J. Mitchell - Midnight City

To her right, something moved.

She called out for help. She called out again, until a figure appeared, standing over her.

A boy, older than her, with disheveled hair and a skeptical, impatient look in his eye.

His name was Holt, Zoey somehow could tell, though she had no idea how. And the feelings told her to trust him.

THE BLACKNESS AGAIN. SOLID and complete nothingness.

The rumbling was still around her, angry and insistent, and it shoved Zoey forward through the dark, overpowering everything.

As it did, her mind was overflowed with imagery one more time….

SOMETHING HUGE AND MASSIVE stretched high into the sky. Particles of energy and darkness swirled around it in a powerful maelstrom that obscured her view, but Zoey could still recognize its silhouette: the same towerlike structure she had seen in her first vision, split in half and frozen in the air, surrounded by the same insane, chaotic landscape.

Zoey saw no sign of herself, but she knew she was here somewhere. In fact, what it really felt like was that she was everywhere.

She realized that by looking at the tower, she was looking at herself. Zoey was the tower, impossible as that seemed. She was the black, broken, monolithic structure rising above everything.

With this realization came others, things she sensed and felt: Pasts. Futures. Presents. Every possible combination of every potential possibility converged within her at that exact moment. And every other moment.

Right then, she knew who she was, knew the truth, as scary as it was. And she also knew that once the vision was over, the knowledge would be gone. But it didn’t matter. This would all happen again. She would be here once more.

She saw other things in the swirl of times and places.

Saw how the ends connected, how every event since she had been found on that hilltop had led her back to this place.

If only the Librarian could see this. Would he believe it? Or did the old man already suspect?

She saw more.

Mira’s eyes filling in with solid black, Holt crying in grief.

Figures holding strange spear-like weapons that glowed on either end, spinning and darting through the air.

Holt and another girl, not Mira, a girl with raven black hair, kissing each other, surrounded by the shouts and jeers of people in some kind of huge arena.

More Assembly walkers, all the kinds she had ever seen, but these had no colors; they had been stripped to their silver, bare metal without explanation.

Landships like the Wind Shear, dozens of them, storming forward toward a wall of Assembly walkers, cannons along their decks flashing as they fired.

And then the images all burst apart as one, in a powerful flash of color and light….

BLACKNESS. NOTHINGNESS.

The rumbling roared around Zoey as the images and places and possibilities vanished. But in their place came realization. Memories re-formed in her disjointed mind, all that she had witnessed fusing together in patterns that slowly began to make sense. And she could sense the feelings, the ones that had sporadically guided her in the past. It was as if they had been hidden behind a curtain, and that curtain had been lifted away. They welcomed her. Even in this dark place, they gave her warmth.

But Zoey could sense other things now as well. Other presences. Similar to the feelings… but not. She felt their eyes turn to her, felt them notice and sense her as she did them. There were hundreds of thousands of them. Millions, maybe. Some close, some far. And Zoey knew what they were: the ones who were hunting her, the ones she was running from. With her memories restored, now she could tap into parts of herself that had been denied. Parts that they had sealed away from her in hopes of curbing her power.

Now they knew where she was. Now… they would be coming. All of them.

The rumbling peaked one last time, filling Zoey’s senses with pain. Then it receded, leaving only peace and quiet, and Zoey felt herself waking, returning to her body with a host of new feelings and memories that felt frighteningly foreign.

HOLT HELD ON TO THE RAILS inside the lift as its chains and ropes screamed through their pulleys, and slammed it roughly back down onto the platform.

When it was done, he breathed a sigh of relief. Going up had seemed even worse than going down, and he gratefully stepped out of the lift and onto the cavern floor.

“Hey, was that fun or what?” Mira asked behind him.

“‘Or what,’” he answered dryly. Holt thought he could feel the specific weight of the Chance Generator inside his pack. He expected it to start vibrating or giving off heat or explode any moment, but it just sat in there, harmless and inactive. Its silence only made him more apprehensive.

“Where’s Zoey?” he heard Mira ask, and alarmed, Holt looked up to where they had left her and Max. There was no sign of them. Only the Librarian, standing at the back of the study area.

Holt’s gaze fixed on the old man. He knew he shouldn’t have trusted him, but he had let Mira talk him into it. Mira tried to grab him, but he broke loose and stormed toward the Librarian. “Holt!” she yelled, but he ignored her.

“Where the hell’s Zoey?” Holt demanded as he moved. The old man said nothing. “Where?”

The Librarian looked down at Holt calmly as he reached the bottom of the study area. “With the Oracle,” he said, and Holt heard a sharp intake of breath from Mira.

“You sent her… to the Oracle ?” Mira asked aghast, staring at the Librarian in horror.

“It’s what she came here to find,” the old man answered.

“But she’s too young, it could kill her!”

“If Zoey is what I think, then she is more special than either of you realize,” he replied evenly. “The Oracle won’t kill her; it will unlock her potential. As it did with you, you might remember.”

Mira glanced away with a haunted look. Whatever the Oracle was, it hadn’t left a good impression on her, Holt could tell. “What if you’re wrong?” she asked in a whisper.

“Then the weak have been rooted out, as is our way,” he said, matter-of-fact. “But the simple truth is… I am seldom wrong.”

Holt had heard enough of the old man’s riddles. They made less sense than Zoey’s. He looked back at Mira. “Where’s this Oracle thing? I’ll go get her.”

Mira opened her mouth to respond, but the Librarian cut her off. “I think you have more pressing concerns,” he said, looking past them.

Holt spun around and saw something on the ceiling above him. Amid the collection of stalactites was a small hole. And from the hole, three or four thick ropes suddenly tumbled down to the lift platform.

Seconds later, boys swung down them—more than two dozen, it looked like, spilling toward the platform, one after the other. Holt noticed they were all dressed in auburn red.

“Los Lobos!” Mira said in alarm. Apparently, the faction knew secret ways even into the Artifact Vault. If Holt didn’t get them out of here fast, they were all most likely dead.

The Librarian’s gaze hardened, and his hand touched a silver and black artifact strapped to his left arm. It glowed and hummed briefly, and then a curtain of light parted behind him. The Librarian stepped into it without a second glance and disappeared as the curtain closed.

Holt frowned. “Great, thanks for the help.” He spun back around to Mira. “Where’s this Oracle thing?”

“Behind the curtain,” she said, backing up and watching the Lobos warriors landing on the platform behind them, their eyes all coming to rest on them.