J. Mitchell - Midnight City

Holt stared back a moment, feeling life and warmth return to him. When he had held off as long as he could… Holt pulled Mira to him.

The world faded away as they kissed, absorbed and lost in each other, their closeness overriding every other sensation.

Max whined next to them, and Zoey reached out and covered the dog’s eyes. She smiled broadly, and watched as the moment went on and on….

MIRA SAT WITH HER BACK against the wall of the old barn they’d made camp in the previous night. After they escaped Midnight City, Holt had doubled back with Max to get his guns and other things from the security lockers at the main gate where he’d left them.

There had been little resistance, everything was still disorganized after the attack, and when he got back, the four set off toward the east. They didn’t stop moving until the sun began to set on the horizon, and they saw the old, abandoned farm surrounded by thick reeds of overgrown wheat.

It was odd, Mira thought. The silence and clarity of life without the Tone. She hadn’t realized how she’d become used to the constant, insistent whisperings and hisses in the back of her subconscious, and she had lain awake in wonder, listening to the sounds of crickets and night birds in the dark outside the barn’s old wooden doors for hours.

Before, she never would have noticed. The sounds of the Tone would have blocked them all out. It was going to take some getting used to.

Mira looked up and saw Max, sleeping near what was left of the embers of their campfire. Next to him, Holt was collecting his things, discarding supplies he no longer needed, sorting and organizing the others. He did everything so meticulously, so exactly, repeating over and over again actions he had drilled into himself in order to survive. Mira smiled, knowing that part of him would never change, even though others might. She was happy about it, actually. It was a part of him she liked.

She watched him pause suddenly, considering something in his hand. She recognized it immediately, the old abacus that was the Chance Generator. He looked at it in a slow, haunted way, and something about it bothered Mira. He hadn’t said what he’d done to get them out of Midnight City alive, but she knew the artifact had played a role. But whether he was disturbed by the results or by something else was unclear. She watched him gently place the artifact beside his pack.

Zoey sat next to her, looking up at beams of sunlight that trailed through the dust-heavy air.

The little girl was different now, too. But wasn’t that to be expected? Hadn’t Mira been affected in her own way by the Oracle? That thing changed you, no matter who you were. Sometimes a little… sometimes a lot.

“You’re thinking about the Oracle,” Zoey said, and Mira felt no sense of surprise at the observation. After everything they’d been through, it was difficult to be surprised by Zoey’s abilities anymore. “I didn’t like it,” the little girl confided.

“What did it show you?” Mira asked.

“Lots of things,” Zoey replied, looking away from the sunlight and back at Mira. “Things I understood and… things I didn’t. It made me remember. Not everything, but some things. Things I shouldn’t know, things it scares me to think about.”

“We don’t have to keep going,” Holt said from behind them, and they both turned to him. “We can stop right here. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. Mira and I will still protect you, no matter what.”

Zoey was silent. “I don’t think I could if I wanted,” she said. “And I don’t think it’s right, either. If there’s one thing I have to do… it’s keep going. But thanks, Holt.” She smiled at him.

Mira watched Holt’s gaze harden. “Then I’ll help you,” he said. “However you need. You asked me to believe, and I do, and before you and Mira… that wasn’t anything I ever thought I’d be able to do again.”

Mira felt a strange emotion at his words. They were closer than they had ever been, but ever since she had kissed him, kissed him in a way she had wanted to for a long time, something had been bothering her. She knew why, too. He had asked her, after all. She owed him the truth. But how could she tell him? Especially now, after everything that had passed between them? Was it even the best thing to do?

“Did it tell you what you need to do next?” Holt asked Zoey.

Zoey looked thoughtful, and Mira guessed she was reliving what she’d experienced in the Oracle. It had taken years before Mira slept through a night without dreaming those images.

“It showed me the beginning,” Zoey said.

“The beginning?” Mira was puzzled. “You mean you need to go where something started?”

Zoey nodded.

“Is it a place?” Mira pushed. “What does it look like?”

Zoey described part of what the Oracle had shown her, and as she did, Mira recognized the images. A destroyed, insane landscape filled with impossibilities. Something like a tower in the distance, split in half, frozen in midair. Mira knew what it was even though she had never seen it herself. There was only one thing it could be, and somehow, it seemed to make sense.

“The Severed Tower,” Mira said, her voice almost a whisper.

Both Holt and Zoey looked at her. Even Max looked up at the tone in her voice.

“That’s what she just described,” Mira said. “I haven’t seen it, but I know Freebooters who have.”

Holt was at a loss for words, but he always recovered quickly from moments like that, and usually with a sour look on his face. This time was no exception. “The Severed Tower,” he said sarcastically. “Well, that’s a relief. I was worried it was going to be something difficult.”

Zoey looked at Mira questioningly. “It’s ‘diff-cult’?”

Mira smiled at the little girl.

“It’s in the middle of the Strange Lands, Zoey,” Holt said before Mira could answer. “Where the artifacts come from. It’s full of the damn things, and now we have to go marching right through the center of it.”

“You said we needed something before.” Zoey looked at Mira. “To go inside the tower.”

“That’s right.” Mira reached inside her pack. “A radioactive substance.” She pulled out the glass cylinder and the Dampener. The plutonium she’d intended to trade for Ben’s life. She showed it to Zoey. “Something we just happen to have.”

Zoey smiled. “See Holt? It’ll be easy.”

Holt looked up again, eyeing the glass cylinder. “Yeah…”

“Why don’t you take Max outside to play?” Mira suggested.

“Keep away fetch with the Max!” Zoey exclaimed, and Holt tossed her the dog’s chewed-up purple ball. Max watched Zoey with excited, perked-up ears. He ran after the little girl, barking enthusiastically, and they both disappeared into the bright sunlight on the other side of the doors.

Holt and Mira, alone now, looked at each other.

“Can we really make it to the Tower?” Holt asked, simply and pointedly.

“I’ve never been,” she answered back. “Ben was the only person I’ve ever known who’d seen it. Well, Ben and the Librarian, of course. But others have done it. A few have even gone inside.”

“How many?” Holt asked.

“Five,” she said, and Holt sighed in exasperation. The small number was a testament to how difficult the quest would be. “At least according to the records in the Vault, but there could have been others, I suppose. Freebooters not registered with Midnight City… but it’s unlikely. It’s inside the core, the deepest part of the Strange Lands… and the most dangerous. The Anomalies there are more deadly than anything in the other rings. Only the best Freebooters can stay alive in the core.”