt could hear the trumpetings from a hundred Hunters in the air.

“Get your asses up!” Ravan yelled, grabbing her rifle.

Everyone got to their feet as two Hunters leaped onto the roofs of the tractor trailers on either side of them, their cannons priming to fire. The Menagerie’s rifles opened up, spraying bullets upward, and the tripods shuddered and fell away.

More were coming, thundering toward them in a stampede, threatening to overwhelm what was left of the silver reinforcements that were firing desperately in all directions.

Holt and Ravan braced themselves, her men tensed…

And the air was suddenly full of flashing bright shapes that Holt recognized. Tesla Cubes, Mira had called them, the things that had destroyed the Crossroads. They appeared from nowhere, thousands of them, flashing to life right in front of the charging Hunters.

The walkers skidded to a stop, trying to avoid the Anomalies, but there was nowhere to go.

Sparks flew everywhere as the cubes covered and burrowed into the machines, dissolving them where they stood. Lightning flashed down from the swirling clouds, striking in pulses of color. Thunder shook the ground.

The Menagerie watched as the Assembly was torn to pieces by the environment.

A huge, triumphant bellow emitted from behind them, and Holt saw the silver Spider walker stomping forward, its massive cannons firing, sending plasma hurdling into the crowd of dying Hunters.

“Oh, my God…” Ravan said, and Holt turned. They stared above them, past the trailers and the flashing lightning and the fields of glowing cubes, toward the north.

There in the distance, the Severed Tower hung, but the swirling mass of the Vortex was gone, and he and Ravan could see it clearly now. It was… a Presidium? It didn’t seem possible, but that was exactly what he saw: a massive Presidium base ship, broken in half, hovering in the air. Standing out against its huge black shape was a small dot of glowing, golden whiteness. It was a figure, Holt could tell. A small one.

“Is… that your girl?” Ravan asked.

“Yeah,” Holt said, smiling. “That’s my girl.”

* * *

ZOEY HUNG SUSPENDED JUST in front of where the Presidium had broken apart all those years ago. She could feel the energy streaming out from it, growing and building. Soon it would be too much for her to control, but it didn’t matter. She would be done by then.

Everything stretched out into infinity. Not just the Strange Lands below, but everything. Pasts. Futures. Presents. Every possible combination of every potential possibility relating to her converged at that exact moment—and every other moment—and they were hers to shape.

For one brief period, she was the Tower.

Time yielded to her, and she forced it back, rewinding it all in a blur. Below she saw Mira disintegrate and then re-form. Saw the White Helix cut down, then rise up. Watched the giant silver Spider walker crush Holt’s building and then stand back onto its giant legs.

But she had to do more than that, and she could.

She reached out to the Strange Lands, felt its chaotic power.

Dark Matter Tornadoes dropped from the swirling, black clouds. Antimatter Lightning rained down. She summoned Tesla Cubes, Quark Spheres, and Daisy Chains; she made Time Sinks and Landmines and Pulsars and she flung all of it, the full force of the Strange Lands itself, at the massive Assembly army below, and it stumbled and faltered under the onslaught.

From some of the Assembly, she sensed a new intention. They already hated this place, were terrified of it, and the sight of Zoey, the Scion, controlling all of it, holding their fate in her hands, was enough to break their resolve.

But only for some. Those she spared, directing the energy of the Strange Lands away from them. She did the same for Ambassador and the silver reinforcements it had brought. That was all. She watched as the Tower’s energy tore into the rest and scattered them like leaves in a furious wind.

The air below was covered in flickering, golden energy fields, hundreds of them, lighting up the darkness, but only briefly. They never took shape, it was impossible here. Their energy bled away into the air. Their colors faded.

Scion, a sudden mass of projections reached her, from hundreds of sources. She could sense their shock, their fear, bleeding off of them. Why?

The energy of the Tower kept building. It was getting too strong, and the Chance Generator’s influence was fading. She had to redirect it, let it release before it was too late, but still she hesitated. She remembered what the Tower had told her.

Balance must be restored. It is a mathematical necessity. And you are part of the same equation.

Only, she wanted to see Holt again. Wanted to see Mira and the Max. She wanted it all so badly.

The Feelings stirred, rising up eagerly, filling her with strength. Zoey listened, sensing their intentions, their idea. Could it work, she wondered? Was it cheating? She thought the process through, the chain of events she would set in motion. She knew where it led.

But was it the right thing to do? Is it what Holt or Mira would do? Maybe not. Maybe it was selfish, but didn’t she deserve it this once? After all she had done?

The Feelings swirled pleasantly, agreeing, encouraging.

Zoey made her choice. She unleashed the full, impending blast from the singularity, the one that had been building all this time, and used all that chaotic power to shape one final set of events. Events that would still lead to true balance. Only later.

She hoped it would be enough, she hoped fate accepted her bargain.

Behind her, the Assembly Presidium, once known as the Severed Tower, shuddered and flashed blindingly, unsticking in time.

There was a violent, gut-wrenching explosion as it disintegrated into the ground, shaking the earth in a massive fireball that bellowed outward. Zoey closed her eyes and focused. Concentrating the energy, directing it, sending it away from everyone she loved.

Finally, moments later, for the first time in more than nine years—balance was restored.

“MIRA…”

The voice was far away. It wasn’t what she expected. She never expected to hear anything ever again.

“Mira…”

It was a girl’s voice, she could tell. A little girl, and it sounded worried.

She heard and felt other things in her hazy delirium—the sound of a gentle wind, the warmth of the sun—and for some reason, those sensations seemed very out of place.

“Mira.”

The insistent tiny voice pulled her out of the dark. Light poured in as her eyes blinked open—and what she saw didn’t make sense.

The sky was directly above her. It was midafternoon, bright and sunny.

Pieces of buildings and other things hovered over her—windows, gutters, old billboards she couldn’t read, the top of a rusted ambulance, all of it warped in twisted shapes. The wind stirred her red hair gently.

A little girl was next to her. Someone she recognized. Someone she never thought she would see again. Staring down at her with a slight, wondering smile.